Nah, with the exception of one trade partner (who I traded for some nature gems) the most anyone has done to help me is to honor their NAPs. You will, of course, believe what you want but with the epic heroes in play and plenty of time (at this point) to have adjusted themselves every single one of my adversaries is steadily advancing on me, it's pointless to even send out lone thugs with Ermor and Arco very effectively mind hunting me regardless of who's territories I attack, and being attacked by 6 people (7 if the Mictlan AI decides I look like a weak target)...well, my larger armies can only be in a couple places at a time and other than a couple tricks aren't that terribly scary.
I suppose your point is that you believe I'm feigning weakness, I guess I'll take that as a compliment that you fear me despite the terrible position I'm in.
(FYI, I started site searching turn 2 for water/nature sites for exactly this reason)