Getting forced into wars because we join an alliance is super annoying (show if would pull into war)

[wind jackal]

I get the logic, I think world wars could be very interesting, but having allies call allies call allies is just not fun to play with. I think a potential solution would be not joining in-progress wars and only joining defensive wars.

[smoky coyote]

I disagree. I think alliances should be a real commitment, and have benefits to match.

[wind jackal]

Counterpoint: I did literally nothing to them and have been at war for almost the entire antiquity age.

This keeps happening and it's just frustrating. I feel like you should be able to call allies into war at the cost of influence if it's a defensive war. I end so many alliances because my allies decide it's time to try to kill their neighbour for no reason and I'm sick of getting called to support them.

[wet canopy]

Agreed! You shouldn't HAVE to go to war with whoever your allies declare war on: It should be a choice..

[wind jackal]

Technically it is if you no longer want them as an ally. I think letting you spend tons of influence to avoid a war or maybe be able to take a supportive role would be a good way to help your ally without having to go war

[gloomy wasp]

In a way it's backwards, it could going to war with a civ and they have an ally, you should have the opportunity for a formal war against the ally. As it currently stands sending gold to you ally to help them with a war instead of joining should allow you to stay allied. Perhaps resources with military benefits should only included with trade routes to allies.

[remote dew]

Completely agree. I just decided to never ally anyone because of this. I don't really care if it makes sense or not, it's just super annoying.

[frosty blade]

Limiting alliance requirements to defense purposes, while being allowed to join a war without ending an alliance, ex. Would you accept a joint war against... X? ... maybe give alliances a point/honor system... the stronger your alliance is, the more alliance based perks you get, if the alliance is bad, example not sending troops to help an ally or failing to support war efforts (aid or war support tokens), etc, your alliance loses perk tiers and eventually just dissolves. Perks could include, more strength against common enemies, more influence points towards common mutual friends, ability to share each others vision, see what your ally is producing in cities, better relationships with your ally's friends, bonus yields to shared trade routes, +1 movement in ally territory, ability to give each other multiple war support tokens as opposed to just one, etc.

[wind jackal]

I really like this idea. Alliances now just feel like a defence pact with open borders. Gaining actual bonuses by being a good ally would be an excellent change. Maybe you could spend influence on unique endeavours to gain new perks, like one of them allows you to see their territory, or another that earns you extra money for trade routes

[pseudo valve]

I’ve written about establishing the difference between defensive and aggressive wars, and how alliances should function in both. I’ll give the short version here and then reply to the other interesting point.

Each war should have a defined aggressor and defender. Allies of each would join on the side of the main belligerents, keeping it to a single war. If either primary player takes peace, their allies may also choose to immediately make peace even if it has been fewer than 10 turns.

When your ally is the defender in a war, you are given three options via the diplomacy endeavor screen. Join war, spend no influence. Decline war but support ally, costs 60xAge and adds war support, alliance maintained. Decline, alliance broken.

When your ally is the aggressor, your options are: join war, no cost. Decline but support ally, 60xAge. Decline, no cost, maintain alliance, medium relationship penalty.

I love the idea of special endeavors between allies, and I think they should be leader specific. Cultural leaders should get the wonder construction endeavor for allies in every age. Diplomatic leaders could get an endeavor that scales off the total city state count for both players. Military leaders could get an endeavor that gives them a unique unit from the other player which if supported, gives both players a UU from one another and a unit production bonus. Economic leaders should get an endeavor to boost trade income. Scientific leaders should get an endeavor that boosts construction speed. Expansionist leaders could get an endeavor that increases settler production, or gives a percent boost to food sent to cities from towns.

[frosty blade]

Alliance based endeavors would make alliances way more interesting.

[wind jackal]

I'm discussing modding alliance based endeavors in the #modding-technical-discussion channel, so I may add them if it doesn't completely break the game

[wind jackal]

So far it looks like the Emile Bell will need to be deleted, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make

[pseudo valve]

I like the idea of alliances providing passive bonuses. The bonuses could be based on the type of the allied player. For instance, if your ally is an economic leader, it gives YOU an increase to trade income. If YOU are a scientific leader, it gives your ally a bonus towards producing buildings. It benefits a player who can make allies with different types of leaders.

