Defensive Pacts are useless...sort of

[mikeyg77]

Hey,

I'm playing a game just now on Prince with Shoshone while trying to get a culture victory.

I am situated in the an area which blocks off a large peninsula which is host to Carthage (who have been my arch-enemy because of this location) and France to the south.

I have always been friendly with France, who is the superpower, and always have a defensive pact with them, as well as open borders.

However whenever Carthage declares war on me (which is just about every available opportunity) France - although they are now "At War" with Carthage - do absolutely nothing to help me no matter how bad my situation is...

I mean we are now in the end game and they have spent almost 100 turns throwing units, in a Lemming like fashion, at Vienna but they can't even send a couple of units north to assist me.

I know defensive pacts can have a deterrent factor but surely they should create some sort of compulsion to assist(or is France just being true to history )

 

[Randall_Flagg]

With the way the game is now, I refuse to sign one. So have not ever had this issue. I am not going to go through half the game hated because of a defensive war!! So, I agree they are totaly useless, even more so now that you say they will not even help.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I only sign one if I think that I will be attacked imminently and the other signor is not likely to be attacked. There are no diplomatic benefits to signing one and it doesn't factor into the AIs decision to make war.

 

[mikeyg77]

I only sign one if I think that I will be attacked imminently and the other signor is not likely to be attacked. There are no diplomatic benefits to signing one and it doesn't factor into the AIs decision to make war.

Really!

I won't pretend to know the inner workings of the AI but I thought it would do some sort of Strength analysis of the Civ they are attacking and surely if my score is 1000ish and my ally is 2500 and their score is only 1400 then I thought it would at least make them pause for thought?

 

[DemonMaster]

They are useful if the game has created blocks (so pretty much from the modern era and on). Before that, less useful since partners and friends can switch quite often.

 

[Aramis604]

It's very situational, but I have used a DP a few times as a way to damage an over aggressive civ and set them back for a while, while generating little/no diplomatic penalty for myself.

Before the aggressive civ declares war, make friends with their likely target (usually pretty obvious), and mobilize your army to a position that you can attack from. When the aggressive civ declares war you're automatically drawn in; and suffer no penalty for going to war. Now that you're at war you're free to do whatever you want. Normally I will at least wipe out their attacking army and liberate any captured city-states. If I can, I like to liberate other captured cities too, but will normally avoid capturing original cities of the aggressive civ since that can generate diplo penalties quickly.

This typically leaves the overly aggressive civ weak enough that other civs will declare war on them as well, either setting them back further or possibly taking them out of competition all together.