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[Oso]

I've pretty much assumed that in most 4X games (certainly in the majority that I have played) that the AIs will turn on you in any case and played accordingly. Like Borodin, I played MoM from the day it hit the shelf until I bought a machine that wouldn't play it and no matter how carefully I played, the AI's all turned on me sooner or later (mostly sooner). So I quit trying to make them friendly. Use them for spell trading as long as possible then "Do unto them...before they did unto me".

Plus, I got into the habit of picking myrran (my favorite combo was almost always Myrran, Warlord, Archmage then 5 books in whatever spell color I felt like that game) and ruthlessly exterminating any of the AI players there and plugging up the Towers of Wizardry as soon as I find them. That generally put me on the bad side of the AIs fairly early in any case. Can't tell you how many times I have popped a Tower only to find it 1 or 2 spaces away from some Wizard's Enchanted Fortress or have it be right smack in the middle of their empire.

This has become even more of an issue since I applied the unofficial v2.0 patch. With the settlers now able to swim, I don't leave an open Tower of Wizardry unlugged any longer than I have to and that generally means killing a stack or two of an AI's troops and absorbing their counterattacks. Neither of which is conducive to amiable relations