Mutual Proctection..Do you sign on or not?

[God]

Sometimes MPPs can really get crazy.
One of my games there were 2 continents. Me the Egyptians were most powerful followed by India who was some distance away in score. Then came Russia, Greece Rome and Iroquois who were all on anther smaller continent. About 6 civs had been eliminated at this point.
I had an MPP running with the Iroquois, the Greeks and the Russians. The Indians had MPP with the Romans.

The Iroquois declared war on the Russians and they attacked first so i was forced to fight the Iroquois who had been my allies. I made an alliance with India against the Iroquois to involve them in the war. We warred for a few turns and then the Greeks declared war on the Russians and so did Rome a bit later. Russians took offense first on the Greeks and Romans and i had to fight against the Russians now and so did the Indians. Then Rome and Greece attacked each other and India joined the fray because of MPP with Romans and me because of MPP with Greece.

The result was that i was fighting everybody excpet the Greeks.
Greeks were fighting Russia, Rome, India
India fighting me, Iroquios, Greeks, Russia
Rome fighting me, Greeks, Russia
Iroquios fighting me, Russia, India
Russia fighting everybody

We had started off with two sets of allies in the world. Me, Russia, Iroquois, and Greece as one set and the Romans and Indians as the other. We were far more powerful but the MPPs and alliances destroyed those two sets and had the world fighting each other. It was crazy. The Indians took some cities from me and i had to wait till synthetic fibers to have a good chance against mech. infantry.

At the end of this all, I was the only one who managed to get something decent out of this all. I eliminated India after a long struggle. Russia took on the Romans and beat them up pretty bad until the Iroquois got some oil and started showing up with swarms of tanks and evened things out. I took out the Indians while some of its troops were abroad fighting the Iroquois and Greeks and Russians. The Romans sent another force to deal with the Greeks and so did India and Greek was being really beaten up.

At that point i finshed off India, and headed for Iroquois took their oil and finished them off. Then i made peace with the Russians and Romans and let them finish off the Greeks and then duke it out.

Russia and Rome wasted each other and i had a tech lead and the spaceship almost ready to go. Left the spaceship to be launced in 2050 and made nukes and took out Russia and Rome, who had made peace by then. Rome had 3-4 cities left and Russia 2 distant cities.

The MPPs got out of hand.

 

[Emmet Samms]

Damn, there is a lot of REALLY good advice here.
All I can say is:
1.) Ask yourself WHY a civ is coming to you for an MMP?
2.) Look and see if they would actually be able to help you if war broke out.
3.) What can you possibly gain from such an alliance? (i.e. Do they have a strong navy and you don't? Do the two of you set on either border of a third, more powerful county you'd both love to sack? Etc.)

I like signing MMPs with powerful distant countries, mainly because they usually go to war with other distant civs. If you build settlers and transports, you can oftentimes get yourself some resource rich prime real estate for free, just by being in the right spot.

NEVER EVER sigh an MMP with a little snot-nosed civ. I swear, they'll go to war with the meanest boy on the block in the next turn. ES

 

[Kefka]

In my current game that I am playing I had control of 1/3 of the contentent and france and egypt had the other two thirds.
I had just got out of war with egypt and I did not want to have to fight egypt again as they had cities on two sides of me and It would have been a two front war.
So to protect myself I got a MPP with France and I hoped they would help me during the next war with egypt.
Well There was another war with egypt and France was a BIG help, with them helping me I was able to consintrate most all my force against the northern Egyption citys and take them all out.
Then I swung south and took over those Egyption city, well actually only two cause france got 3 and china got 1.
So in my current game the MPP I got with France really helped me and It really eased over tensions with France and got them on good terms with me
oh yea a bit off topic but In that game I totally corner the Oil market

 

[foodguy]

There are two situations where I sign MPPs:
1) If there is a country much stronger than me and I want to delay them attacking me.
2) If there is a country who is/will be at war with a country I want to go to war with. This gives me a clean diplomatic out for declaring war.
Usually, though, when MPPs are offered, I take the ROP and reject the MPP. This keeps people happy and off my back (I usually win either diplo or space race), but it doesn't get me involved when the whole world goes up in smoke. When that happens, I can sit back, smile, and pump up the research.

 

[Zouave]

There's another reason.

