Level 3 Alliance Too Hard to Achieve

[No1Statistican]

My normal difficulty is deity and in all my games I've failed to reach level 3 alliances. I've tried to get alliance bonuses with 0.25 by trade route, 0.25 by policy card, and my ally have also done the same with me getting 2 points per turn.

I win in standard map standard speed from turn 180-240 and have never gotten a level 3 alliance in the 4 full games I've had allies since civil service. Even if did get a level 3 alliance, these those bonuses would be too little too late.

Is there something missing that allows me to get more points per turn? Is this happening because of the bug where you cannot renew alliances from the diplomacy screen (they always decline and then accept when the alliance ends)? Is it just bad balance, where a mod can fix this?

 

[Chefofrats]

I don't usually rely on diplomacy in my games, but in two recent ones where I was specifically aiming for high alliance levels, I managed to get level 3 alliances by turn 200-ish. Perhaps it's down to luck and rolling a neighbour civ with agendas that match your play style.

I actually renewed an alliance once through the diplomacy screen, but even when this was not possible, my alliances progressed in level after "manual" renewing.

 

[WillowBrook]

I've not done a whole lot with alliances, but it seems to me that the time to level up needs balancing. Either decrease the number of points required or provide more ways to increase the base amount. Or both.

 

[cairnsy44]

I am shocked if I get AN alliance.....

 

[local_hero]

I'm not playing diety, but I rarely get higher level alliances. For some reason my allies usually don't want to renew despite a whole bunch of positive modifiers.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Play 6-Armed Snowflake to learn diplomacy and alliances. I play it as "training wheels". There is a guide -> https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811836456

(The map's not really been updated fully for R&F - no reefs - and cos of the new mechanics is even more boring cos the AI will almost never take out a CS or another AI).

Here I was trying for the Poundmaker achievement but that's a tough one ->

 

[Trengilly]

I win in standard map standard speed from turn 180-240

I think the problem is the designers think it takes 350 to 450 turns to win. If you take that long than its easy to get level 3 alliances. On the other hand the level 3 bonuses are pretty lackluster or even counter productive (you don't want a level 3 cultural alliance if you are trying for a culture win!) so its not a big deal