[R&F] Alliance, worthwhile or a hinderance?

[Lily_Lancer]

Level 3 alliances.

This is the effect of all alliance we get. Thanks for @Giskler

It seems that,

1: Trade Route bonus, interesting, but since TRs are more difficult to get in R & F, I doubt how these effects really make sense. Also, TRs to city states often have more basic yields(city state type itself adds yield to TRs), so when you decide to send them to your ally, you're already suffering some basic yield loss, making +3 actually not +3, but +2 or +1 compared with city-state routes.

Science alliance: nonsense, who cares about a single eureka every 20 turns?(About half the effect of the vanilla Seoul) Also, it is not often to be researching sth. an AI is researching or have researched, even when so, "10% of your ally's science output" is not a big deal since nobody expect AI to have good science output But it definitely seems to be helping your ally to tech much quicker.

Cultural alliance: The GP bonus is interesting, but depends on available trade routes from your city to your ally's city. I think this may make some sense when playing really tall. (But as we know, Civ6 do not support playing tall very much.)
About the tourism and culture bonus, if you go for CV, or whatever victory you're going for, you'll be generating much more culture than your ally. So the bonus gives you small amount but gives your ally huge bonus, making him generating much more domestic tourists.

Economic alliance: Is "Tributary" suzerain? I think the city-state bonus may be interesting, the only question is that AI will not always suzerain city states of your favor.

Military alliance: If you're going for DV just wipe out others, don't try to make alliances since currently how to capture your ally remains a problem. Or maybe there'll be a backstab mechanism? Anyway the +15% prod bonus is quite good if you manage to get it early.

It will be interesting if the free promotion stacks for multiple alliances, although not strategically useful, but funny to see every unit start with all promotions.

Religious alliance: This one is self-contradicting. If allies do not generate religious pressure on each other, how can one civ have citizens believing in the other one's religion?



After all, I think the alliance system need to be enhanced if this being the final version.Such level of bonus is certainly a joke compared with benefits from warmongers. Even "chance to wipe out a civ" worth much more than the alliance bonus.

Update: From today's Scotland livestream it seems that alliance got further nerved. The +3 TR bonus reduced to +2 , and also, the turn-per-eureka increased to 30. Also, the eureka requires to be a tech your ally researched or researching, making this actually even not 30 turns per eureka, but zero bonus.


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[Kyro]

I think I mentioned this in another thread...alliances are anything but powerful.

They'll need to have Zero Opportunity cost vs Internal Trade routes if they are to make a difference.

 

[stealth_nsk]

1. Trade routes to your allies are required to get higher level alliance. Also, I'm not sure about the balance of Trade route yield in R&F.
2. It's Eureka, bonus from Trade routes and +10%. Quite big actually. Also remember - late game tech often don't get associated eureka conditions, but appear in city-state quests.
3. Yep, cultural is questionable. We need to see how it plays out. Looks like it's more effective in defending againstother civ Cultural victory than in gaining one.
4. Yes, Economic is interested. Maybe even more so in MP, where players could coordinate envoy distribution.
5. I have a feeling what you don't need to capture your military ally to get conquest victory (maybe similarly you don't need to convert your Religious ally and get tourism in your Culture ally). If that works like this, all alliance types are much more interesting.
6. Interwining religions before making alliance. I believe India could be quite good at this.

 

[Trengilly]

I agree with everything. Level 1 might be ok for some extra yields but the level 2 and 3 "benefits" are very strange.

In most cases I wouldn't want my AI ally to get the level 2 & 3 bonuses - its likely to help them more than it would help me.

The Culture one is clearly hurts you if you are trying for a culture victory.
The Religious benefits only make sense in a "lets band together to defend ourselves from someone else who is trying to spread religion" way.

Even the Military one is bad - by the time you are at level 2 or 3 you likely have already built most of the units you will ever need. And the last thing I want to do is give an AI a military production bonus AND free promotions!