If there is a weaker civ that clearly will be beaten by a larger aggressive civ, you do not want that to happen - it will make the larger civ even stronger.

Example: Germans with 21 cities; Chinese 7 cities. I have 21, also. A MPP with the Chinese may deter some civs (perhaps not the Germans) from attacking China; if they do, it is something I shouldn't permit anyway.

 

[friedmad]

I have noticed that if another civ declares war against a rival that I'm at war with, the rival I'm at war with will pretty much ignore me and focus all his effort against the other AI rival.

 

[petey]

I personally don't like MPPs.

The only time the AI asks for one is when you're stronger than him, so it's not really in your interest to sign it, because he needs you, not the other way around.

I'm a real warmonger in this game and I like plowing my way through the AI at every opportunity. However, I prefer to do in a time and place of my own choosing and when it will be to my advantage to do so. When I'm in a MPP, I always seem to be going to war against people whose positions don't offer me much (on the other side of the planet, etc) or I'm not ready to attack them yet. Even worse, I'm often trading with them for something, so I lose that because my stupid ally wanted to go to war.

The best thing that I've found if you want people to help you out in a fight is to form a military alliance against someone. That way, the civ you're attacking is hit from another border, and you don't have to worry about defending your ally if someone attacks his rear. It's a much better solution than a MPP

 

[I. Larkin]

Some tips I use when sign MPP. I plan war well in advance, so I pick up opponent, stop trading and others agreement 20 turns before war. Second, at Demo I plan short war, not more then 10 turns, so I sing MPP with Allies 10 turn before war. i choose partners who unlikely to be at war soon or their wars will not harm me. When I start war I declare it first and wait 1-2 turns befor invadion to let all my MPP works in my favor. My opponent should have an ability to bomb my land from ship or bomber. I even settle City in the access area to be sure. Sometimes pouse is very effective, you opponent will send his tanks, cavs to the front and your landing will be less difficult. But it's just a begining...

 

[RussiaWarMachin]

I find MPP are more work then benefit, especialy in a late game scenario. Don't bother with them if you're more powerful then the rest of the world combined (as it often is in my case). All you'll be doing is fighting some smaller civilisation's war. Sure you reap the benefits of war but when you fight on 5 or 6 fronts it gets pretty anoying.

 

[Naval Power]

I once signed one with a small nation. Then the stupid AI goes in and declares war on france who has airplanes. Guess who gets the brunt of the assault. I had no airplanes myself because I was a few techs off and they wouldn't accept my envoy. Then they started rolling tanks in on me. After I made peace I wiped out the guy I had the MPP with.

 

[Johnny Torio]

Let me jump in here and say the best time to ever sign a mutual is if you are about to declare war. I never sing if I plan on making peace. Why? because if I get dragged into a war with Rome, i ussualy am screwed. So anyways that's my little tid bit. never sign to form a stronger relationship, its a bad choice that can bite back.

 

[pimpcuba1]

mpp's do work you see for me i just sign them with the strong civ which is always number 2 in power becuase i am number 1 i use mpp's before i go to war i sign them with as many people as possible bro it's halirous becuase i always own my own comtienut i never get into the war i just watch them destroy each other then i go in and destroy them when they r already weak it's a good way of playing the game

 

[theGhost]

MPPs are killing everyone!!!
the situation i had was that i was china. i wiped persia and india off the face of the earth, and its either me or japan on the continent. on the other, is germany, england, zululand, and babylon........im a close second to japan.......i wipe out zululand, and germany lands troops at the far reaches of my land......i sign an MPP to stop them AND gain a foothold on the other continent since im against england. Then they turn around and get attacked by japan, causing me to go to war with them......im trapped on the continent against a slightly larger army, my territory is divided in two since i had to cut through japan (peacefully at the time) to get persia and india.......well, i reloaded an old game, force attacked germany, just to avoid war with japan........now there isnt a single civ that hasnt broken a single pact......geez

 

[The Last Conformist]

One of the truly weird things about MPPs is that, when at war, you sometimes can get one with a civ you can't get a Military Alliance with. O'course, this will drag them into the war anyway, so possibly this is a bug.

I've seen more than one game degenerate to a miasma of distrust and multilateral wars due to MPPs, but as long as you get on top that's OK. Sometimes I accept an MPP simply because an AI is prepared to pay for it, but I usually do it to deter an aggressive and powerful AI civ, either from attacking me or from attacking its weaker brethren. One can alsp do it immediately before going to war, to make sure one'll have allies.

