two games in a row, backstabbed by my closest friends

[moshi]

i'm talking allies who are coreligionists and fellow members of the overcouncil, not to mention sharing "good" alignment coming after me when surrounded by evil heathens who would make much more logical targets for the AI. am i just unlucky? is this an orbis thing? (i don't remember dealing with this in base FfH and friendly AIs declaring war you just flat out didn't happen in BtS).i read on these forums about scripted wars, i'm wondering if there's a chance that's what's at work here, first game i was hippus and my buddy beeri bawl came after me, and in my current game i'm the amurites and the elohim and scions just DoW'd in the same turn.

suggestion time:
even if these wars aren't the result of scripting, i'd like an option to disable all scripted wars in the custom game screen. to me they seem to violate the basic spirit of the game and take the emphasis off of playing a strong diplomatic game.

second, there should be serious consequences for the aggressor when attacking a fellow overcouncil member, for obvious reasons. i'd like to see an immediate vote to expel the aggressor for a set turn limit, with a trade embargo and hefty diplomatic penalty ("you attacked a fellow council member")

 

[Opera]

Probably because many leaders have a 'prob NOT to go to war when pleased' at 90 instead of 100. So I think you've been unlucky; (to consider: even if they were Friendly, they may have decided to declare war when they were Pleased)

I'm hoping to change that in LENA and, eventually, Ahwaric will import my changes

 

[Ahwaric]

What Opera said. Also, this is base FfH thing, trust me.

 

[Pazyryk]

My experience is that having a strong army is the single most important factor in avoiding DoW by the AI, much more important than relations. Another way (I think) is to have defense treaty with someone who has strong army. I always build army until it starts to hurt financially (unless I'm trying to lure an AI to DoW on me) and I haven't had an unexpected DoW on me in many many games. Good relations helps in trade, open borders, and allowing treaties (which might save you), but do not by themselves protect an undefended empire. We can argue whether this is realistic (or fun), but that is the way it seems to work.

However, all bets are off for Ffh patch h/i. I'm playing immortal difficulty and I simply can't make a big enough army to deter AI. Got attacked around turn 200 by ~20 vampires that were summoning skeletons every turn. I held that off with hoards of orc axemen. Then, about turn 250, the Sheiam came after me with ~60 pyre zombies plus 20 adepts all summoning skeletons. The only reason I lived is that I saw it coming 20 tiles away. I didn't know for sure they were coming for me but had to prepare any way. I pillaged all the roads to slow them and double built wolf riders for the whole 20 turns, plus a couple AV priests. It was a very close battle. I was forced to attack again and again with units barely healed from previous attacks (no insta-heal from vanilla Ffh priests). I love it. Can't wait for Ahwaric to include these AI updates in Orbis...