Actually the science and culture benefits seem best if you are working toward the opposite victory condition. ie if you are playing for a CV then a science alliance could help since you won't be so focused on science. And when shooting for a SV the culture alliance perks could be a positive for you.

Very odd

 

[bbbt]

There's that policy card for +2 food/prod for alliance trade routes, so that could be run in conjunction to give a leg up over city state trade routes. But of course you are losing a policy card slot.

 

[Trengilly]

5. I have a feeling what you don't need to capture your military ally to get conquest victory (maybe similarly you don't need to convert your Religious ally and get tourism in your Culture ally). If that works like this, all alliance types are much more interesting.

That would be really wonderful - I'd love to be able to win the game without having to defeat my allies.
But I suspect the likelihood of this being the case in less than zero!

 

[stealth_nsk]

That would be really wonderful - I'd love to be able to win the game without having to defeat my allies.
But I suspect the likelihood of this being the case in less than zero!

Did anyone on streams checked for victory conditions?

 

[leandrombraz]

This is the effect of all alliance we get. Thanks for @Giskler


Cultural alliance: The GP bonus is interesting, but depends on available trade routes from your city to your ally's city. I think this may make some sense when playing really tall. (But as we know, Civ6 do not support playing tall very much.)
About the tourism and culture bonus, if you go for CV, or whatever victory you're going for, you'll be generating much more culture than your ally. So the bonus gives you small amount but gives your ally huge bonus, making him generating much more domestic tourists.

If your Ally isn't the Civ with the highest amount of domestic tourists nor is dangerously close of being it, it doesn't really matter if you give culture to him. Just make alliance with a Civ that have a decent tourism but isn't the guy with the highest amount of domestic tourists.

This alliance probably will be used more for the first bonus (no loyalty pressure) with a neighbor in anyway, so just make sure you aren't giving a cultural buff to the wrong guy later.

 

[bbbt]

That would be really wonderful - I'd love to be able to win the game without having to defeat my allies.
But I suspect the likelihood of this being the case in less than zero!

It could be interesting if after you've been a level 3 alliance for long enough, you could become a 'permanent alliance' - basically like a 'team' but starting late game instead of the beginning.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Good thing some of us care more about the "story" than we do about winning the game in the quickest time possible.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

If your Ally isn't the Civ with the highest amount of domestic tourists nor is dangerously close of being it, it doesn't really matter if you give culture to him. Just make alliance with a Civ that have a decent tourism but isn't the guy with the highest amount of domestic tourists.

This alliance probably will be used more for the first bonus (no loyalty pressure) with a neighbor in anyway, so just make sure you aren't giving a cultural buff to the wrong guy later.

I doubt any Civ, when given 10% of your culture, will become the leader in domestic tourists. Since 10% of your culture is actually ~100% of theirs if you go for CV.

Also, if they're not generating much culture, what do you gain for the alliance?

 

[Trengilly]

you could become a 'permanent alliance'

We already have essentially "Permanent Alliance" once you secure one. As long as you don't go rack up big warmonger negatives and keep culturing the relationship you never loose your alliance (or rather you can auto renew it each time it comes up)

 

[Thormodr]

Good thing some of us care more about the "story" than we do about winning the game in the quickest time possible.

Exactly. I can see plenty of fun ahead with the different alliances. Lots of role-playing potential.

Plus, modders can do some really neat stuff with it.

 

[Trengilly]

Good thing some of us care more about the "story" than we do about winning the game in the quickest time possible.

I'm all about playing for story and rarely care about when I win a game. But I don't like it when the game mechanics actively work against you ( currently you are literally punished for having larger cities, several districts are just never worth building, etc.)

I'm excited about R&F for three reasons.
1) Its going to provide lots of options and make taller play much more enjoyable
2) I like the idea of all the new systems, and even if they aren't balanced correctly to start.
3) It opens up all sorts of cool options for modders

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Good thing some of us care more about the "story" than we do about winning the game in the quickest time possible.