 

[Wardog]

Sign a MPP with one or two civilizations close to your main rival, and then declare war on him. It always works for me.

MPP is something very useful. It can even win games for you.

 

[billindenver]

Very rarely sign them myself. I had a real bad experience with them in my early Civ III days. I was the US, and I was racing towards a space race victory, although I was militarily weaker than some nearby rivals. I figured the only thing that could stop my win was if I got attacked by a strong neighbor.

So, when the strongest neighbor offered a MPP, I gladly signed on. The next turn, they were attacked, and I ended up going to war with a country I had just ended a war with. Since I was in Democracy, there was massive war weariness immediately. I couldn't stop the rioting without increasing luxury spending to like 50%. I gave up and decided to switch to Republic. 6 turns of anarchy. Finally, I get to Republic. War weariness is still a problem, and research is getting so slow that I might lose the space race. So, I sue for peace. Stupidly, I decide to go back to Democracy. 6 turns of anarchy. Of course, I forgot my MPP partner was still at war, and the next turn, they get attacked and I'm back at war once again. Between the anarchy and war weariness induced civil disorder, I lost tons of money, several city improvements, and many turns of research.

MPP's are only useful for certain things. You have to realize that an MPP doesn't do what it's name implies - it doesn't buy you protection. Instead, they almost guarantee a war. The only time I use them now is when I want to go to war, and when I want the MPP partner's help in the war, or when I'm going for a diplo victory and want to make a civ gracious.

 

[dreamdeferred]

My experience with mpp comes from a recent game. Usually I avoid them because they drag my demo into wars that give me a lot of ww and no tangible benefits. However, this game I played as the Germans and was on a continent with 5 other civs. I attacked the Americans to get rubber and coal, and then settled back to be a peaceful republic. However, Babylon wiped out the iroqouis and was huge, scientifically and culturally better than me and aggressive. The Romans were aggressive too, but less powerful than me or Babylon. All that sat between my Borders and Babylon, was peaceful India. I didn't want India to get swallowed, (being the only surviving civ I hadn't warred with, and a good trading partner), so I signed and MPP, gave them techs to advance their units, and used a ROP to attack Babylon through the Indian buffer. Once India was at war with Babylon, they attacked India first, and I helped roll them back out of India's territory. Their army was huge. But my mpp with India served me well, because after pillaging the Babylonian landscape, helping myself to a few cities, and destroying some others, they were ready to make peace. (Oh, and I had destroyed Rome, somewhere in there.) They never messed with me again.

 

[Puzzlinon]

I never sign an incoming offer. I sometimes, not very often, initiate one, usually to counter an MPP that the AI's have concocted among themselves. If I'm ready to invade a neighbor, and it signs an MPP with a monster civ further away, I'll do the same with that monster's strongest neighbor before I invade. And sometimes you have to leave some bait to get an attack against your territory; that isn't difficult but if you forget, you can get bushwhacked.

Cross continent stuff, usually; if you can create a bloodbath across the ocean as part of a war you meant to have anyway on your own land, that can be a help - you don't want powerful AI's enjoying peace while you're slogging through a mid-period war; they outdevelop you in a new york minute.

I don't use MPP's to bring civs into a war against a strong rival; I think it's better to buy an alliance for that. Start the war with a strong city grab, and then offer the far-side neighbors money to join an alliance (if you're prepared to fight that long.) It's a lot less entangling and unpredictable than getting into MPP's with several small civs.

I think a rule of thumb is that with MPP's and alliances you get what you pay for. If it's free, it's probably not to your advantage.

 

[dreamdeferred]

"I think a rule of thumb is that with MPP's and alliances you get what you pay for. If it's free, it's probably not to your advantage."

Depends on how you can take advantage of the situation, I'd say my rule of thumb is.

 

[Norlamand]

I rarely use MPP's. I find that I end up being sucked into petty squabbles too often. I tend to be more of a builder than a war monger though. I prefer trade and peaceful expansion and so avoid "entangling alliances". If I get attacked, or do the attacking, I'll enter into MA's to get some help. I just prefer to be in control of when I get into a war......the MPP always seems to get triggered when I least want to be at war....