Better World Wars

[Corvex]

I'm not sure if this one's been discussed before, but here goes...
You may have noticed that every so often (usually around the later eras), global order completely breaks down and the entire world is engulfed in a massive war. Now, this in and of itself is not remarkable (indeed, it's quite realistic), but you may also have noticed that when this happens, the AI civs usually react in an extremely stupid way. I have seen it many, many times where Civ A will make an alliance with Civ B against Civ C, but 2 turns later Civ D will negotiate a war pact with Civ A against Civ B (even though both are still at war with Civ C)...you get the picture. Global warfare is made unneccessarily complicated, and it winds-up taking a whole lot of effort to get things to cool down.
This is a problem which, I think, should be fixed for Civ IV. In my view, this can be done in one (or both) of two ways

1) There should be an option to negotiate was multipartisan alliance between two or more countries against a rival. No member of such an alliance would be able to attack a fellow member for the duration of the war. That said, however, these alliances should not be absolute. Each member should have the option to negotiate a separate peace with the rival (thereby breaking the alliance), but this serves to sour relations with the other members of the alliance, sometimes resulting in a declaration of war. Peace can also be negotaited with the alliance as a whole, but the majority must support the terms. For the AI, the probability of joining such an alliance should be dictated by a formula taking in such things as the governments of the other civs, maybe their religions as well, their relations with these civs and the same considerations vis a vis their rival, also their relative military power. This would have the added benefit of creating a situation in which the AI will not be so cowardly when it comes to taking-on the reigning superpower.

AND/OR

2 When a war pact is made between Civs A and B, the probability should be signifigantly weighted against Civ A attacking Civ B until the war is over.

What do you think?

 

[AndrewH]

I think that Civs should be able to hold meetings... talk to more than 1 civ at a time. And lets say 4 civs agree to all form an alliance against another civ.

nvm u just said that... lol silly me

The thing you said about religion... do you mean like the Christian civs vs. the Muslim civs?

 

[Corvex]

I'm not sure how they're going to implement religion in this game, but it just seems to me that (to use your example) a christian civ should be more favorably disposed on principal to another christian civ, and therefore more likely to allign itself with it than with a muslim or pagan civilization. That's not to say that they wouldn't be able to ally with pagan or muslim civs; simply that it would be less likely to. At least until there's some kind of a 'secularism' advance.
I also think that civilizations with the same government types should be inclined 'on principle' to join one another; so a communist civ would be more likely to join another communist civ than it would be to join a democratic of monarchist civ. Then general rule for alliances, I think, should be 'like attracts like.'