How often do you do "nice" things for AI allies?

[Pellucid]

I mean any of the following (my answers in green):

1. Join their war that you know you will lose and help them to the best of your ability. Defensive: Usually, unless it would basically be the end of the game for me. Offensive: Very rarely.
2. Give them provinces they want in peace deals; especially ones that you'd otherwise want. Sometimes, but rarely ones I had planned on taking at gamestart.
3. Help them put down rebellions, even when those rebellions succeeding might benefit you. Almost always, unless the ally is short term or one of circumstance.

Add anything else you do that you consider to be putting yourself out to help the AI.

 

[birincikalite]

If I just want to have fun and RP, I may just ally with my France buddy then go to wars and give stuff to him untill he decides that it's time for me to be vassalised or annexed.
If I want fun but not RP then I should probably try sometime to just give him whatever I can and then break alliance & watch the coalition tear the French apart with the popcorn on my hand

 

[lymond]

Rarely. Most of my alliances are for the benefit of yours truly, i.e., my kingdom. It can be situational though. My contribution to their wars depends a great deal on how the result of that war will effect me. Usually I will avoid wasting manpower on it, but if it is a matter of things like tipping the balance of power, making them stronger because I want them to be stronger, or plain survival, I will contribute in some way. I will usually join ally wars unless it is just a stupid war and that ally wasn't all that important.

I will give provinces to ally if it's of little consequence anyway or I plan to diplo-vassal the ally at some point anyway.

I rarely help with rebellions unless it is preventing me from doing something else important

 

[JolietJake]

I like a little roll play flavor so often, especially in peace deals. Actually I wish the AI would get more upset if it fights most of you battles and doesn't gain from a peace deal. While real life diplomacy is cut throat and every nation always looks out for itself they also have to play the now, short, medium, and long game in decision making and someone constantly cutting short an ally would very quickly run out of allies. Since the game doesn't simulate that I don't mind making my play style still fit that.

 

[IIWW]

I think the answers should be divided into 3 cases:
1) the ally is stronger than You
2) the ally is relatvely same stregth as You
3)You're stronger than Your ally.
1st q:
1st case: always. One does not simply refuse a CTA from France when playing as Silesia
2nd case: against rival quite often, against smn else - only if I want smth from this war (but now that allies do not give a s*** about provinces You might want, besides cores and claims... well, screw them, pretty much)
3rd case: usually. If I ally a weaker nation I have an interest in it, and my help is quite often enough to win the war. Especially true for offensive wars.
2nd q.
1st case: I want trust, I give them 1 province/peace deal.
2nd case: never province I would like in relatively near future, but otherwise yes.
3rd: pretty much never.
3rd q:
1st case: Yes, I need them strong.
2nd case: if I'm in a mood. Generally I'm a nice ally, if I don't have a plan to backstab them in near future, I'd rather help. After all rebellions in their country quite often make them not join my offensive wars.
3rd case: Usually. Depends on type of rebels, most often I won't give a s about noble/pretenders etc rebels, but I would fight patriots/nationalist etc.

 

[Apolojuice]

I only do nice things if they're historic buddies and I know they're gonna end up in my calories somehow, like Portugal as Spain, Lithuania as Poland.

Everyone else is unripe fruit.

 

[swm]

Join my allies' lost wars? Sometimes. There's not a lot between "Joining will be the end of me" and "Me + my allies can probably win." I only dishonor an alliance if the joining the war is outright suicidal.

Giving land in a peace deal? In the past, I have. In this patch, I've had bad experiences with allies:

Gave Gujarat three provinces they siege'd from Malwa, giving up my ability to take more land even though they didn't have claims on any of the provinces (and so I wouldn't have lost anything for not doing so).

The minute the war ended, they broke the alliance, went hostile, and started claiming my land despite having at least four choices of expansion paths that wouldn't have conflicted with mine.

Allies in general seem to be less reliable in this patch (or possibly bugged, it can't be WAD to have an ally break an alliance, only to accept another one less than a year later after +15 worth of relations when you're both in the hundreds with each other).

Help my allies fight rebels: Nope, unless I have a merc stack nearby it's not worth my manpower.

 

[hajutze]

Since I play mostly MP nowadays ... every single time >.>

 

[CNY10000]

Quite often, but only when I think they will become my vassals in the future.

 

[Challenger2008]

My last campaign (playing as Tlemcen) I was best friends with Ayyubid (who later formed Egypt). All other allies I ever had either died or they betrayed me or I betrayed them etc. But for some reason, my alliance with Egypt stood the test of time and remained unbroken for 800 years! They were very big to start with, about three times the size of the Ottomans in 1444.

During this time, I'd always give them the provinces they wanted, ALWAYS join their wars (even ones I knew we'd lose), even send large portions of my army to help them in India, sent them occasional monetary aid when they had debt problems etc.

