Best ally to have

[AMD4EVER]

The last three games I have played were won and lost based on the allies that I had and two of the three times I had great allies. Zakharov fought side by side with my warriors to defeat the growing Believer threat that would had destroyed us both individually but together we triumphed. Morgan supplied me with technology while I was stuck on a small island away from the main continent which eventually led to me moving in on the main continent and destroying his enemy, the Hive. And then of course there is the Peacekeepers who were supposidly going to help me fight off the Spartans when all three of us were stuck on an island but instead turned on me and let Santiago move in and take a great deal of both of our lands.

What I learned from these three games is the true importance of having at least one faction to depend on no matter what. So I thought about all the games I've played and tried to pick out the best ally of them all. Being that I only have SMAC, I'd say the best of the seven factions to have as an ally is Morgan. He is both peaceful, rich, and technologically powerful near the mid parts of the game. Generally you can depend on him sticking by your side as long as your running FM and he gives out techs far easier than any other faction by generally selling them for a mere 100 energy credits. His army is usually not much to look at and he is usually in danger of being over run throughout most of the game though. But despite his one weakness I think he is the ally I'd most like to have on my side if the game was on the line.

What faction does everyone here most like to be allied with?

[UnityScoutChopper]

There are two fundamentally different kinds of allies: normal allies and submissive allies, and my answer would depend on which kind is in consideration.

For normal allies, yes, Morgan is probably the top. I would place Roze second, Cyber-lady third, and Deirdre fourth, although it's a close race. If I'm not running FM, then Morgan falls from the top of course, losing out by far to the Demo-lovers, because I will always run Demo (or Frontier). If the tech-poor nations cannot expand or easily contact other nations, however, they can be cash cows in that you can sell them outdated techs as fast as they can make money to buy them. Even at 25 EC a tech, it's not a bad cash flow.

Submissives: Zak. End of story.

USC

[CEO Aaron]

Since I'm usually playing Morgan, I can't rely on having him around as an ally. When I've been able to secure a truce with the Peacekeepers, and I can stay in Democracy, they've done fairly well by me, though if you can pact early with Miriam, and stay on her good side by running fundie and feeding her tech, she'll wipe the floor with anyone having the temerity to attack you.

[joncnunn]

Agreed about Zack being the best Submissive ally to have. (At least if your planning on winning by Transcedence)

Any worthless base you conquer, give to Zack, he'll place a free Network Node on it, which after you have the Cyber Network, and increase your income both from the commerece and from the Cyber Network itself.

[HeymlicH]

Originally posted by UnityScoutChopper
Submissives: Zak. End of story.

correct in many cases. But there are two ways to deal with submissives.
1. Let him research and fight yourself (of cause you want to research, too). In this case you're right.

2. do the research alone and let the sub fight. In this case you need a strong ally. That means you will give her some of your cities. Santiago is great for this. If you provide the techs she can crush the other leaders easily.


For a non submissive ally I would only choose Morgan or Zak. Both are relyable.

[Jac de Molay]

Originally posted by AMD4EVER

What faction does everyone here most like to be allied with?

Anybody that puts themselves between me and a faction like the Hive or believers that's pissed off at me. I don't like fighting wars until the early-mid game when synthetic fossil fuels and plasma come into play.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by HeymlicH
2. do the research alone and let the sub fight. In this case you need a strong ally. That means you will give her some of your cities. Santiago is great for this. If you provide the techs she can crush the other leaders easily.

While I understand that submissives rarely if ever, turn on you, there is something that makes me vaguely nervous about the AI having a bigger/stronger military that me.

[Mead]

Originally posted by Flubber



While I understand that submissives rarely if ever, turn on you, there is something that makes me vaguely nervous about the AI having a bigger/stronger military that me.

I agree.

Once I had Zak as a submissive until someone framed me for tech probing Zak.

Fortunately I had the military (and all the tech he gave me before he turned on me), and I was able to recover.

If the roles were reversed and I was militarily reliant on him things could have got ugly.

If you are going to use submissives, think about placing some probe units in their exposed bases so that your enemies are not able to tech steal from your submissive (or turn the submissive against you). You may also want to supplement their defenses with your own military units if you can spare them.


Mead

[Certhas]

I always play Zak and I need militarily strong allies, who are also peacefull to me.
My best games were if I could get Deidre as an ally (see my horribly inefficient (but beautifull) thinker game thread), of course this rules out using Free Market but I found that I usually don't need it to secure my tech lead anyways.
Morgans are nice but as I'm not any military help for most of the game, he is to weak for me, deidres strong first half of the game gives me the time to set the grounds for a triumphant finale.

[Lazerus]

Yang when hes got the monsoon jungle. Give him airpower and bye bye every other AI. Annoying thing is though he tends to backstab you after hes killed everyone so beat him into submissive first.

[Marid Audran]

Yang or Miriam are nice to have as allies; that way you can stave off war with them, as repealing the pact is first required in consul, before declaring war.

