Timing your attack

[Togakure]

Whether I ally with other clans or not depends on the approach I'm taking to that particular game. Each alliance yields an income of 250 koku per season, which can be useful in the early turns. If I'm playing a poor clan (e.g. Shimazu), I'll ally with as many as I can just to make the extra dough. I don't take alliances very seriously however--the AI clans just aren't trustworthy. Sometimes though, if you wait a bit, watch what's going on on the map, and then pick and choose ONE ally with mutual enemies and never attack them, and support them with troops when they attack mutual enemies, I have found that sometimes (and only sometimes) they will actually remain quite loyal to you--until the mutual enemies are destroyed and there's no one left for them to attack but you .... This can be very helpful if one of the other clans is very strong (like Imagawa tends to be early on in the Sengoku and 1530 scenarios); you can leverage the strength, position, and flow of your ally against them. Anyway, that's my two quatloos on this one.

[blazer-glory]

Thanks,interesting stuff

[NodachiSam]

That dastardly AI is all mechanical scheming, expect to be burnt. In MTW and probably STW too the ai will gang up on you if you are strong, never allying to you, even if you are rediculously overpowering. Say they have 1 mere backwater province and you own 2/3rds of the map they still will refuse an alliance. If they didn't perhaps they would constantly try to be allies with you near the end of the game making it less enjoyable.

[Drisos]

Sometimes though, if you wait a bit, watch what's going on on the map, and then pick and choose ONE ally with mutual enemies and never attack them, and support them with troops when they attack mutual enemies, I have found that sometimes (and only sometimes) they will actually remain quite loyal to you--until the mutual enemies are destroyed and there's no one left for them to attack but you .... This can be very helpful if one of the other clans is very strong (like Imagawa tends to be early on in the Sengoku and 1530 scenarios); you can leverage the strength, position, and flow of your ally against them.

I second that... I always used to play Uesugi or Takeda, and team up with the other one of the two (Uesugi or Takeda) against the Hojo and the Imagawa.

[AggonyDuck]

Well personally I accept every alliance offer I can get except for the next target of my hostilities. That extra cash helps and generally it's the AI that does the alliance breaking for me....

[Togakure]

One can always take the ruthless, antisocial warlord approach and make it a stipulation of the game to NOT make any alliances, disregarding who's who as you expand. It can be fun to take on the whole lot of them, though sometimes it gets a bit dicey.

Whatever works for fun, I say!