I was playing a game in regent. Did quite well, I knocked out the Iriquois second city and every time they built a new one, I knocked that one out, made peace and took all their money. Eventually I had about 2 pikemen per city defending when the german's attacked and took two of my cities with about 15 horsemen. Then the Romans jumped in, followed by the egyptians and greeks. They ALL allied against me and relentlessly attacked with inferior units and overwhelming odds and lost unit after unit while slowly wearing down my pikemen. I took a couple of their cities trying to get peace, but they wouldn't make peace. Finally they made peace when I took 4 german cities with some knights, then they declared war on me a few turns later. I gave up since there was no way I could keep up being beaten on 5 to 1. I can't stand this game when you are teamed up on by the AI. Its really unfair, its the one thing about the AI I can't take. Now I've learned my lesson, I'm going to start trading with the AI as soon as I can, even though they never give you good deals, to establish good relations with them and I'm going to build equal offensive and defensive units. It sucks when you have 3 pikemen in a city and one in another deep in your territory and you can't prevent the AI from waltzing up to your weak city and taking it out.
Preventing AI from ganging up on you
- Thread starter JayDee
- Start date
Did you have embassies established with the attacking Civs? It is likely they had an MA or MPP against you, which would explain why they redeclared against you after peace. The best way to prevent the AI from ganging up against you is to gang up against them by signing other Civs against your enemy. When the AI smells blood in the water they swarm like sharks, trying to grab a piece.
Grille
panel insect
Did you (auto)raze Iroquois towns?
Also, did you break any treaties, e.g. peace treaty w/ Iros?
If so, all ai civs like to gang up on you, even if your military is strong.
In general, having a strong military, keeping a good reputation and attitude related action (trades...) does prevent from being attacked by ai civs.
MPP-they can't sign such against you; if you meant alliance, read above
Catt
Emperor
Trading is good, but sometimes not enough. If an AI declares war and you determine that additional AIs piling on would cause you problems, it is very often worthwhile to go out and actively seek alliances against your enemy -- the idea is not necessarily to secure any help in defeating the enemy, rather, it is to try and "buy" other civs onto your side just so your enemy can't do the same to you. I've had an alliance partner make peace with the enemy before our twenty-turn alliance ended and then immediately declare war on me in an alliance with the enemy (truly a dastardly ally) but that is a pretty rare occurence - usually an alliance will secure at best a strong and powerful ally and at worst a "neutral" neighbor that won't join in the fight against you.
BTW, you need embassies for military alliances, so early embassy establishment can pay off big in the early game at the higher levels when your foes are often much more powerful than you. If a "gang up" on you could cause problems, kick your diplomacy into high gear and secure a "gang up" on your foe.
Hamilcar Barca
Chieftain
Whenever the buggers declare war on me (which is frequent) I try to make sure that i enlist the help of one or two civs which border my enemies country thus dividing their forces. Plus there is nothing to stop you signing MMP with nations that have one with a potential enemy of yours. That way when you are attacked they are forced to join you even if they have an agreement with your attackee because they attacked you. Just make sure you are the one you are not the one to start the war. In a recent game I was being attacked by Russia, i knew that they had an MMP with the scandinavians because they were allied in a war against one of my allies. So I signed one too and in the next turn Russia attacked one of my ships, hey presto Scandinavia declare war on the Russians!! Hoorah!!
JayDee: I'm slightly confused. You talk about pikemen defending against AI horsemen and the AIs having mpp. There is about 1 age of difference between the units and the ability to mpp. 
Why don't you just defend with muskets/riflemen and counterattack with cavalry? You should be able to fight them all.
Why don't you just defend with muskets/riflemen and counterattack with cavalry? You should be able to fight them all.
I had this happen to me in one of my earlier games - the dreaded dog-pile effect. Whenever I would make peace with one, the rest of the coalition would buy him back in.
The trick is to make peace with all of them at once and break the vicious cycle. Hamilcar Barca and Catt's suggestions to buy them into alliances with you also helps, although you rarely have enough money to do that if the dog-pile has been going on for so long.
In the game I described, despite an effective "Always War" scenario, I didn't get a GL until 1700. As the Mongols.
The trick is to make peace with all of them at once and break the vicious cycle. Hamilcar Barca and Catt's suggestions to buy them into alliances with you also helps, although you rarely have enough money to do that if the dog-pile has been going on for so long.
In the game I described, despite an effective "Always War" scenario, I didn't get a GL until 1700. As the Mongols.
yep, I made a boo boo. Also, there was no saltpeter on my land at that time, so no musketmen for me. Well I started a new game and I traded with all of the AI players, and offered some of them gold until they were all polite towards me, then I declared war on one civ and they are all still polite towards me, well, except for the civ I declared war on. I check their attitude towards me every few turns and if it changes I try to trade with them, or give them gold. I may seek a military alliance as some of you suggested, but I am always afraid the other civ will end up with some of my potential new cities. So far I've received 2 great leaders from a few simple attacks which allowed me to rush some wonders and really get ahead of the AI. Are militaristic civs more likely to receive great leaders? I'm playing as Japan.
Grille
panel insect
No. Promotion chances are doubled for militaristic civs, relative to non-militaristic civs (see f.a.q for details).
Chance to get a GL:
elite attacks - 1:16 (1:12 if you have Heroic Epic)
elite defends - 1:32 (1:24 w/ H.E.)
edit: well, if you gain more elites by being militaristic, you will expect more leaders,
so:
*Yes*.
