Alliances never work well for me.

[Lord Lorkan]

Everytime I go to war my "Allies" Never accept to go to war with me, But they always call me to go to their wars constantly why? even almost instantly I ally them. not to mention my enemies allies mostly always helps them. I am aware of the Favor sytem but I dont get any favors or get them very very slow for me


I am sure the game is not the porblem but me. My knowlage in the game fairly minimal, I must be be doing something wrong I hope i can get some insight about this from those who understand the game better.


I own all eu4 dlcs

 

[Vin55]

Well over time you gain favours one per year if you are on the same power level. You can hoover over the place where they are too see how many you will gain over time. Also the ai likes to not join wars because they like people. So you need to get dip rep to force them to fight for you. Also if they are in debt they dont fight. So you can try to repay them. Another way to get them to join is to promise land. You can try to give them some or just dont (but then it is a one time alliance^^).
So after 10 years in the Reich normally you allies can join you. If you join wars of you allies you gain favour if you participate in battles and sieges. Your vasalls will also count to your participation.
You can also set an alliance as defensive only since the last dlc. So you will not called into offensive wars.

 

[tobias.mb]

War acceptance is 100% fair. The AI will only call you into wars, if an AI in your place would have accepted that CtA.

Everytime I go to war my "Allies" Never accept to go to war with me

The best advice is to find better allies. Try to ally your enemy's enemy. Those will be much more eager to help you in an offensive war. It is much harder to get an AI to help if they have neutral or positive relations with your target. Increasing trust can also help. You can actually check the AI's reasons for accepting / refusing a CtA in the war declaration screen.
And make sure you're actually offering 10 favors or land, otherwise it's impossible to call someone into an offensive war.

But they always call me to go to their wars constantly why? even almost instantly I ally them.

The AI needs to build favors, same as you. So an instant or constant CtA is only possible in case of defensive wars (don't ally someone who is already getting pounded unless you actually want to protect them), or it is an offensive CtA for promise of land. But that means you marked some provinces, basically telling the AI you want to help in a war against that target.... ofc the AI is going to take that offer.

not to mention my enemies allies mostly always helps them.

Many possible reasons: 1. The AI is much more willing to help in defensive wars. So if you're trying to attack someone, their allies will be much more likely to help than yours 2. If it's an offensive war against you, it might be because you've made a lot of enemies, who hate your guts and will jump on the chance to take a stab at you.

I dont get any favors or get them very very slow for me

Favors build up automatically, but only very slowly. You also get more (fever) favors if you are the stronger (weaker) party in the alliance. The only way to build up a lot of favor quickly, is to actually help your ally in a war and letting them take the lion share in the peace deal.

 

[Lord Lorkan]

War acceptance is 100% fair. The AI will only call you into wars, if an AI in your place would have accepted that CtA.


The best advice is to find better allies. Try to ally your enemy's enemy. Those will be much more eager to help you in an offensive war. It is much harder to get an AI to help if they have neutral or positive relations with your target. Increasing trust can also help. You can actually check the AI's reasons for accepting / refusing a CtA in the war declaration screen.
And make sure you're actually offering 10 favors or land, otherwise it's impossible to call someone into an offensive war.

The AI needs to build favors, same as you. So an instant or constant CtA is only possible in case of defensive wars (don't ally someone who is already getting pounded unless you actually want to protect them), or it is an offensive CtA for promise of land. But that means you marked some provinces, basically telling the AI you want to help in a war against that target.... ofc the AI is going to take that offer.

Many possible reasons: 1. The AI is much more willing to help in defensive wars. So if you're trying to attack someone, their allies will be much more likely to help than yours 2. If it's an offensive war against you, it might be because you've made a lot of enemies, who hate your guts and will jump on the chance to take a stab at you.

Favors build up automatically, but only very slowly. You also get more (fever) favors if you are the stronger (weaker) party in the alliance. The only way to build up a lot of favor quickly, is to actually help your ally in a war and letting them take the lion share in the peace deal.