As far as serious pactmates go, I always found the PKs to be fine allies. Everyone has horror stories about Lal and his perfidy but I've never run into it and typically have good relations with the old surgeon.

Runners-up: Aki (Cyborgs) and Dee (Gaians).

[HeymlicH]

Originally posted by Flubber



While I understand that submissives rarely if ever, turn on you, there is something that makes me vaguely nervous about the AI having a bigger/stronger military that me.

I do this alot, since I'm too lazy to move all these military units (too busily moving the formers ). It works quite well.

Regarding the subs declaring war on you: I know of only one verified mechanism allowing this, and this one requires a second ally. So, the solution is obvious I don't know about the thing with the probe teams, but you can give the HS to Santiago. You don't need it yourself.

[Skanderbeg]

For my opinion, best allies are Zak, Roze and Aki, who can provide You with techn

But I have made the experience that it is very dangerous to be allied with stronger factions, because they benefit more from the pact than yourself.
Because of this, they will become faster stronger (correct English? ) than You.

When You change Your SE choices to something they don't like, or if You pass them in the powergraph,they will turn on You.

Because of this I prefer to be pacted with weaker factions. And when I am strong enough later, I will turn on them

[Impaler[WrG]]

Stronger Faster (modifiing adjitive comes second)

I rairly find that this is the case though, I mind aliances not too be signifinatly help the larger party, perhaps you are being too nice in your Aliances and giving them a tecnology every time they want one. Dont do this, they rairly preak the Aliance when you refuse a tec, just make shure you Vendetta anyone who attacks them, this will keep the Aliance intact.

I find that pacts of servitude are not very usefull, by the time they are offered the AI has 1 city left and it would just be simpler to wipe them out (I play with dont restart eliminated factions) and get points for the Elimination. Further more I dont have to listen to their anoying little messages for the rest of the game and I can always make that last city more productive then the AI could. Lastly I dont get any integrity penalty by breaking my word. I Vendetta them and reject all please for merchy.

[Flubber]

Impaler

Many people will give bases to their submissive pactmate so they are a decent researcher- combine this with giving them some tech and they can get a lot of stuff for you-- its also handy to dump crappy bases on them and get a trade benefit rather than trying to micromanage more and more bases. There is no fear in giving them tech . .. In fact I have played games where I routinely gave my submissive all my tech and our pairing outstrips the pack even quicker than I could do alone

[HeymlicH]

Yep. But don't forget to force the sub to declare war on all factions not belonging to your alliance (to make sure they don't sell your techs to the enemy )

[Chaos Theory]

Even then, they may cave to another faction's offer of tech for peace.

[DilithiumDad]

Morgan is a great ally to have, for all the reasons already mentioned plus two more: long-term loans and commerce. Morgan loves to give loans, becuase it helps him in his ultimate goal of economic victory. I usually get a loan at first contact, then pay it off and get a bigger loan later to finish either Tree Farms or Hybrid Farms. If you use your loan to pay off these facilities (or even Energy banks) you can easily use your increased income to make the loan payments --the rest is profit for you!

Morgan gets a commerce bonus, of course, but you'll be getting mreo commerce income through pairings with his high-energy bases than you woul dform any other faction. Later on, you can easily get say more in commerce from gifting him a base far from your HQ than could ever hope to get yourslef.

[Impaler[WrG]]

By that point I have usaly pumped my Efficiency very very high as I use Peace Keepers or Gaians and usaly run, Decomcracy, Green or FM, Knowlage and Eudonomia. Your probly right that I could make more Energy with the trade though. I guess I am just stingy and hold a Grudge against the AI.

[Mead]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
Stronger Faster (modifiing adjitive comes second)

***

I find that pacts of servitude are not very usefull, by the time they are offered the AI has 1 city left and it would just be simpler to wipe them out

***

I usually like to keep them even as a single base submissive ally. They then come in handy in when it comes to elections. Not the elections for governor or supreme leader where their tiny population base helps only a little, rather elections concerning solar shade, global treaty, and (Yang's favorite) prohibitions on atrocities.

If I am governor I can prevent anything from happening so long as I have at least one other vote I can count on. It also helps getting the things I want passed done.

I like having them as a submissive so much that I will often gift a safe base or two to a threatened AI faction and then garrison it enough to keep it safe.

Mead

[HeymlicH]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
Even then, they may cave to another faction's offer of tech for peace.

No. Never. If you tell them to declare war on a specific faction they will never work out a peace treaty again. However, if the Sub is at war with a faction and you don't tell them to declare war, they can make peace. So make sure you tell them to declare war to each faction, even if they already are ...

[AMD4EVER]

The Cybernetic Consciousness has been a good ally to me since I bought the SMAX expansion. I've played and finished three games now and in all of them I've started on a different island from the CC but we always end up fighting side by side against the final threat to our survival. I've never been in a vendette or even a truce with them. They seem extremely cooperative and their tech really comes in handy!

The Free Drones are evil!!!!! I always though they were supposed to be good guys but they are not and holy cow are they powerful!!!