Some players seem to believe that it was realistic for nations to sign a peace treaty and then go to war at the start of the next campaign season or in only a few years. Well, they are right. RTW accurately portrays this, but not the alliance system and thus creates a messy and silly situation.

Nations that were naturally antagonistic often did this. Rome and Carthage fought two wars and would have fought more if they had continually stalemated each other. They had every intention to fight both for economic reasons and because of the antagonism. France and England did the same up until the turn of the last century. I could go on naming cases just off the top of my head. The fact is that we live in a very peaceful age. A hundred years ago not everyone would be shocked and angry when one country that hated the other went to war with another. It was not until after WWI that the cost of war was deemed to high to pay.

Alliances were a different matter. Nations that were allied seldom went to war with each other and often backed up each other. That's the whole point of alliances. Forming an alliance was considered a serious act with heavy consequences if the alliance was not honored. As such alliances provided security, particularly for small countries with strong neighbors. There has not been a great deal of cases in history that I can remember where a nation did not honor an alliance. In fact, Rome built its empire, in part, on alliances. She also often used a broken alliance or the attack on an ally as an excuse for war.

RTW completely fails to show this. While being realistic with antagonistic nations this is not counterbalanced by working alliances. The AI does not seem to take into account who one is allied with when it declares war and it does not matter since I have never once seen an ally come to my aid. Often the AI does not aid its computer allies. Worse then allies not honoring an alliance is that allies attack their allies with no consequences. The only alliance that works is between the Roman factions and that does not always bring any worthwhile aid.

I can see no reason why CA made the game this way. It does not seem like it would be difficult to make it work. Granted it can affect balance, but that's a good thing. It would produce a different situation in each game, as long as some randomness was inserted and CA seems to be good at that. In this area I would be happy if CA simple fixed the tendency for allies to attack their allies. At least break an alliance first and have a good reason for it, like in MTW. MTW was not perfect, but it made some sense. I will not buy BI unless this is fixed.
Mad Scandinavian