Military Alliance Bug

GeneralTacticus · April 4, 2002, 22:15

I've noticed in a couple of my games that the premature ending of alliances can have very weird effects.

Example 1:
I was Romans, on Warlord level, in the Middle Ages. 8 Civs, Standard map, continents. Well, I stumbled across the Chinese on an island by themselves. I was friendly with them, gave them a ROP and all that. Later I gave them contact with the other Civs. Later still, they landed an elite swordsman next to one of my cities (without me knowing about it), and then sneak attacked. The swordman was killed, and I then launched my legions against China. I already had a legion and a settler sailing down to build a city in the unclaimed area of the island, and I called up others. Wtih some minor help from the Germans, I was able to conquer the whole of China except Hangchow, then made peace.

Some time later, the Germans declared war on me totally out of the blue. This lost me my source of Dyes, and cut off the flow of Gems from my cities to in China and the other luxuries to China. I was very pissed and got all the Civs that knew of Germany (Egypt, Greece, Aztecs and China) to join me and declare war. The Germans sent about 9 units against Nuremburg, which had defected to me, but that was it. Over the next 20-30 turns I rolled over Germany and took everything except for some cities the Aztecs got.
As soon as Germany was gone, the Chinese became furious with me and suddenly they were at war with me. They didn't even declare it, they just suddenly were. I rolled up at Hangchow with a few more legions and that was that.

Example 2:
I'm Germany, playing on the Imperialism map from Civ 3.com. I started on the central continent, and eventually built a city on the northern one occupied by the Aztecs and Romans. I had a ROP with the Aztecs, but with about 11 turns to go on it they started moving soldiers down around Dortmund (the city on their continent). I wasn't concerned about this until they attacked me and took the city. I then reloaded and tried to stop the war by giving the Aztecs gold per turn. That didn't work, so instead I reloaded again and beefed up the city defense. They still attacked, and would have got the city, but I made a deal with Caesar to attack the Aztecs and his legions killed the guys outside Dortmund.
The war went on for a while, but then the Aztecs suddenly called me up and offered some very generous peace terms (peace + Music theory plus some gold - that was THEM paying). I accepted, but them immediately afterwards Caesar was furious with me and at war. I then signed a military alliance with Montezuma (very oddly, he now went from Furious to Polite), and proceeded to wipe the Romans off the map.

While I was typing all this I realized what was probably why. In both these cases I tied the alliance to a peace treaty. As the alliance disappears when you make peace or destroy the enemy, the peace treay went with it.
Lesson learned: If you intend to end alliances before they end, don't tie them to deals you want to keep (e.g., ROPs, peace treaties, trade deals etc.).

ixnay · April 4, 2002, 23:10

I think just the mere act of bailing out of an alliance before the 20 turns are up will tick off anyone you've got an alliance with and make them more predisposed to attack you.

GeneralTacticus · April 4, 2002, 23:28

Yeah, I know, but they never actually attacked or declared war, they just suddenly were at war. And I think this is because the alliance was signed with a peace treaty, so that when the alliance was broken or no longer needed, so was the peace treaty.

ixnay · April 4, 2002, 23:31

Ah, I see. That would make sense. I've never actually done that before, but it would make sense that early cancellation of the alliance would cancel the peace treaty.

Inverse Icarus · April 5, 2002, 03:55

thats not a bug, that's how they work.

if you say you're going to have an alliance vs a civ you have to end it diplomatically with the civ you MADE it with, before you go ahead and stop fighting.

"No Churchill, we signed a peace treaty with Hitler three turns ago"

Inverse Icarus · April 5, 2002, 03:56

ixnay: you never done anything like that?

it's real fun to make a civ pay 10 gold per turn for a peace treaty, and then they come up and say "we want peace but can only pay x amount of gold"

GeneralTacticus · April 5, 2002, 20:24

Quote:

thats not a bug, that's how they work. if you say you're going to have an alliance vs a civ you have to end it diplomatically with the civ you MADE it with, before you go ahead and stop fighting.

"No Churchill, we signed a peace treaty with Hitler three turns ago"

Well yeah, but this also crops up if you DESTROY the Civ you're fighting against before the 20 turns are up. And this could get very annoying when the AI in question is stronger than you, as they won't talk for some time after declaring war. Oddly, once they are willing to talk they will often pay you for peace even when you're in no position to hurt them.

bigvic · April 5, 2002, 22:42

I still wish you could build logical coalitions. I hate these wwf style cage matches that the AI inevitably devalves into.

GeneralTacticus · April 6, 2002, 21:06

Quote:

I still wish you could build logical coalitions. I hate these wwf style cage matches that the AI inevitably devalves into.

A way to do this might be to give names to individual treaties and make it possible for more than 2 Civs to join. Another could be to say that a Civ that has MPPs with multiple Civs and has to declare war on one can choose which one or stay out (sorry guys, our MPP with the French precludes us from helping you.).

bigvic · April 6, 2002, 22:21

I still hearken back to smac, where you can ask your buddy to "call off your vendetta" against somebody, and more than one can win. Makes the whole diplomatic experience feel more genuine. It also feels nice to have a real friend. Makes you feel all fuzzy and warm inside as you and your buddies ruthlessly destroy your enemies.