posted 02-21-99 10:50 AM ET        

This would make it more lifelike and balanced- as in real life forming strong blocks often is the only solution to survive, especially if a very dominant state is becoming a threat to smaller competitors:

1. shared secret projects profit
A player can grant profit of his secret projects to pact brothers.

2. joint science
Pact brothers can bundle their scientific research to accelerate their science process.

3. united states
If a pact has existed for a long time (perhaps 50-100 years), players get the bonus option to unite the pact states to form a United State.

For the last point social engineering has to be made compatible of course, perhaps like this: after declaring the will to unite pact brothers preparatory have to use the same social model for 20 years before the actual Union then can be founded. This would be hard especially for extreme fractions but that�s the way it is.