real talk
Haha, thanks for posting by the way. I actually think some of the Fallen made pictures about oil are pretty funny, but your explanation was pro real talk. Taking out Northern Empire was great Strat drama, the grief you caused Ecko for putting all his eggs in 1 basket and instantly losing to FCC or whoever it was attacking was epic.
Most of the LLJK-Fallen tension came from the flaky merc agreement, because we were constantly besieged by EU clans and had to fight at odd times or counter attack on EU ping. Fallen actually helped LLJK a great deal in Strat 2.0, after Shogunate wiped us out Fallen gave us shelter to build back up. So we were pretty mad about having to pay, mercs being unreliable, then being cut off due to Ecko plotting.
Also the Great Khans were your vassal into the desert between us and Camel_Screamers, and we wanted to work with GK to fight Camels, but instead they started sharing fiefs and working together. Always got shady answers about them from you which made us pissed/paranoid.
To be honest you were very good at playing Strat the way you did, and I probably took some tips out of it in managing my own shady alliances and plotting. But you reaped what you sowed with the Northern Empire in Strat 3.0 by having Hospitallers, Occitan, and their EU allies teaming up to wipe you guys out right at the start. And personally people I've made friends with in cRPG always seem to be strong allies regardless of clan or situation, just because we've helped each other before or get along.
Which was pretty much the point of my post. Some alliances form out of mutual trust, others out of mutual hate. I don't think you can "fix" alliances with shitty in game mechanics that make everything more difficult to play. Its up to the players to make the game they want to play.