The joy of permanent alliances

[SES-Eugene]

Is this the best strategy now for an all conquest game on Noble and above? At Noble, I am always like middle ranked among 7 civs and there is really no way I can conquer everyone due to tech differences.

My strategy now is to go all out to please the top civilization, most of the time its America, fight a mutual war with them, take their religion, etc etc and keep talking to them, hoping one day the "Permanent Alliance" deal would finally change from red to white.

And when it finally does change to white, I click on it, agree on it and whoosh, I am now ranked 2nd and together we can now conquer the world.

Am I being too risk averse here and does this strategy works for difficulty levels above Noble?

 

[Oinz]

It works you just have to have a defense pact first for a long while.

 

[FenrysWulf]

Anytime I've ever had a defensive pact they canceled it the moment I got in a war. Once they even cancelled when someone attacked them, although I was still drawn into the war.

 

[BadAndy]

That's what defense pacts do...if you declare war on a 3rd party, the pact is cancelled...

 

[SES-Eugene]

You don't always need a defensive pact, you can just fight a mutual war with them for "long enough". On my last game, I bribed the Americans to fight the Russians with me and keep refusing to make peace with the Russians.

After about 10-20 turns, I could then make a perm alliance with America.

 

[Sega Fanatic]

Just remember, Permanent Alliances are only available under 'Custom Game', and you have to turn the option on. Would hate to see you butter up a civ all game and then realise you can't get PA cause you didnt activate it.

 

[Fabius]

I had a defense pact with Germany in one game, and Huyana Capac declared war on me. I was miffed when I saw right before that Germany cancelled their pact with me. I figured the Incans bribed Germany to abandon me right before the declaration went out. I mean, the two were back to back in my log:

Germany cancels defensive pact with you
The Incan empire declares war on you

I was going to head over to the German ambassador to read him the riot act when I saw "Permanent Alliance" was white. So I clicked it, being the adventurous sort, and he joined me and we waged war on the Incans together. Not sure how that works, but if you have a pact with someone and it gets cancelled, check, maybe cancelling the defensive pact is the AI's way of telling you they're ready to move in with you.

 

[Vulpes]

I had a defense pact with Germany in one game, and Huyana Capac declared war on me. I was miffed when I saw right before that Germany cancelled their pact with me. I figured the Incans bribed Germany to abandon me right before the declaration went out. I mean, the two were back to back in my log:

It's been said a million times - defensive pacts are cancelled when you go to war - ie when they 'activate'. So the next message after the Incans declaring war on you should be the Germans declaring war on the Incans.