AI really seems to overemphasise Score as a reason for hate, instead of well a whole bunch of other things. And civs in last place don't really seem to know when to quit and side with the winner.
I've just been playing a game as Egypt. Playing a Large Communitas map, which gave me a set of small continents and islands, with 8 city-states, and no civs connected by coastline. And a bunch of natural wonders to myself. So I was playing the entire early game with no other civilisations, except eventually for the Iroquois in the medieval era. Who had also got an isolated start, just on an even smaller area, and with a single city-state (and decided to pick Authority) and thus were really behind. I had picked Tradition, which ended up being suboptimal for filling all the space I had, but still worked.
So when I met everybody in time to rush the printing Press, after unlocking crossing oceans, I did so with very few diplomatic penalties. Every civ I met, I traded 3-4 luxuries to and secured open borders (they never seemed to want it from me). The Iroquois hadn't founded, so I quickly converted them, completely. The rest were on the largest continent and the religions were all set, so I didn't bother trying to convert them. The rest of the civs had all been fighting each other for the rest of the game, and so hated each other. Every single one of them had at least denouement against another one, and most had two or three. Cities had traded places all other the place, etc.
The Iroquois I put my best effort into winning over. They got my religion, defensive pact, sold tech. I sent them multiple trade routes, they bought every single one of my excess luxuries (which they really needed because a city of their rebelled and become a city state before me) and I gave them good deals on strategic resources they bought off me. Still backstabbed me.
Every single civ in the game, despite how much they hated each other turned on me, and declared war. Even though many of them had no real hope of beating me. The game seems to overvalue the number of units instead of tech because the Iroquis seemed to think it was a smart idea to launch a naval invasion of cavarals against frigates and Corvettes and got smashed.
The Zulus for example, had just gotten rolled and lost half their empire to two civs. Instead of working against them, they sent a bunch of units loose near a few of my cities and got picked off. They then did nothing for turns, all while refusing peace, and then showed up with a bunch of ships to fend off my counterattack against a civ that had just been kicking their teeth in before I met them. They were the one to start the chain of declarations, despite being the second-worst off, after the Iroquois.
Half these civs, had also just been relying heavily on me for resources. I had civs buying horses, iron and coal off me, as well as lots of luxuries. Half the ones I fought had unhappiness penalties as soon as they declared on me, so the declaration wasn't cheap on them.
Anyway, I've been playing for like 30 turns on Epic, at war with the whole world (the first war started like 50 turns ago, and the rest trickled in), and it is just such a bore. I hadn't geared up for a Domination Victory, but the game seems to be trying to force me to play that way. The AI launch badly planned naval invasions, and I throw them back. I've chewed up multiple times my number in units. The main damage to me was the trade routes they plundered going to their own cities and a single distant city-state that I got an alliance from a quest, and who got eaten. But I can't really launch counter invasions, because the AI has all gone full speed military building and the other civs come to save one of them, even if they had spent most of the game hating each other.
Also at this point, I was still nowhere near a victory. My best Tourism was Popular with the Iroquis, but most are much further behind because I hadn't seen them for most of the game. Tech-wise I started the wars about to enter the Industrial era so a science victory is still a long way off. Diplomatic I was likely in the best spot for, as I had alliances with ten city-states, a bit over half the number in the game (started at 20, but the other civs had been eating them), but the vast majority of those are in my area and I was still easily fending off attempts to invade them. But tech levels means a diplo victory is still a long way off. But these wars aren't really denting my chance of a victory, because none of them are even close to taking any of my cities.
A thing that I think really needs introducing, is civs accepting junior partner status. The Iroquois really had every rational reason to back me. They had my religion, they relied on my resources and they were dead last. Their capital was lower population than most of my secondary cities, and I had the same number of cities, spread over better more spaced out territory. Maybe becoming a vassal is too much, but they had no way of winning. They were dead last in tech, were still finishing their second policy tree when nearly everybody else was in their third and lost one of their cities to a rebellion.
Also minor thing. With the open borders, whenever I offered a mutual trade, barring the Iroquois, the AI just said Impossible. So I traded resources, and most civs seems to accept strategic resources. I was able to trade a couple of horses, even to civs that already had them for open borders. Civs seem to overrate strategic resources, paying lots of gold for them, while underrating luxuries (still buying them for 6-8 gold). Despite most civs in-game having unhappiness issues.
