Why do I get dragged into this???

Its becuase they dont adore you like gods. Think about it, if you were Chinas dictator would your ally really care for you or thier country? Its natural for people to be protective....or greedy.

that and do you know how easy it is to use the ally system to your advantage if they always went in for you? plus you can choose wheather you want to uphold the allyship or not

you prob know this but just in case...

your allies don't jump in if you attack someone, only when when you are attacked. in my experience they almost always honor the alliance, but i almost never end up allied with evil races so...

Hi!

How come the A.I that are my allies only go to war with the person I am at war with when I'm are winning, and claim MY spoils of war

Because you go to war unprepared. I don't start a war until:
- I have enough warships to easily (without much damage to them) destroy opponent's defenders in orbits,
- I have strong enough fleet(s) to defend my planets against counter-attacks (quite often those ships are the same as for the previous assignment),
- I have enough troop transports in place to capture several opponent's planets in the turn I attack,
- I have constructors ready to take opponent's resources in case he surrenders,
- all those ships are in such positions I can do maximum damage in shortest time possible.

Some rules I also use:
- I don't destroy opponent's fleets that aren't immediate threat. This way I prevent too early surrender to other AIs;
- I don't destroy defenders on planets I can't take in just few turns, or where my "allies" have transports close;
- when I have advantage, I use it until the victim is so weak it's practically out of game. Only then I decide what to do with it.

As you see, waging war isn't simple. I takes lots of preparations and long-term planing, not just rushing some ships to kill his ships.

HTH.

BR, Iztok

I crush everything I can as soon as I can. If they surrender to another powerful civ it just makes things more interesting. I prefer to push someone off the map over 20-30 turns than just blitzkrieg them in 2-3.

I find a good tactic is to built a large invasion fleet first, then take over a large amount of their space in a few short turns. Once this has been done, offer a peace treaty, but make them pay you money and technologies for the peace. They are usually eager to make up once their empire starts to crumble. This way is much cheaper than a full scale take over, plus you get to bully people into giving yousome lovely booty. Of course, once you've made friends again, build up another fleet for another invasion. Rinse, and repeat.

Note you can always go into the diplomacy screen and DEMAND that they attack the given enemy as well.

Just make sure you get the Military Resources (ideally with a surgical strike at the very start of the war!) and it'll all come out okay.

As pointed out already, when your allies attack someone else, you are not obligied to join in, so when you *attack* someone else, your allies aren't obligied to join in.

The whole allies joining in, when you are already winning is irriating, but you can do the same thing too to them.



And yes, I notice that when I'm attacked, most of the time my allies honor the alliance and declare war on the agrressors.

It would be nice to have also full alliances where your allies declare war on empires you are at war with as opposed to the current system which is merely a mutal defense pact.

The trouble with "full" alliances is that the AIs get dragged into too many avoidable wars with each other, making then overall weaker by comparison.