If the game mechanics encourage us to focus on story that's great.

Otherwise I'll pick the way the game mechanics suggest us to do, since this is a game instead of real history.

 

[Magil]

This kind of analysis does show the inherent problem of having bonus-based alliances in a game where there can only be one winner, as you need to constantly measure the bonuses you get versus just how much you're helping your opponent.

I imagine they'll be pretty useful in a few situations, like where you can be reasonably certain that the AI can't use the benefits as well as you can, and/or on lower difficulties where who cares if you're helping the AI catch up because you're probably far ahead anyway and just want a friend someone to give you bonuses.

The main point of concern for me atm is it seems like it takes a really long time to reach a level 3 alliance, and frankly I still wish diplomatic deals like this in Civ 6 were "permanent until cancelled (with minimum duration)" rather than "must renew manually every ~30 turns". And then the benefits for a level 2/3 alliance can be iffy? Seem like a hefty investment for a somewhat situational reward.

 

[Thormodr]

This kind of analysis does show the inherent problem of having bonus-based alliances in a game where there can only be one winner, as you need to constantly measure the bonuses you get versus just how much you're helping your opponent.

I imagine they'll be pretty useful in a few situations, like where you can be reasonably certain that the AI can't use the benefits as well as you can, and/or on lower difficulties where who cares if you're helping the AI catch up because you're probably far ahead anyway and just want a friend someone to give you bonuses.

The main point of concern for me atm is it seems like it takes a really long time to reach a level 3 alliance, and frankly I still wish diplomatic deals like this in Civ 6 were "permanent until cancelled (with minimum duration)" rather than "must renew manually every ~30 turns".

I am actually planning a game where I will shepherd and guide Georgia to a Religious Victory. I am not sure what Civ I will play but it will be an interesting challenge. Obviously my goal is not to achieve victory in the game for myself but as a personal goal for fun. I will do everything possible to curry Georgia's favour and build up the maximum alliance level.

I may make a personal challenge thread with something around these parameters. Could be an interesting challenge for all.

 

[drubell]

I don't see why playing a game for roleplaying purposes is suddenly mutually exclusive with recognizing when an alliance may be a bad deal.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I think the way civ is built, warmongering will always be too good compared to other strategies. That'll only change when the AI gets good enough to take out human players without large bonuses, and that doesn't seem likely anytime soon, because then the forum would be filled with complaints about how bloodthirsty the AI is Alliances seem good to me, you can only have one of each alliance type at a time, and you just have to pick which ones you want to try to go for. Diplomacy still needs a lot of work, but this seems like a step in the right direction for me.

I remember seeing a presentation once about the types of civ players, some play for the roleplaying experience, some play for min-maxing, and so on. I think it was Soren Johnson who presented it (Civ 4 designer). Civ 6 I think has introduced a number of factors that are causing role-playing players to feel pressured to more heavily use min-maxing (Eurekas being the main example). Alliances I think are a nice way to counteract that, but we'll see. I play for the story, and I also like to min-max as long as it's not essential.

The trade route bonuses seem good, and the special bonuses can be tailored to your particular strategy for winning the game. If I have a neighbor that has 20 science to my 100, I don't mind if their science output is doubled, they'll never catch up to me anyway. It actually seems like it could be abused by players who are in the lead allying with lagging civs due to the second bonus (unlock a eureka for a tech that you and your ally haven't researched).

The cultural bonus seems awesome to me when you're dealing with a neighbor, you can increase great person points for the cities of your choice and also get rid of any loyalty pressure.

I can see your point about it being problematic with civs that you're competing against for a victory type that's the same as the alliance type, but I think that's a risk you might have to take. I would like alliances to be stronger, but they're probably saving any major work on the diplomacy systems for the next expansion.

 

[Trengilly]

I am actually planning a game where I will shepherd and guide Georgia to a Religious Victory.

You just know that will be the game where Tamar doesn't bother to found a religion!