@wind jackal maybe Emile bell could be reworked to provide the Ginsing Agreement benefit to all endeavors sent by the player who constructs it. So sending open markets would get you 4 gold and 6 food in the capital, and the other player gets 2 gold 3 food. This would incentivize other players to accept or support your deals more, since the benefits are greater.

[wind jackal]

Passive bonuses could definitely work. However, I do think certain things in the alliance should be similar to endeavors, such as a cost per turn to see the other player's units.

The Emile Bell would need to be modified as currently mods don't seem to support custom endeavors, with my idea being that the Emile Bell's endeavor is sacrificed to allow for endeavors exclusive to alliances

[pseudo valve]

See above, where I mentioned that you would be able to offer alliance-only endeavors based on your leader type. I am completely opposed to an endeavor for showing troop positions, unless you are able to decline for free. If I’m playing Machiavelli, I may want to hide my units before a backstab, for instance.

[undone jewel]

Agree soooo much - I think it would be fitting in Modern, but the current system means with enough civs you end up with endless war spirals in both other ages

[stray flame]

How about if you refuse to help them, instead of cancelling your alliance how about -20 relationship with them? Or -15 per age

[craggy timber]

On the flipside, there are extremely powerful bonuses (+10% yields per alliance) in the attribute trees tied to alliances and they should require a little more commitment than "haha yes I'm totally your ally lol"

[stray flame]

Then if it's -25 relationship per age, it will be much to exploit in Exploration and Modern, while the attributes are much harder in Antiquity

[pseudo valve]

Those bonuses are powerful because the current cost of having an ally is endless war with half the other players. If the burden of alliance is lighter, those bonuses should be nerfed accordingly.

[craggy timber]

There should probably be other reasons to accept alliances à la civ 6 R+F but I actually like the like terms of the alliance compared to the civ 6 kind in that: that the stakes are firstly much higher by having them automatically be a defense pact, and you break them at any time instead of being stuck for 30 turns

[stray flame]

On each path, instead of +10% yields of that type it should now be +5%. On the final of the Diplomatic path, it should be +2%

[craggy timber]

Sure you can nerf those to make alliances work the way you want, but I would personally prefer strong alliances with strong terms than watered-down ones with slightly less strong passive bonuses that you click every time without any consideration because it's just strictly better than not doing so

No Alliance diet? No Alliance powers.

[stray flame]

Fair point. Also, I want more to do with alliances, more treaties and such.

[wind jackal]

I agree with the free declining, though it should probably hurt the alliance or something if you do

[pseudo valve]

If my allies keep asking me where my troops are, I might get suspicious…
Sharing info like that is fine in team games but not FFA

[wind jackal]

I'm imagining it more like a few alliance treaties that you can pick or choose. So if you want them to come to your aid if you're attacked then you can spend some influence to enable it. The cost is your ally may be more likely to do the same or something like that. Alliances would have a few inherent benefits, but you have a high risk of needing to agree to some things you don't want

This might be a good case for the trade system. When you initiate an alliance you have various treaties (mutual defence, free trade, aid after natural disasters, etc.), you're able to add treaties that you want but your ally will want stuff in exchange. Later on you're able to do extra stuff at the cost of influence. Could sort of simulate alliance negotiations

[junior olive]

I hate this world war thing so much too.

I did have a realisation, I think the biggest issue is that it's a WAR or BREAK ALLIANCE scenario.

I think a good compromise is that when an ally enters a war with a foreign power You get a Choice:

1. Join the War at no Influence Cost.
2. Support your Ally with +1 (or even +2) at a Influence Cost
3. Reject your Ally's War and break the alliance.

I think "Aiding" the allies is just as reasonable thing to do. Supporting your ally would still result in increase in relationships with them and decrease with anyone they're attacking as it would function the same way as Supporting them freely neely.

