I was wondering what exactly Alliance does over Peace?
As I'm 99% sure there is no "joint victory" for people in an alliance, and the other benefits don't seem to be too clear about what happens.

Thanks ^__^

renycs wrote:
I was wondering what exactly Alliance does over Peace?

As I'm 99% sure there is no "joint victory" for people in an alliance, and the other benefits don't seem to be too clear about what happens.



Thanks ^__^

Hi there!



You can see what alliances do by hovering over the chain icon in the diplomacy screen:





The really useful part are the Diplomatic Points (used to win the game via diplomacy) and the Influence from killing allies' opponents. There is no shared victory however - there can only be one

It would be even better if eventually, we can also coordinate war efforts by asking an ally to attack or defend a specific city.

Do not get tricked with Allayi alliance proposal. They just want to steal your pearls.

I was wondering about Alliances myself. Like... What's the point?



I was hoping I could use an alliance to go to war with the bugs as the Clans. Because seriously, those guys. We had an Open Borders treaty, so I was running around their territory to lift their pearls and loot their ruins, (I paid a lot for that treaty, mind,) and they wiped out my pearling-ruindiving expedition.



But somehow, despite them straight-up shanking one of my units despite our open borders treaty, and them being pitiless murderous insects one step removed from a Zerg Swarm, that still doesn't give me casus belli to go to war with them.



So then I noticed that they were chewing up and spitting out my closest friends (and trading partners,) the Ardent Mages. Like, seriously, they had my buddies on the ropes, so naturally, an alliance seems like a great idea - they're at war with the Mages, I'll declare an Alliance with the Mages, we'll be at war, and I can go and crush them into dust (and Dust,) with giant armies of disease-immune sword-sisters.



Except nope. Even though they're actively murdering my friends and alliance partner, I can't go to war with them, and they're not stupid enough to declare war on me, despite the fact that I b& them from the marketplace and have been sending them diplomatic nastygrams every turn. Mind you, I can run around their territory freely, and their armies keep attacking mine (and being ground into Dust,) but I can't go to war and besiege their cities.





I think, instead of flat-out being unable to declare war, the Clans should require a casus belli more deep than "we see you have nice things and are too weak to defend those nice things, therefore, we will be taking those nice thinks, kthxbai." Casus belli like, say, "they're horrible atrocious insects who only consider other races 'food we can eat now' and 'food we are not strong enough to eat yet,'" or "they're at war with someone we love," or "they attacked one of my units, they must die."

player1 wrote:
Do not get tricked with Allayi alliance proposal. They just want to steal your pearls.

But you also get map vision, which allows you to see pearls in the fog of war. So it might be a good idea in other circumstances.



@shadowdragon



Yes, that is the big limitation of the Clans, which is more reflecting of them than alliances (albeit I wish that alliances demanded helping your ally or getting a penalty). Have you tried pillaging them? If even that doesn't work, get mercenaries and privateer them.



EDIT: you can also send troops to Ardent Mage territory and help them defeat the Necrophages that way.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
@shadowdragon



Yes, that is the big limitation of the Clans, which is more reflecting of them than alliances (albeit I wish that alliances demanded helping your ally or getting a penalty). Have you tried pillaging them? If even that doesn't work, get mercenaries and privateer them.



EDIT: you can also send troops to Ardent Mage territory and help them defeat the Necrophages that way.

It's really frustrating. I mean, I don't mind not being able to just hurf durf go full Mongol and conquer people for the halibut, but I think there damn well should be justifications that give me casus belli, and let me go and declare war, such as "this guy attacked my units," or "this guy is attacking my friends" or "this guy is the freaking Necrophages."



And the thing is, I've got his territory locked completely down. They cannot stop my armies from running roughshod over their territories. Seriously, armies of Justiceres with Dust armor and Mithrite/Hyperium weapons backed by Drakken loremasters (for the heals) just wreck the diseaseophages, because the line troops are immune to the diseases, and are, frankly, pretty damn beefy.



But I'm not allowed to wipe out their hives, so I have to go through the ridiculous rigamarole of pretending it's "wandering factions" doing it, even though everybody with a brain knows that there's only one faction with the kind of dust income to just buy out the entire marketplace's stockpile of mercenaries...



And the worst part is that I cannot equip those mercenaries. I have to take whatever they're equipped with, whether it's t2 Dust gear or t1 Iron. I can't give them movement enhancing charms to make them not slow as balls...

And, that wouldn't even be so bad if I could, say, use my own third-party troop designs, even if I had to go through the pretense of selling them to the marketplace and then buying them back as "neutral" troops to turn into privateers, but I can't. Units I sell don't go into the marketplace, they disappear down a black hole.

I mean, I get that it's supposed to be the Clans' limitation, but it's too limiting. The clans should be able to declare war if given adequate casus belli, or backdoor themselves into a war by entering into an alliance with someone who's already at war with the guys they want to stomp, the way the U.S. basically warmed up to WWII by getting super-chummy with the UK and France by playing "Arsenal of Democracy," selling war materiel to those countries before entering with our own troops.





Especially versus the necrophages. Like, seriously, their whole schtick is "we're going to eat you. No, I mean it, we're going to cut your throat and consume your corpses. You're either a necrophage, or something which has not yet become supper." They're incapable of any diplomatic state nicer than cold war, their stated intention is literally to eat you - why exactly can't we go and slaughter these guys again? They don't make good trading partners!

Oh I understand the frustration and I don't disagree.



Ideally, I would have had it that the Clans can't declare war if trade is occurring, and that in other circumstances, they can declare war but at a much higher influence cost than normal (say, x4-5 influence cost). It would still keep them unique on that front, without debilitating them too much.

Yeah... The frustration is just really, really bad.



I mean, I can see a few things you could do to alleviate it without breaking the "Clans cannot declare war" thing:





1: Allow the player to upgrade individual units through the hero designer interface, like they do for Heroes.

This way, even low-level mercenaries can be useful to a high-flying player, just by dint of equipping them with Dust weapons and armor and movement charms.

- This would also let you make use of an old unit whose design branch you deleted.

-- Although that having been said, you should still be able to shift a unit back into a design branch using their base chassis.



2: Allow the player to run a false-flag operation by putting the Privateers flag on their own homebuilt units, if those units are exclusively composed of minor faction units.

This way, you can use good, designed units not random mercenary schlock units. This would be especially helpful if you need to set up units specifically to counter what the enemy are doing - is he flooding you with flyers? Better bring out the bows instead of the crossbows that all the ranged units are armed with by default.



3: Put units the player sold into the marketplace, allowing the player to buy them back as mercenaries.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
But you also get map vision, which allows you to see pearls in the fog of war. So it might be a good idea in other circumstances.

But then, you can get map exchange treaty instead.



That's what I settled for with Allayi in my game. Peace, map exchange and of course closed borders. Really, better then alliance.