Ally your fears, its not useless

[Victoria]

So I am in an alliance with 5 other Civs including 3 that are enemies with each other. The modifiers that seems ot be involved (at least at Deity but most seem to be kept between difficulties apart from first impressions)

Declared Friend +9 (static)
Declared friendship with an enemy -8 (degrades, testing rate)
Ally +18 (static)
Allied with an enemy -8 (I think it degrades, testing rate)
Allied with a friend +8 (degrades)

The benefit of this alliance to me is huge now. I can see most of the board just like satellites, yes some is greyed out where none of the alliance currently have troops but this is I guess the same as sharing maps.

You need to be a declared friend before you can declare being allies
I have tested the below, I do know some did not work before the patch due to bugs

• Any declaration last 30 turns before requiring renewal
• You cannot declare war
• You automatically share open borders (even though its still a dip option)
  
• You can make research agreements (also as declared friends)
  
• You can make defensive pacts
• Your deals are more likely to be favourable
  
• You can upgrade in their territory
• You heal in their territory like it was yours
  
• You get +1 level diplomacy visibility (not stackable with spying)
• If you catch one of their spies they will promise not to do it again and seem to keep it... sometimes
  
• You can take their artifacts without them complaining

Just wondering of anyone has found out anything else or has anything to share with this. It seems with enough bribes and cajoling you can do this fairly often

 

[Victoria]

I have been pondering as no-one else is... and playing alliances and its like OMG, a sudden lightbulb
Alliances make the world peaceful. In my current game I have Peter all aggressive chewing abit off everyone but then the alliance gets going of 4 countries and now he knows if he DOW's one of us its likely he's gonna be killed. he has just stopped warring on anyone now

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

My initial thoughts are that this helps when you are ready to cruise to your victory and you don't want the AI getting in your way. But, this also takes away your ability to declare war on the Allied civs. This can be a double edged sword. I once was playing a domination game where rome was on my starting continent but I kept them alive so that i could have an ally for some diplomatic shenanigans. I would gift them the bad cities on the other continent. Near the end of the game, I mindlessly renewed our alliance, then realized I delayed my victory about 20 turns waiting for the alliance to expire. I was able to Nuke rome even as allies but I couldn't take the cities until the alliance was over.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

With alliances sharing maps, I can see great potential there. Especially if your ally is in another landmass.

Another good positive modifier is "Favourable trade deals". I don't know much of its intrincacies, but it stacks up to +10 (though it decays over time). A good way of getting it is trading their Open Borders for 100 gold and offering a very favorable trade deal for a resource (for example, 2 luxuries for 1) when they're at least neutral. It's enough to get the +10.

Hidden agendas can also help. Some conditions are already beneficial to you, such as Money Grubber and Cultured, so why not ally them.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

"Not useless" is a huge understatement. Post-patch diplomacy seems to have quite a bit to offer. Even after taking a few cities (from multiple civs) I've enjoyed consistant friendship/alliances from other civs. I don't claim to have a slick diplomacy game but it's obvious that it can pay off big time in money, amenities and avoided wars. I have to admit I don't understand how research agreements work yet, although I've signed a couple. For that matter declaring a joint war on a civ that's far away from you but close to your ally is an idea with potential. The ai actually seems to understand making common cause with allies against enemies.

 

[Victoria]

Here is a good example of what an alliance can do... you share maps, this is my current Emperor game and very handy to know. Its mainly delayed by waiting for the right civic. It also found me 5 more CS and I have visibility of every one of their units, this is an advantage I doubt te AI can utilize!

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

So much potential for a Cultural win on Continents or Island Plates... Use your ally's investment on navy and exploration for your benefit.

 

[Bro]

Playing the TSL-Earth map has really opened my eyes for the potentiality of diplomacy. For example most of the civs there have only 1-2 different luxury resources available, but they have 4-5 of the same one. Before I wouldn't have bothered to improve more than 2 of those resources, but now when I did and I traded the extra with other civs I stopped seeing those red angry faces. It was this little to make the AI happy. Open Borders was another one and sending delegations the third.

 

[Sallah]

So are you finding diplomatic friendship more helpful than in Civ5? I was no expert on Civ5, so maybe some who were found more benefits in it than I did. To me it just created more headaches, so I quickly reached the point where I automatically turned it down in Civ5, and others played the same way. But if it's worth a try in 6, I'll give it a shot.

 

[Victoria]

I like civ 5 diplomacy but it was a bit raw. This is a bit more refined but has issues, especially in the Warmonger bit.
Being a declared friend means they cannot DOW you which is handy.
Allies is another level, the map intel you get is just what you need, not all those messages that spam you screen and stop you playing.
Getting the AI to DOW on an enemy was imo easier in V

 

[hongyu20]

Yeah , the moment you declare war it seems you will be hated forever , I mean 100 years , sure , but 1000 years ?

 

[Moxx]

When you are allied with someone, they graciously let you dig up their Antiquity sites without complaining or adding the normal negative diplo modifier. (at least pre patch , I have not played much since it was released)

 

[Victoria]

When you are allied with someone, they graciously let you dig up their Antiquity sites without complaining or adding the normal negative diplo modifier. (at least pre patch , I have not played much since it was released)

Oh wow, thats cool, I'll have to check that out. So thats how the victorians really did it

 

[Victoria]

Yup, I just stole all of Japans and Frances artifacts... lol blessed is the alliance.
Another thing with Alliances is when you catch one of their spies they always promise not to do it again and seem not to.

 

[Bro]

Yup, I just stole all of Japans and Frances artifacts... lol blessed is the alliance.
Another thing with Alliances is when you catch one of their spies they always promise not to do it again and seem not to.

They make other promises too and don't break them. For instance I had Teddy promising me not to settler near me, try to convert my cities and stop spying on me in just one game. Usually the AI just gives you a finger when you do these requests and gets absolutely mad when you do it to them.

 

[Victoria]

Hmm I think I did have an ally break a promise today, probably less chance rather than none

 

[Gus_Smedstad]

I can attest that allies can and will break the "won't spy on you" promise. I was allied with Kongo, they spied on me, I told 'em cut it out, they agreed to stop, 10 turns later they did it again and I got a "they broke their promise" message.

The problem here is that there's no way to hold them accountable. It's not, for example, a Casus Belli if they break a promise to you, and you can't demand anything as compensation.

 

[Victoria]

Yeah... I think its probably just less likely... I have added a sometimes to the first post

 

[slowcar]

A backdraw of an alliance and its forced open borders would be troops of your allies standing around in your land and blocking stuff. With the number of troops SG8 AIs throw around that can be quite annoying.

 

[Victoria]

I thought so but in fact it does not seem so.
I used to never befriend or open borders, now I do it all.
I even am contemplating dropping feudalism back to get allies and meritocracy

Try it @slowcar