alex has been my most reliable, in i don't know how many games. he actually likes to fight and sends troops. takes over cities even, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your goals ... in my OCC games that works for me, since i can't take the cities. if there's a city i don't want him to have (a holy city, say), that one i'll go raze).
monty i haven't tried, i just don't like that guy and don't trust him. cathy is a certified backstabber at friendly if somebody else bribes her so i don't bother to try.
with toku early shared religion helps, and you can safely gift him techs quite generously once you know alphabet. he'll be behind enough that you'll have options. and you can be darned sure that he won't be trading them away to anybody, since his definition of a monopoly is "everybody that he knows, knows the tech, except for the guy who's asking for it in the trade". does not apply if he's actually friendly with the potential trader. he won't have much to trade with you, but he's not backstabbed once in those circumstances, so it's been worth it for me.
shaka i haven't had success with as an attack dog, but i gift him a tech as soon as i'm able to try to get on his good side. a tech that's worth something, not one everybody has, because he scares me. the permanoob is a permawuss.
now it's rambling time! one OCC game isabella declared on me when i was way low powerwise, uh oh. my religion had spread so i bribed the rest of the universe into helping me. overnight, WWI ... toku, alex, monty, bismarck, ramesses?, and somebody else. she was literally fighting everybody, not just little ole me. i razed double holy madrid so i that didn't lose my army'o'buddies, and they took care of the rest. that attack pack of war hounds was sooooooooo fun! hooray for political power. not reflected on the powergraph but boy howdy it's there and it counts! but that extreme was probably once in a lifetime circumstances.
I say squash him out early if you can.