In return I got one faithful ally, who was always there and not a single time declined a call to arms to defend me. Countries more powerful than me would be reluctant to declare war because Egypt was there. At the end of the game we both ruled the world with 400+ forcelimits, and despite our huge border that we shared (and them wanting my provinces to form Arabia), we had +200 opinion of each other. I'll miss them

 

[Hellspawn2]

I help out my Allies as much as I can. I give them large amounts of money each month from subsidies. I will always help suppress any rebels that pop up in their area. I will help feed them more territory. I feel that making my allies as strong as possible helps me for the times when I need to call them into wars.

 

[josh127]

I do the things that I feel will put me in a better position. Unfortunately, this game is quick to punish you for doing good things and not very quick to reward you for helping out.

1) The best route I've found is to help my ally by declaring a separate war on part of the alliance fighting them. This way, I can ease the burden and hope to turn the tide. Of course, should it all go wrong, it does leave us both vulnerable since we can't go to each other's aid. It does come with some risk.

2) It's all about my goals. Alliances don't last forever in this game, and your reward for making your ally strong is usually them rivaling you and wanting your provinces. So, I'll give them provinces that have no strategic interest to me (at least not in the near future) and that I feel will weaken an opponent. However, just like the AI, my needs come first and if I need the warscore for my claims and cores, they might have to wait.

3) This is all relative to how it will benefit me. If it's in my benefit to have their rebels win, I don't fight them. If it's in my benefit for the rebels to be defeated, it depends on the resource commitment required to fight them. I'd say the benefit usually isn't worth the cost unless they are well behind in tech limiting my losses.

 

[Squirrelloid]

I find that the possibility of PU increases my generosity to the AI.

 

[LemonMonk]

Only when I need my allies to remain strong. In a PLC game I saved Austria countless times from the French and their own rebels because the HRE acted as good bufferzone. I try to benefit my realm all of the time - forget my so called AI buddies. They will one day be painted my colour!

 

[Immortal88]

Allies to me are just future enemies who don't know it yet.

 

[Erilaq]

It honestly depends. For instance in my Spain campaign I give Russia lots of love, but that's because MEGAOTTOMANS take the both of us, and Austria +PLU isn't a joke either. Other than that, I rarely join Allies wars with my full capabilities, and only give them the lowest base tax province they have a claim/core on if I've been unable to keep them from siegeing land during my offensive wars.

 

[Dnote]

Depends how useful the ally is to me.

Important ally (someone I plan to stay allied to throughout the game)
1. Support them in all wars
2. Rarely give them anything in peace deals, as I tend to make sure such an ally doesn't have interests that conflict with mine
3. Help with their rebels if needed

Normal ally (someone who I don't mind if the alliance lapses, but have no desire to fight with)
1. Support them in all wars, until they get into a war that isn't worth my effort to save them
2. Rarely give them anything in peace deals
3. Ignore their rebels

Temporary ally (someone I plan to eat later)
1. Support them in wars until I'm ready to turn on them
2. Give them land to keep them sweet until I'm ready to turn on them
3. Ignore their rebels

 

[chrnno]

I don't like making alliances to be dropped as the game is easy enough without doing that so as long as it is not really against my own interests I help out my allies. Though any ally that becomes hostile means I will put off doing everything else to utterly annihilate them*, as for the questions:

1. Join their war that you know you will lose and help them to the best of your ability.
- Defensive only if there is absolutely nothing I can do I would refuse. Once as Denmark having integrated PUs and expanded mainly on the coastal provinces of Baltic Sea with several colonies I was at war against England + Muscovy(to expand into the English isles) and at war against most the HRE(so I could monopolize lubeck trade node) when Castille calls me to defensive war against France + Hungary plus a bunch of HRE minors and then after that Lithuania calls me to defensive war against Ottomans + Crimea + Tunis + Algiers. Blew through almost all my manpower and money but won my two wars as I wanted and had both allies get concessions in their wars.

2. Give them provinces they want in peace deals; especially ones that you'd otherwise want.
- I don't normally make alliances where I think there will be conflict of interest so while I do make a point to always give at least one province to allies who helped me at worst I only recall splitting a group of provinces we both wanted in between.

3. Help them put down rebellions, even when those rebellions succeeding might benefit you.
- I don't like rebels so for anything short of outright enemies I often even get military access just to kill the rebels.

*Back when I was rather new to the game I had a mainly colonial empire as Portugal beyond expanding a bit in Iberia(most of which was Spain as my vassal anyway) so had very little manpower and no military ideas either so when France backstabbed me it was bad. Took several wars(a few I barely got concessions by timing things correctly) but eventually me + Austria plus allies hurt them badly when France attacked the HRE. Then I allied the Ottomans(other major power which I had been rivals for like 2 centuries ever since I took everything up to Alexandria and bordered them but never went to war) so that once truce was over I would attack and call both in. And kept doing that until France was wiped from the map. Afterwards I went back to playing colonial empire.

 

[Viperswhip]

Just allying them is nice, as soon as you are decently large, or start out as such (ie. Castile), you allow them to choose their wars. That's a huge boon.

 

[-Malovane-]

All the time. Giving 200 AE worth of territories to your superpower allies (France/Austria) ensures they'll be hammered into an OPM within the span of a decade or two. I suppose that's "nice".