Ty for the info..In your experience. Should I look to have Alliances? or stay alone? (I imagine that if I played a small country alliance are a must) but if I play a big country like castille or The Ottomans are alliance worth it?

 

[redshirt4life]

In the diplomacy screen on the third tab you can see your favors with them. Convert excess favors into "trust."

Outside the 10 favor minimum, its Trust, not favors, is what makes an AI more willing to join your war.

From this screen you can also pay favors tell your ally to "prepare for war." This also provides a pretty substantial boost to their odds of joining you.

Finally, if needed, raise your diplo rep.

 

[tobias.mb]

Ty for the info..In your experience. Should I look to have Alliances? or stay alone? (I imagine that if I played a small country alliance are a must) but if I play a big country like castille or The Ottomans are alliance worth it?

Basically it's as you say: small nations can't do without allies. Even if you don't (or can't) use them offensively, you need the protection against larger nations. For large nations, alliances are optional and often weigh you down. Still, there's a few things to consider:

1. You can always refuse a CtA, if you feel the war would be too annoying or not worth it. So unless you need the dip slot, or you want to attack a former ally, there's not much reason to manually cancel an alliance.
2. As a big nation it can still make sense to get alliances to secure a border, hinder a rival from expanding or simply allying someone isolated (=unlikely to start their own wars).
3. There's actually nothing wrong with thinking of alliances only in the short term. Someone can (and is willing to) help you in your next war? Great! Ally him only for that war. You can stab them in the back as early as the peace negotiations. (i.e. you don't give them anything even though you promised land). Not all alliances need to hold a long time.
4. Having an alliance also reduces AE. This alone is a huge reason, why big nations might want to find allies, since you can reduce the risk of getting coalitions against you.

Since you have asked about Ottos and Castille in particular:
For Castille it's actually a good idea to ally Portugal. You got a (often) hostile and (usually) stronger France right on your border, so some help against them can't hurt. Portugal is also super isolated and will rarely start any wars other than against the Berbers or colonial wars somewhere in Africa (but you usually don't get called into the latter).
Another good ally is Austria, since they can attack France from behind if it comes to a war. An alliance with Austria also stops France from advancing into the HRE and keeps them manageable until you decide to deal with them. Additionally Austria hates France (especially after Burgundian crisis has happened), so they will most likely help you in offensive wars against France.
The Ottomans are a different beast, since they start stronger than anyone around them. So they don't really need any allies, but it can still help for preventing AE or blocking rivals. For example you can ally Crimea (if you didn't get it from the event anyway), to keep it out of Russia's hands. Or you can ally Tunis to prevent them from allying the Mamluks. Even if Tunis is only of limited help to you (though it actually can help a lot, if Mamluks split their forces), at least they will stay neutral and not help Mamluks.


In the end it's all about benefit <-> cost. Even if you can win wars without any allies... Why would you refuse "free" help? If your allies start getting too costly (i.e. they call you into too many wars) that's the time you drop them.

 

[Lord Lorkan]

Basically it's as you say: small nations can't do without allies. Even if you don't (or can't) use them offensively, you need the protection against larger nations. For large nations, alliances are optional and often weigh you down. Still, there's a few things to consider:

1. You can always refuse a CtA, if you feel the war would be too annoying or not worth it. So unless you need the dip slot, or you want to attack a former ally, there's not much reason to manually cancel an alliance.
2. As a big nation it can still make sense to get alliances to secure a border, hinder a rival from expanding or simply allying someone isolated (=unlikely to start their own wars).
3. There's actually nothing wrong with thinking of alliances only in the short term. Someone can (and is willing to) help you in your next war? Great! Ally him only for that war. You can stab them in the back as early as the peace negotiations. (i.e. you don't give them anything even though you promised land). Not all alliances need to hold a long time.
4. Having an alliance also reduces AE. This alone is a huge reason, why big nations might want to find allies, since you can reduce the risk of getting coalitions against you.