Did you start that beginning war with Iriquois? Alot of times a warlike attitude will definitely look bad and cause most civs to hate you. It hurts your reputation thats for sure. Unless you end up at war from defending yourself. If you did start that war hopefully you had an MPP with another civ or even an alliance or good relations with most other civs?
Try getting an MPP with a powerful nation before starting a war, then they all won't be able to gang up on you like that.
Grille
panel insect
I second that, but be sure to face the difference between reputation and attitude. The reputation stays fine, when your war is *honorable*, i.e. not starting war while breaking actual deals, units on enemy territory or razing cities.
The attitude, of course, can become bad by war mongering. On the other hand, the attitudes of allies towards you even increases when you both fight the same enemy.
Peter Harris
Warlord
Although I am no expert on the diplomacy I do not get dogpiled because I follow a few simple rules with my diplomacy (mostly tips picked up from other players on the forums 
, thanks guys).
This could be summarised as:
1. always have friends (and treat them as such)
2. do not break an agreement (unless it allows you to become so strong you no longer need friends and do not care how many enemies you have)
3. limit the number of enemies (do not go about attacking everyone, be selective and destroy your enemy before picking a fight with someone else)
Always establish embassies early because this improves AI attitudes thus reducing the chances of someone attacking you (this also makes it more likely that your potential adversary will hate someone else more than he hates you ). This also enables you to buy alliances/MPPs when you are attacked.
Always trade for profit AND improved relations. If you have some resource or luxury for which there is no buyer then consider giving it free to one of the weaker or middling civilisations to butter up a "future ally". Even consider giving away a tech or map to your weaker friends. (You could give it to a strong civ as a grovel but that may strengthen them and thus perhaps actually increase the possibility they will attack). Better relationships seem to make it easier and cheaper to get an alliance.
As soon as you are attacked ring up your friends and ask for alliances. Enter as many alliances as you can afford.
So far as I can tell the cost of an alliance seems to be affected by:
- your relations with your potential ally
- your potential allies relations with your enemy
- number of civs already at war with your enemy
- aggression level of your potential ally (Shaka is usually willing)
- relative strength of ally versus your enemy
- relative strength of enemy versus your total alliance strength
I first ring either the Zulu's/Germans or anyone gracious to get a quote. I shop around to compare prices, buy the cheapest first then the others. The price seems to decline after you buy the first ally. If my purse can stand it I ally with EVERYONE. (You bribe with techs/maps/luxuries/resources too). If I can not afford that I need to make judgements about value for money. If my enemy has a MPP with someone then I like to ally with the MPP partner immediately otherwise I hold off on attacking.
When at war always send at least a few troops even if only to pillage a few squares, this helps allies attitudes and seems to keep them in the war longer.
, thanks guys).This could be summarised as:
1. always have friends (and treat them as such)
2. do not break an agreement (unless it allows you to become so strong you no longer need friends and do not care how many enemies you have)
3. limit the number of enemies (do not go about attacking everyone, be selective and destroy your enemy before picking a fight with someone else)
Always establish embassies early because this improves AI attitudes thus reducing the chances of someone attacking you (this also makes it more likely that your potential adversary will hate someone else more than he hates you
). This also enables you to buy alliances/MPPs when you are attacked.Always trade for profit AND improved relations. If you have some resource or luxury for which there is no buyer then consider giving it free to one of the weaker or middling civilisations to butter up a "future ally". Even consider giving away a tech or map to your weaker friends. (You could give it to a strong civ as a grovel but that may strengthen them and thus perhaps actually increase the possibility they will attack). Better relationships seem to make it easier and cheaper to get an alliance.
As soon as you are attacked ring up your friends and ask for alliances. Enter as many alliances as you can afford.
So far as I can tell the cost of an alliance seems to be affected by:
- your relations with your potential ally
- your potential allies relations with your enemy
- number of civs already at war with your enemy
- aggression level of your potential ally (Shaka is usually willing)
- relative strength of ally versus your enemy
- relative strength of enemy versus your total alliance strength
I first ring either the Zulu's/Germans or anyone gracious to get a quote. I shop around to compare prices, buy the cheapest first then the others. The price seems to decline after you buy the first ally. If my purse can stand it I ally with EVERYONE. (You bribe with techs/maps/luxuries/resources too). If I can not afford that I need to make judgements about value for money. If my enemy has a MPP with someone then I like to ally with the MPP partner immediately otherwise I hold off on attacking.
When at war always send at least a few troops even if only to pillage a few squares, this helps allies attitudes and seems to keep them in the war longer.
It is unlikely for AIs to attack you if they are engaged in an active war. I usually single out a distance world power as a "black sheep" (in the same continent), declare war on them and have all my neighbours to join in, usually they would be happy to with 25g/turn (never pay for a military alliance with a lump sum or resources!). Thats way, your good neighbours will be protecting you while weakening themselves fighting a world power. After twenty turn, you can then cancel all of the alliances and attack your weakest neighbour. It works everytime.
Darkness
Shadow creature
Which can also get you into a huge mess, if your ally is attacked by another civ, like your very powerful neighbour.....
The problem with MPP's is that you often get dragged into wars you don't want and/or are not ready to fight, which is why I'm extremely hesitant to sign MPP's...