[ashen tinsel]

It just seems like.. obvious to me that if you are allied with someone, you should be joining war against them. If you don't wanna get mired into wars, dont ally. Or break your alliance.

[wind jackal]

In theory I agree, but in practice it leads to me having to support wars where they're the aggressor and I'm just ruining my relationship with another leader for no impact.

I'd rather have alternatives that are less of a commitment at the cost of hurting my alliance or something

[real bough]

bumping, this camp up in chat/another-post

gonna tweak the title. for reference, original was Getting forced into world wars because we join an alliance is super annoying

Getting forced into wars because we join an alliance is super annoying (show if would pull into war)

[drowsy coral]

It would be nice if the game told you that an AI or a player was involved in a war prior to you accepting an Alliance Offer. Perhaps showing you the relationship bar when the offer is made so you can see who they are allied/friendly with, vs who they are hostile/at war with before you accept. This is already in the game, so it shouldn't be that difficult to do. As it stands now, if you exit out of it, you can't get back in because you are blocked for 10 turns, and if you accept you are faced with breaking the alliance (damaging the relationship) or going to war. That's not right...

[junior olive]

What's funny is there is: but only if you offer the alliance, it'll warn you who they are at war against, but for some reason they forgot to include that on the other side when you are offered the alliance.

[wind jackal]

I wish there was a way to make deals to join ongoing wars like in Civ 6. That way you could condition the alliance on joining a war you're involved in

[drowsy coral]

Interesting, I don't recall this feature - but I LIKE it!

[real bough]

yeah, in Civ 6 one of the options in the generic player-to-player trade menu was "join existing war".

[keen plank]

You can just exit the request (not reject it) and then check the relationships before you actually agree or reject. I do this all the time. However, I do agree that they should just list the war(s) on the diplomatic screen, like “forging this alliance will cause you to go war with x an x, etc”

[tame mortar]

I was looking at the ribbon yesterday wondering if the alliance info should go there... like under the trade limit it could show their alliances and wars...? (Other than yours, which are presented boldly but the Portrait on top of the ribbon)

[real bough]

Ideal solution would be they implement a Global Relations Panel like in slothoth's UI mod https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3506996826 (which was inspired by Sukritact's Global Relations Panel in Civ 6)

[ashen tinsel]

it was in civ IV funnily enough. I do wish there was a tooltip on declaring war of which allies would get pulled in, potentially

[autumn fulcrum]

AI reclace war after war made me ignore alliance, bad part about this way I play is i been in games where AI made alliance with 1 other and that AI hade 2 alliance and those AI hade 2 alliance each with other civs and they all attack me and it got quite to much to stand against that could been saved if I hade made at least 1 alliance

[iron cedar]

It's also quite annoying since if you decline an alliance, you take -30 relationship penalties. So I'll have an AI try and ally me the entire game and slowly the good relationship just deteriorates. So it's either ally and fight wars you don't want to be in, or decline alliances and annoy the AI into slowly hating you. It's a lose lose situation really.

[remote dew]

that kind of makes sense doesnt it 😄 the ai thinks you are his friend and asks for help, you decline help, relationshipstatus goes --

[pine fern]

What does purple mean tho

[junior olive]

From what I recall Purple was Alliances.

[mint crescent]

I'm okay with alliance meaning you have to go to war, but seriously this UI... you shouldn't have to leave the diplomacy screen to go research diplomacy. Give the info right there!

Maybe a third option is to give support, still break the alliance, but no relationship hit

[lofty kayak]

I honestly wish they'd bring back the old trade screen and diplomacy. I keep wanting to ask/tell/request/threaten the ai to not settle near me, pay them to declare or join a war, pay them for my cities that rebelled back, vassalage from 5 among other things.

[real bough]

relevant feedback post: https://discord.com/channels/1307104947426295818/1339746049392381962

[lofty kayak]

Was sharing the relevant feedback post something I should of done or should I avoid "cross-posting"?