Since you have asked about Ottos and Castille in particular:
For Castille it's actually a good idea to ally Portugal. You got a (often) hostile and (usually) stronger France right on your border, so some help against them can't hurt. Portugal is also super isolated and will rarely start any wars other than against the Berbers or colonial wars somewhere in Africa (but you usually don't get called into the latter).
Another good ally is Austria, since they can attack France from behind if it comes to a war. An alliance with Austria also stops France from advancing into the HRE and keeps them manageable until you decide to deal with them. Additionally Austria hates France (especially after Burgundian crisis has happened), so they will most likely help you in offensive wars against France.
The Ottomans are a different beast, since they start stronger than anyone around them. So they don't really need any allies, but it can still help for preventing AE or blocking rivals. For example you can ally Crimea (if you didn't get it from the event anyway), to keep it out of Russia's hands. Or you can ally Tunis to prevent them from allying the Mamluks. Even if Tunis is only of limited help to you (though it actually can help a lot, if Mamluks split their forces), at least they will stay neutral and not help Mamluks.


In the end it's all about benefit <-> cost. Even if you can win wars without any allies... Why would you refuse "free" help? If your allies start getting too costly (i.e. they call you into too many wars) that's the time you drop them.

I was watching Arumbra EU4 Tutorial with Filtyrobot but I dont think the content still relevant for today EU4...Thank you!, this helps a lot.

 

[Vin55]

Dont bother to ally Portugal as Castile. They will drag you into wars in mahgreb which is part of your expansion route. Also you get a mission to pu them pretty early on. You can ally aragon if they are friendly. Austira is a must. Also try to get navarra as a vasall saves you a dip slot later on and gives you a free castle there. Best ally is anyone who hates france. In the empire Bohemia is also always a good medium power who comes with 20-30 k in the early game. They have a gold mine so no money problems. Ally the pope as well. So if you target Italy there will be no excommunication for you. Plus you will get a good ally he has up to 14k in the early game.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Ty for the info..In your experience. Should I look to have Alliances? or stay alone? (I imagine that if I played a small country alliance are a must) but if I play a big country like castille or The Ottomans are alliance worth it?

As a general rule you want Allies early and then transition into more subjects as you get more powerful and allies become less useful. But think about who you are allying. Are they strong enough to be useful? Will the actually be willing to help? Are they threatened by someone you don’t want to fight?

There are two main purposes of allies for me:

Especially in the early game the additional power of allies can be essential to winning wars and breaking your enemies to build your power. Once you get to a point where you can kill your enemies without allies, this becomes less important

Defensive allies can also scare off threats. Quite often in the mid to late game I will ally some big fat off tag (such Ming or whoever dominates India if I am in Europe) because any coalition will consider their power and being so far away I generally don’t get called into wars.

There are other more niche uses of allies (such as military access only or to just drag into a single war and let them get beaten up or other reasons).

And most important any: always be ready to abandon your allies. Don’t just accept any call to arms, the hit for declining is a lot less than being stuck in a war against significantly more powerful enemies for years and having to give up land and money in a peace deal. And don’t wait for a call to arms, always consider if you should drop and ally. If you are a small HRE member allied to Denmark and you see Muscovy support Sweden’s independence you probably should cut your ties immediately so you don’t ah e to decline that call to arms when it comes.

 

[Canute VII]

You can also set an alliance as defensive only since the last dlc. So you will not called into offensive wars

It's actually been there since Cossacks DLC, just hidden beneath the GUI as a semi-transparent checkbox. I also didn't notice it for a long time until someone pointed it out. The last patch simply made it more visible GUI-wise.

 

[Don_Quigleone]

You have to weigh up alliances on a case by case basis. But in general, there are 3 good reasons to ally someone
1. You don't share borders, but you share powerful enemies. So Austria allying mameluks against the ottomans is a good idea.
2. It secures your border. So as Portugal allying castile is useful.
3.You're weak and they're strong.

Of course, as you go through the game, subjects tend to be much better than allies.