should i trust alexander?

[sabutai]

i have him isolated on half of the land, confined to about 3 cities, i have cyrus on the other side with the same amount blocking expansion

alexander is acting chummy, but no matter what i do cyrus isnt pleased with me cuz i wont betray alexander...who do i trust...i dont wanna go fight cyrus, only to have alexander attack me cuz he has nowhere to go and vise versa..i am dominating the score so i would assume cyrus would be scared and buddy up to me and let me kill alexander, but now i dont know who to destroy

i intended to kill alexander first, but cyrus wont get pleased with me enough to feel safe to do so

 

[Giaur]

Destroy Alex. Cyrus is peaceful.

 

[sabutai]

hmm you better be right

here goes nothin

lol i was waiting on a reply to make my next move

 

[KMadCandy]

and because of course there must always be an opposing opinion *giggle* ...

i've never had a problem with alex if i put the effort into buddying up with him. i've seen lots of people say they have, so apparently he can be quite a brat. it's quite likely that i'm just lucky, and that maps/how close he is/what he had for dinner that day/other factors have helped my luck.

programming-wise, alex is much more likely to declare war at all, backstab, and declare war at pleased. so as usual don't go by what i say

 

[sabutai]

oh, the poor lad is doomed..i didnt know about if they are predisposed to anything...but i just didnt trust him, neither does cyrus

so at least my back will be totally clear when he is gone, and i can then punish cyrus freely for his sauce and not accepting my religion

 

[PublicEnemy]

Alex will attack if he senses you have a weak military even if he's pleased.

If you want to attack Cyrus make sure Alex knows that you're not to be messed with, keep your military strong.

Thinking about it, just attack Alex and be done with him!

 

[r_rolo1]

Never, but NEVER, trust Alex... He's a sligthy less mad Monty, what is even worse: normally he will wait until you are weak or look like it ( leaving a metal mine unguarded is a too big temptation for him...), and his stack will "visit" you, and, because he is less mad than Monty his army is normally a better one.
On the other hand, give space and time to Cyrus.... nah. In Warlords, normally his cities are quite big and he is one of the best AI doing the balance between Tech and Army = Is a mid-late game pain in the (edited).
In resume, kill both, but start with Alex.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Alex needs to be friendly before you can consider yourself safe. But he can be a useful ally - just always make sure he is busy. Bribe him to attack Cyrus. Then go to war yourself when you are ready. He will get positive bonuses from sharing a war.

The trick with Alex and the other aggressive AIs is to never let them stay idle (unless you are considerably stronger than them). They will attack someone, so bribe them into attacking someone else.

If you bottle him into three cities, he isn't going to be a long term threat - once you run out of opponents to attack together you should easily be able to take him on.

 

[enigmagic]

Alex has almost caused me to quit my current game. My own fault as I neglected my military a little and he sent over a huge stack of cavalry and zeroed in on my holy city. My machine gunners did pretty well but they couldn't take on that many and I lost the city.

So yeah, go for Alex and give him a kick in the shins from me while you're at it.