Which Civs/leaders are the worst scumbags/least trustworthy?

I've always been able to make good friends with Harun al-Rashid, only to have him declare war on me whenever somebody throws even the smallest amount of coin his way to do so.

"Attack my friend and long time ally? Why I would never!...Oh 2 gold per turn you say? Well that changes everything!"

In my experience, Maria Theresa, Maria I, and Enrico Dandolo have always been my loyal best friends in the game from start to finish... Montezuma isn't that bad... but Alexander, Hiawatha, and Bismarck are always a pain. As Ashurbanipal, I spawned next to ICS Hiawatha... let's just say I put my siege towers to use...

God damn, it turns out that my neighbors weren't constantly attacking me because they were hostile, but because my friend kept paying them to do it

All of them. If any of the AI's were real people you would never want to play a game with theme again. AI in CiV is a perfect simulation of playing with schizophrenic psychopaths.

NameUndisclosed said:

Seems I'm the only one who's had chronic issues with Pachacuti.

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In the games I play, the Inca go completey against their design and try to go as wide as possible. And they do not like having neighbors anywhere near them.

Not sure why, but they generally seem able to kick butt.

Never ever trust Attila. When he declared war on turn 75, I had my swords and catapults ready. Kept Attila's Court, razed all his other cities but one, which he kept (size 1, with no borders, used my Great Generals very well to box him in). Won a cultural victory, with Maria I and Elizabeth on another continent, constantly fighting (with a little added help)
Others who you should not trust: Aztecs, Zulu, Mongolia and Greece. Have had all backstab at some point and time

In my experience, Dido is a completely loathsome, backstabbing hag. I played a G&K game as Ethiopia some time ago, where, not only had we declared friendship, we were miles away from each other, and STILL she invaded, just because I had a pretty weak military. Never trust Dido, she'll betray you in a heartbeat.

There is a lot of emotion in this thread.

So...I'm in a 6 player game with Attila, Maria, Bismark, Dido and Rameses. And Maria has DoF'd me...now I'm dead.

I believe Dido always backstabs as it is in her programming. Another civ not to trust if you share borders is Suliman. Augustus is another, he seems to be the only civ that trys a bit of strategy. I always facepalm if I fall for it.

Not by game settings but by experience I always have huge trouble with Nappy and Caesar!
They go from friendly or even DoF to DoW very freakin fast!

Bismarck is always an arschloch in my games. Dido and both Marias I find backstabbing, but actually quite weak when confronted.

Alex isn't really deceptive one, but is insanely expansive and protective of CS, so even if you're friendly with him, sooner or later he'll decide that he wants your lands and CS allies, and your relations can plummet from DoF to DoW within a couple of turns. So it's blink and you'll miss it, making him often look like deceptive bastard.

But whom I really hate is Pocatello. He looks friendly...but he's friendly with everyone, and stucks his cities everywhere. So sooner or later, you gotta give him a bloody nose to get yourself some breathing room and burn his cities that creep within three tile radius of your own cities...and you end up taking sh*tstorm of DoWs because you dared to touch everyone's friend.

Ones that stick out most to me as being untrustworthy would have be Boudicca, Shaka, Catherine, Alexander, and Dido. Never trust them, they'll turn on you at the first sign of any weakness.

The one that I was surprised never backstabbed me - Genghis Khan. Sure I had to pay him, but far less than I expected, and he was my best friend all game. Also last game I played was right next door to Askia and he was a great ally all game as well.

brasswire said:

Ones that stick out most to me as being untrustworthy would have be Boudicca, Shaka, Catherine, Alexander, and Dido. Never trust them, they'll turn on you at the first sign of any weakness.

The one that I was surprised never backstabbed me - Genghis Khan. Sure I had to pay him, but far less than I expected, and he was my best friend all game. Also last game I played was right next door to Askia and he was a great ally all game as well.

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Indeed! I dont know his settigs, but Khan is very faithfull in my games too. Even Atilla!
That said, you have to become close very early, if not you become thir target!

On the other hand I'd say America and Poland are quite honorable. Let's go the other way and figure out which tribes/leaders are the most trustworthy ones.

I don't get betrayed by the AI, I betray the AI

In a recent game Dido proved to be a pain.
Started on an icy map as the French. Carthage was quite a few tiles south but she went liberty and began expanding all the way up, near to my lands, and India's... Yes, not helpful that Gandhi is my other immediate neighbor.

She asks me for Friendship, I accept. She says she's friends with India too. I try bribing her to go to war as I see her having waaay too much troops around despite her "friendship" and she immediately backstabs Gandi.

Later she makes peace with him and backstabs me. Her elephants were very much a stress due to the early game situation, and she generally had too many troops. I didn't sit around to watch my cities get conquered.

In a different game Montezuma proved insane. I was playing as Nebuchadnezzar, and had to constantly keep Monty busy by bribing him with a variety of things to fight Assyria and Persia, who were also on the same continent as me.

Good thing about all that early bribing, when I finally had an army strong enough to deal with Montezuma, and conquered his lands up to his capital... Persia and Assyria became best friends with me and we formed the Babylon-Persian-Assyrian Democratic Alliance.