Alliance Brokering

[mydisease]

Earlier today I started a game on Emperor as Egypt. Soon enough I am told, China is demanding 41 gold. I show Mao the door, he declares war, so my war chariots must be bold. (sorry, I've been reading the limericks thread). Germany and I share borders with China, so I contact Bismark and he agrees to a military alliance for which I pay 50 gold. Bismark should take Mao from behind and give me some time to build some war chariots, as I currently only have spearmen sufficient to defend my cities.

I guide some Chinese archers and swordsmen to the German cities and a couple of German cities are destroyed. While I'm coordinating this little distraction, I have built enough war chariots to attack China and I embark on a small offensive, capturing one city. By this time, 20 turns has passed since signing the german alliance and I contact Germany, expecting that he will charge me an arm and a leg to renew the alliance because he wants peace. But far from it, he will actually give me 20 gold and mathematics to continue our alliance??? I grudgingly accept this offer with a lighthearted "Hmm... It's daylight robbery but I'll take it!"

Soon after this, Babylon makes some ridiculous demand and declares war when I refuse. Babylon has no land route to me because Germany holds the one square land bridge between our two continents. So the worst attack I'll ever have to face is a galley with a warrior or two by the time I have modern armour. However, just to spite Hammurabi, I sign an alliance with Rome against him. Anyway, 20 uneventful turns pass and the alliance comes up for renewal. Again, I'm thinking it'll cost me to keep up the alliance, but I manage to get world map and literature from Rome in return for keeping up the alliance. Again, 20 turns later, Caesar pops round and will give me spices for 20 turns if I keep up the alliance against those dastardly Babylonians.

So in general, the strategy works like this:
1. Wait until a civ(preferably one far away) declares war.
2. Sign an alliance with 1 or more of their neighbours, regardless of how much it costs.
3. Watch their tech progress and growth grind to a halt as the warring civs tire each other out.
4. After 20 turns, sign the alliance again charging as much as possible.
5. Repeat every 20 turns until the target civ dies or signs peace breaking the alliance.

 

[Quillan]

They offer your more for the alliance because they are losing the war... you must consider the geopolitical )) situation of bringing an ally into the war... For example, if the babs and romans are alone on their continent, and you force them into war, and the babs destroy the romans and now own the continent, OOPS.

I prefer a more american (snicker) approach... I would keep the romans powerful enough that they can hold their own against the babs, then start the war when it will solely be one of attrition rather than conquest.

Getting germany to weaken themselves against your chinese enemy is great as long as you can take out the chinese, otherwise you've just expanded your enemy's empire, and power!

 

[mydisease]

The babs and romans aren't alone, there's India as well and their continent is connected to mine via a land bridge(controlled by the germans). The romans weren't losing the war and I didn't expect them to; legions against bowmen and legions clearly come out tops. They still paid me to keep the alliance though. And just to make sure Babylon didn't get too powerful I signed an alliance with Germany against them, while I took out the Chinese. Then, when 20 turns was up, I took out the Germans and am now marching on Babylon. The tactic is a warmongers tactic, not a peaceful one, so I don't sit idly by while one civ grows more powerful. Its just a nice way of earning some money on the side while you're at war and preventing the world from allying against you.

 

[RufRydyr]

Nice! I think alliances and MPPs are the key to this game. I like to get everyone to gang up on the weakest civ and destroy it then repeat on the next one. Finally, it's just me and other monster civ, but I build my army and do a sneak ROP attack on their core cities.
How did you compare to those civs in the powergraph? If you're a lot more powerful you can demand stuff. I wonder if they're offering you stuff cause you're more powerful.

 

[mydisease]

I would've had roughly the same power rating as Germany and Rome when I signed the alliance for the first time and been slightly higher in power by the subsequent alliances. Both Germany and Rome were able to offer significant opposition against their enemies, but may have been slightly less powerful than them. So maybe power has something to do with it, though whether its my power only, or the enemies power as well, I don't know.

The effect just surprised me because normally when I sign alliances, my ally will charge me even more to renew it and will frequently break the alliance. I'm not sure if the alliance brokering effect is due to stepping up to Emperor level or ancient age war, both of which are fairly new to me.

 

[RufRydyr]

Alliances don't affect power. Power is cities + gold + techs + etc. blah, blah, blah. It says it all on that screen.

 

[Lynx]

Modern age alliances are the funnest..., they always seem to last as log as you wanty them to, as wars get shorter as time passes.

 

[mydisease]

Yes, but power could affect alliances which was my point. The increase in power I described was due to me conquering respectively China, Zululand and Germany. I labour under no illusion that alliances affect power.