Question on how to influence diplomacy between 2 Civs

I know I've seen this discussed somewhere, but I cannot seem to find it.

For a scenario I am working on (FoM), I am setting up 4 alliances with 6 Civs each, with 7 Civs as non-allied Independents. Each of the 4 Alliances are at war with 2 other Alliances, while being friendly - but not allied to - the third.

What I am trying to do is the following:

1. Have the non-warring alliances maintain friendliness
2. Have some of the independent nations "prefer" one alliance, while "disliking" another.

For example, there is a Muslim Brotherhood Alliance, and an American Allies Alliance - and they are at war with each other. India, while friendly to the US and not at all friendly to the Brotherhood, does not wish to be forced into war by joining the American Allies. What I would like to have happen is that they instead have open trade with the AA, while not at all wanting to deal with the MB (in trade or war). What has been happening, more often than not, is that India joins up with the Brotherhood in arms with other local nations, and ends up at war with the US while siding with the Brotherhood.

I have had some minor success with using the Shunned Government option, as well as tweaking the resources placement so that neither of the 2 nations I want to be friendly have resources that the other needs, but this only slightly decreases the war odds, and is not always possible.

I don't think Flavors influences Diplomacy.

I have done things in Modzilla with diplomacy, like not allowing the Aliens or Kaiju to build Embassies, but that prevents them having advanced diplomacy with anyone - which is not what I want here.

If anyone has any ideas, let me know

I think I've read somwhere that civilizations generally are friendlier towards civs from the same cultural group as themselves. This doesn't prevent war, however. Just a bit less likely.
I wasn't aware that flavors doesn't influence relationships between civs - the settings in the editor implies that i does. I haven't tested it though.

Have you tried to keep "Military Alliances" disabled (tech-enabled) or is that exactly what you were trying to avoid?

Forgive me if I'm only throwing out things you already knew........

Government matters. This includes whether the civs have matching governments and what are their preferred/shunned governments. Flavors don't matter. Relative military strength definitely matters, as does relative scientific position. Resource placement matter, as you pointed out.

The ability to make MPPs and military alliances will exponentially increase the amount of times that everyone goes to war with everyone else.

I can't remember which way culture groups affect relationships. They either have a slight bonus or a slight aversion, but I may be mixing this up with another civ game. Someone here knows.

The inverse of this is true in that it doesn't matter within the alliance whether people like each other or not. The key is to try to balance the major players from each alliance with their counterparts in neutral alliances. That really depends on how balanced each civ is in Fall of Man or if you have tiered civs.

Yes, I should have mentioned about Cultural Groups - I am keeping them close to the original game, only swapping out Mediterranean for African, and they really only represent where they are geographically. I intentionally do not want to change the groups to mirror the alliances - Israel is a Middle Eastern American Ally, Indonesia is an Asian Muslim Brotherhood Member, Venezuela an American Red Hammer member, and so on.

What I did with the countries of the world is first divide up who would go into what alliance or be independent, then start consolidating countries from the weakest up, based on their alliance and proximity to each other. Countries aren't all that balanced, but alliances are. Dà Zhōngguó Qū has 20.8% of the Worlds Influence (military might, culture, science, cash, population all a factor here - CINC), whereas B'elevt Hebreyt Bemzerh has only 0.53%. The alliances are roughly equal, with 2 having the heavy hitters and the weaklings, and the other 2 having mostly mid-level across the board. I wanted things to be somewhat balanced, but where they are not I keep tweaking. I also want them to play differently from each other - some may have the best units in the game, but at a high cost, while others may have weaker units that they can generate mass number of quickly, and swarm. Haven't added in the Nukes yet to see how that will affect things.

The wildcards are the 7 Independant nations, with Ni: Yūrēśiyā being by far the most powerful, the only one with multiple nukes. I definitely want them to favor the AA, and not the MB. I just wish there was a way to set the initial diplomacy - Gracious to this Civ, Furious at that Civ - without having a locked alliance.

I definitely want to keep Military alliances on the table - I want the Independents to side with each other or other alliances and get involved.

Any and all suggestions welcome, I'll keep plugging along and tweaking Folly (not Fall ) of Man.

Folly of Man, right, that's what I said.