AI Diplomacy - Giving Units

[Jubala]

I was in my third war with Montezuma when my good friend Hatsheput was attacked by Saladin. I didn't like Saladin very much but since I was already in a long war and starting to feel war weariness I didn't want to fight Saladin as well. Since Montezuma was on his ropes I sent a bunch of units from my rear areas close to Hatsheput to her front with Saladin. When they arrived I gave them to her in a city under siege, which probably saved it for awhile. She still lost it but retook it the same turn with the help from some of my late arrivals. Hatsheput and Saladin eventually made peace with Hatsheput gaining Divine Right which I promptly purchased. Sweet!

Anyway, point of this is that I gave Hatsheput 2 Pikemen (which she couldn't build until I sold her Engineering) 2 Longbowmen and 2 Archers but I didn't get any pluspoints in relations. So, what I'm wondering is if you have to give even more units to see some effect or if you don't get any plus at all for giving units?

[axisworks]

As far as I can tell, gifting units doesn't do you any good diplomatically. It only seems to help strategically, like you mentioned, when an ally is low on troops and is getting hammered. Mind you, the AI doesn't exactly use the donated troops in the best ways, sometimes. I once donated 8 mechanized infantry units, and 8 tanks, and all the AI did was have them sit in her already-well-fortified cities, when she could've easily re-captured some of the cities she'd lost with them. It's more just a strategic defensive tactic to gift them, I think.

[Jubala]

Well, it's a moot point in that game now anyway. Hatsheput became my not so good friend and the target of my army after I had assimilated Montezumas realm. Which meant I had to fight some of my own units. I had named them ExpForceOne and so on so I even knew which units. Samurais really kicks ass, especially if you can get them when the enemy still has axemen and swords, or jaguars as was the case with Montezuma. He folded like a house of cards. Hatsheput had some macemen when that war started so she put up more of a fight. Her last three cities even managed to field 4-5 grenadiers which caused some losses (mainly catapults, lots of them) but they couldn't save her in the end. Even grenadiers succumb to level 5-7 samurais with maxed out city raider and the rest in combat promotions.