"Worst Enemy"

[Qwack]

I was recently playing a game so let me just give a overview of what happened...

Its 1200 AD, and I know ill probably be going after diplo victory. I have 2 friends, isabella and saladin, and I need one out of either monty or churchill. Churchill is both saladin and monty's worst enemy, so I decide its probably favourable to develop monty into a friend. A few turns go by, and churchill adopts monty's religion. And then suddenly im monty's worst enemy at -2 relations . I gift monty a tech some turns later for +4 fair trade modifiers, and then suddenly isabella becomes monty's worst enemy because she traded with his worst enemy (me)..... And because I was heavily trading with isabella, I get -4 modifier with monty for trading with his worst enemy WHO became his worst enemy because she was trading with his previous worst enemy...

Eventually, I end up having to get both monty and isabella involved in a war against churchill so they can get mutual military modifier with eachother. Fair enough, 120 turns go by, everything happen's superbly. Churchill vasallizes to Wang Kon which puts all of us in a war against wang kon(My opponent in the UN). I build UN and at +11 relations, monty abstains from voting because I still have the -4 "You have traded with our worst enemies" from 120 turns ago. GREAT! So I have to research up to fascism and adopt police state to win the game...

Theres 3 problems I think with this worst enemy thing..

1. If you meet someone and you have been trading with thier worst enemy from before, you automatically get the modifier sometimes. Same case if an AI changes worst enemy, you automatically get the modifier.
2. It seems like an AI civ always has to have a worst enemy... I can see the logic behind this but its too sudden IMO.
3. The worst enemy modifier doesnt fade away or atleast not fast enough.

Heres a couple of screens from this game that people might find interesting.. this war continued from around 1600 AD all the way until the end in 1806 AD.

[Atlas]

Ah the "worst enemy"... this is the bane of my diplo game. I think the problem here is that it is just one of the (few) aspects of the game that the player has very little control over and is thus frustrating.

You know what I really hate is that "I would encourage you to stop trade with _________." When you stopped trading with that civ the first time the other civ asked and don't have any current deals