Locked alliances = eternal war

[MaximusParthas]

With a locked alliance you can never see a war end. For there to be peace treaties simultaneously offered to each civ is a loooong shot.
Someone will always be attacking your "brother in arms".

 

[embryodead]

did I say that this is the most disappointing "feature" of C3C?

 

[Gypsy1220]

Is that not what Conquests is all about? Reliving some of the great Conquests of history...playing as the underdog and coming out on top, or as the "favorite" and pounding everyone else into the ground.

 

[Masquerouge]

And remember that locked alliances are for the scenarios only, in the epic game you're free !

 

[tomart109]

Yes, but try the Rise of Rome Conquest playing Macedon. You're locked in eternal war with Persia (which has a huge territory, good resources, and is determined to fight you every step of the way.) In order to achieve ANY respite from this large struggle, you have to slog everything down to the defiant, far distant corner of the map, and exterminate every last remnant. I had defeated and contained them, but they would never listen to reason, never talk peace.

And as long as any Persians live, they keep instigating/bribing everyone from Egypt to the Huns to the Celts (!) to the Carthaginians (or even Rome, if i'm not diplomatic enough) to attack me. (It's a Conquest of shifting alliances, with more diplomacy than i expected; and a really fun epic struggle.)

Meanwhile, my other neighbor, Rome, has become my rival to winning the game...

Eternal war seems too extreme. Only a Hitler fights to the last basement.

 

[The Economist]

Well technically, you're only obligated to go to war if your ally's troops are attacked on their own territory. You're not forced to help them if they mount a war of aggression, although if any of that spills into their actual territory, then you have to declare war.

But I think the locked alliances and wars make it much more historically accurate, and also more fun. Although I haven't played Conquests yet so I that second part is just some speculation

 

[embryodead]

Locked alliances are laughable. They have very limited use - only in scenarios taking place in very small periods of time - ie. one war. Civ3 is still inferior to Civ2 in this case, it's really disappointing. I want to make scenarios that start during a war, but can end with peace. I want to make scenarios that start with tense and hostile relations, not neccerarily in the middle war. But of course, I can't.

 

[Gogf]

You can always remove them from the conquests. Also, remember, how would it seem it Rome and Carthage became allies? Macedon is the weakest nation you can play as, and it is sort of annoying not to be able to make peace with the nation that starts out much bigger than you to the east.

 

[embryodead]

If you remove them from the conquests, there will be no war at all, so it's not good either. What players wanted from the very beginning, was *initial* setting of relationships.

 

[Gypsy1220]

In the scenarios, I think locked alliances is a GOOD thing. No you can't make peace with them, so you have to be balanced. Too many players would sign a peace treaty then Just try for the other types of victories. It makes it much more difficult to win (on the higher levles-demi, god, Sid).

With the situation with Persia bribing all the other players to go to war with you, I would say-beat them to the punch. Make friends fast and induce them to go to war for you (this kills two birds with one stone-it takes pressure off of you and slows down the other AIs a little)

I do understand the point made concerning starting diplomatic attitudes toward other nations for scenarios. It would be nice to choose the attitudes for each nation

 

[Master Shake]

In Rise of Rome, you start out at war with Carthage but not in a locked war with them. So are you unable to change this initial setting?

If you are able to change it, then you could give civs a very good chance of forming up initial non-locked alliances with each other by careful placement of initial wars... Don't know how well this would work though...

-mS

 

[embryodead]

Originally posted by Master Shake
In Rise of Rome, you start out at war with Carthage but not in a locked war with them. So are you unable to change this initial setting?

If you are able to change it, then you could give civs a very good chance of forming up initial non-locked alliances with each other by careful placement of initial wars... Don't know how well this would work though...

No, you can't change it. Check again Rise of Rome. You ARE in a locked war with Carthage.

 

[MaximusParthas]

I created a module for conquest qith 3 teams of locked alliances. No wars yet, just teams.
Germany and france were part of one team. Germany declared war on me but couldn't reach me. (I'm on another continent and they don't have navigation) Germany brought in their sister country france to no avail. no navigation there either. The war went on unfought for about 20 turns. Then france offered me a peace treaty. I took it and noticed not long after that germany and I were no longer at war.
Hmmm. Does this mean if you make peace with one civ in a coalition that you make peace with all of them?

 

[Major Mayhem]

I have seen the same thing. In the Fall of Rome conquest the two halves of the Empire are in locked alliance. As the Huns I started a war with the East and the West declared war on me. Once I made peace with the East, I went to make peace with the West and discovered I was already at peace with them. It looks like making peace with one member of a locked alliance makes peace with all members.

 

[mrtn]

remember this is two things, locked alliances, and "always at war". You don't have to have both.
In the Magnamund Mod I'm making I'll have two evil civs in a LA, two good civs in another LA, and all the others will be free agents, just as usual. And I won't have "always at war", not in the mod at least.

But I agree these things can be frustrating, it's no fun playing France in the Napoleonic conquest, be in Spanish territory, and the Spaniards make peace with Denmark, whereupon you have to remove your troops, or else... That's no good for a reputation.

 

[embryodead]

That's a feature and annoyance in one. A diplomacy option like in old good Master of Magic (civ1-clone) would be cool ("I demand that you make peace with my friends the Danes" or simply "Peace with..." just like "Alliance against..." as one of the trades)

 

[necrolyte]

Did you all know that Carthage and Rome allied against Phyrrus of "Phyrric victory" fame before the Punic wars?

 

[yoshi]

Locked Alliances are a fine addition but if that's the only diplomactic setting you have then it seems to have very limited applications. This would have been an awsome addition to Civ2 though.

And what about contact? Limiting contact between certain civs seems like a more essential feature than Locked Alliances.

Civ2 has all the diplomatic options as well as attitude and last contact. Locked Alliances are two allied civs that can't talk to each other so they stay allied --limited but effective.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

They needed a fuzzy setting. A slider that indicates the nations societal preference for the other nation.

Basically a weight when deciding how to treat the other nation =)
Locked alliances could have been represented as that weight that makes it more likely to treat the other nation favorably on any given turn and also beyond a certain weight on the slider makes it impossible for the two to be "mortal enemies" etc
Like a GPT deal that isnt a GPT deal~

They also could have reversed it to have a slider that goes negative so that certain nations will tend to not have long term relationships with others. (eg like they were paying that nation GPT even though they werent getting anything back... a tendency to want to war~)

 

[Oddible]

I totally dig the Rise of Rome conquest. The Always at War thing threw me the first time I tried it and of course I through the game totally sucked as eventually everyone was at war with ME!?!

So I killed that game and started again realizing that there was going to be a lot more diplomacy involved. In that first game, Persia grew to an insurmountable size so I realized that something must be done about that as well.

First turn I got into an MA with Macedonia vs both Persia and Carthage - I brought Egypt in with MA's vs both as well (no sense in having ANY wildcards). Every time an alliance broke, I started it again, no matter what the cost (made sure I had full coffers the whole game to ensure I could always buy an alliance). When I met the Celts I immediately started a war. When I met the Mongols (don't recall their name in the game - Scithians?) I immediately got them into an MA vs Carthage and Persia. When I met the Goths they quickly became my allies as well. Then, since tied the whole game up with MAs, it became my challenge to maintain alliances to keep countries from getting too big. Release Goths so I could attack them. Release Sythians from Persian conflict so they could crush Macedonia back a bit. Not finished with this game yet, but it looks good - barely staying ahead of Persia, but still on top and now in a war with Goth to capture their rich territory for the glory of Rome!