Being the Pathetic-newbie-that-I-am. I have a question for ya'll smart people.

Ya see, I can(sometimes) ally with people. Now, I play MOO2 also, and in that game, Alliances are worthless, easily smashed and generally not a good idea if you want to stay out of war-with-everybody(because your "ally" will never help ya out)

I digress.

Anyway, this is my background for my thoughts on Civ:2 Alliances. Why ally with anybody? The few times I've done it, the other guy immediately demanded things, I refused...TA DA! I'm at war with him.

Now, up to this point we'd been sorta close(as far as civs can be. Meaning we weren't at each others throats every turn, ever since I nabbed one of his cities)

So....what's everybodies thoughts on Alliances?

I'm with you, like2frolick; I can't see the worth of alliances. I know people here will answer by talking about the advantage of being able to demand tribute, and I've even made that work in my only OCC game; but in a regular game, they just seem like too much trouble, and aren't alliances at all but instead something liek the Hitler-Stalin Non-Agression Pact. You know the bastards are going to turn on you; why pretend? Plus, even when I give out gifts until I'm blue in the face, it seems nearly impossible (at higher levels, anyway) to get a strong civ to ally with me; weak civs are more eager, but they're the ones I want to conquor, not protect. No, George Washington said it best: make no entangling alliances!

Of course, if I knew what I was talking about I'd be playing at Diety by now...

Playing MP with other humans, however, is entirely different. Alliances, in that case, can be splendid things.

1. Allies are a source of regular gold through gifts.

2. Allies allow the exchange, or even gifting, of techs you need. By giving them your techs if you are more advanced than they are (which is usually the case with humans much superior to the AI), it will also reduce the number of beakers required to research new techs.

2 players that can start working together early will quickly dominate any game unless a counter alliance is formed.Tech leapfrogging is the main thing here.There are many techniques that can be used.Gifting or trading units.Maps.Cities.Wonders.All this must be discussed pre-game as to what will be allowed and what won't.Otherwise the game will end with one side or the other feeling cheated.

Later on, after you've expanded, a lot of civs will be too close to make an alliance practicable but there may well still be remote civs. If you're not going to attack them for a while why not be allied? You can certainly manipulate diplomacy with the aid of alliances. If your ally is at war with a neighbour and the time comes you want a causus belli you probably need do no more than speak to the ally. He tells you to attack the evil neighbour and you oblige. Gets round senate interference handily.

A drawback to allying with a near neighbour, for the perfectionist, is the licence it gives his settlers to wander all over your turf, sometimes disrupting your plans as to the location of cities.

And you can't seize use of an overlapped square from an ally.

But the opposite side to that coin is that if there is a civ located somewhere which you are not yet ready to overrun and which blocks access to territory into which you wish to expand you can seek an alliance so that your settlers can travel through their territory unconstrained by ZOC.

And maybe you want to establish a mountain eyrie or two inside an empire which will shortly go onto the hit list, to aid your military manoevres when you, shortly afterwards stab the erstwhile ally in the back.

An idea which works in SMAC is to get in touch with a small, remote faction and gift all your tech to it in the hope that it will attack and damage more powerful neighbours, drawing their military away from your own borders or just slowing them down. On one of my priodic returns to Civ2 I tried applying this idea but couldn't make it work. All that happened was that the gifted techs soon got into the hands of all my opponents.

No one would say that alliances are a big part of SP but IMO they have their uses.

No surprise at all to learn that they are a big part of MP.

quote: An idea which works in SMAC is to get in touch with a small, remote faction and gift all your tech to it in the hope that it will attack and damage more powerful neighbours, drawing their military away from your own borders or just slowing them down. On one of my priodic returns to Civ2 I tried applying this idea but couldn't make it work.

I'm in a game right now where i was able to use a variation on this tactic to my advantage. I was the mighty Vikings having just conquered the English. I found that the greeks had restarted about five squares away from one of my cities.

My most spectacular display of alliance loyalty was the same declaration of war against the sneak attack by a farther away civ. It was in the end game and the neighbouring ally, the Chinese, sent their Partisans and Howitzers (!) to my OCC city pattern and sacrificed themselves saving my city from the French Cruisers and Fighters.

quote: Originally posted by Like2frolick on 11-29-2000 11:45 PM Now, I play MOO2 also, and in that game, Alliances are worthless, easily smashed and generally not a good idea if you want to stay out of war-with-everybody(because your "ally" will never help ya out)

But lasting trade/research bonuses are nice - and if you don't make allies, they will all come after you. Also, play as the Humans, and you can easily win by alliances alone even at the highest difficulty setting.

OR I make an Alliance in order to set up bases inside the oppositions Empire and prepare for a Blitzkrieg attack(I love Offensive Alliances, all I have to do is be Telepathic, and use my fleets to hunt down his fleet before he hits me, and then sail about taking his empire away. It's SO easy....

But, for there function, Alliances are useless. Yeah, the other empire sometimes joins in a war, but even when they do, the other races rarely are even vaguely good at war.

Which brings me back to topic. The AI is much better at war in Civ:2 than it is at MOO:2 (well, No they aren't, but Civ:2's AI is more obvious about its attacks, I guess)