How to provoke a war?

[Tyrion]

Let's say I don't want to be the technical starter of the war, but make the AI angry enough to just declare it, what can I do?

[Kyl]

Do well at the game and totally skimp on military. Save up a ton of gold and eventually a nearby civ will invade. Buy a massive amount of units and crush them.

[BladeSe7en [ICON_RESOURCE_FURS]]

What exactly is your goal for provoking a war? If you're wanting them to declare war so you can just take them out you're wasting your time. You'll still earn warmonger penalties so you might as well just ignore it all and declare war yourself.

[blkbutterfly]

Expand. Trade. Don't build a military. Troll the AI with an unescorted worker near its troops.

TBH it's pretty hard and not worth the bother cos the AI is dumb

[Al Capwned]

How to provoke a war?

Exist.

[leandrombraz]

In addition to not building military, don't build walls, don't put garrison on your cities, don't put your units where the AI can see (near their territory/units) or put only one ranged unit, preferably outdated, in a tile where the unit is easy target. Basically use one of your cities close to the AI you want to provoke as bait, the AI can notice that a city is undefended, same for units. If the AI intend to declare war on you, they usually do it when they see an opportunity to conquer a city, take out your units or capture a civilian unit. City as bait works better against neighbors, for a faraway Civ you can leave a unit exposed near or inside their territory.

With a bait in place, try to provoke the AI, get some negative diplomacy. Go against their agenda if possible, settle near them, convert their cities, denounce them, make friendship with their enemies (Civs who denounced them). Give them reason to declare war on you.

[Tyrion]

Originally posted by BladeSe7en ICON_RESOURCE_FURS:

What exactly is your goal for provoking a war? If you're wanting them to declare war so you can just take them out you're wasting your time. You'll still earn warmonger penalties so you might as well just ignore it all and declare war yourself.

So you get warmongering no matter how you get into a war? That's stupid.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Tyrion:

Originally posted by BladeSe7en ICON_RESOURCE_FURS:

What exactly is your goal for provoking a war? If you're wanting them to declare war so you can just take them out you're wasting your time. You'll still earn warmonger penalties so you might as well just ignore it all and declare war yourself.

So you get warmongering no matter how you get into a war? That's stupid.

You get warmongering when you declare war and when you conquer a city. If they declare war on you and you don't conquer any city you won't get warmongering.

The only way to take cities without warmongering is if you get it through trade/peace deal. Considering that the warmongering penalty for conquering a city is removed when you give that city back to the AI, you can conquer a city you don't want then trade it for a city you want. The penalty will be removed and you won't get any for keeping the city you got in the peace deal. You also get a city that wasn't conquered, therefore didn't lose population and you can steal tiles from the city you conquered and gave back if it's adjacent to one of your cities (swap the tiles to your city before trading it). Try to conquer the city 10 turns after the war started so you can trade it in the same turn. Each turn you keep the penalty will affect your relationship with other leaders. If it stay up long enough you might get denounced.

Another way to play around warmongering is by liberating conquered cities/CS. Take the cities you want then conquer a city that you can liberate and do it. It will reduce your warmongering considerably. If you are playing with R&F, you can also do some smart use of loyalty to flip cities and keep conquering to a minimum.

[Prometheus]

No one has suggested forward settling and buying up land around the cities of the target?

[Tyrion]

Originally posted by leandrombraz:

Originally posted by Tyrion:

So you get warmongering no matter how you get into a war? That's stupid.

You get warmongering when you declare war and when you conquer a city. If they declare war on you and you don't conquer any city you won't get warmongering.

The only way to take cities without warmongering is if you get it through trade/peace deal. Considering that the warmongering penalty for conquering a city is removed when you give that city back to the AI, you can conquer a city you don't want then trade it for a city you want. The penalty will be removed and you won't get any for keeping the city you got in the peace deal. You also get a city that wasn't conquered, therefore didn't lose population and you can steal tiles from the city you conquered and gave back if it's adjacent to one of your cities (swap the tiles to your city before trading it). Try to conquer the city 10 turns after the war started so you can trade it in the same turn. Each turn you keep the penalty will affect your relationship with other leaders. If it stay up long enough you might get denounced.

Another way to play around warmongering is by liberating conquered cities/CS. Take the cities you want then conquer a city that you can liberate and do it. It will reduce your warmongering considerably. If you are playing with R&F, you can also do some smart use of loyalty to flip cities and keep conquering to a minimum.

So, let's say you're going for domination victory, you get warmongering for defeating a civilization, yet you get points for it too. Seems a bit scizophrenic.

[Traveler]

Originally posted by MadManCam:

Do well at the game and totally skimp on military. Save up a ton of gold and eventually a nearby civ will invade. Buy a massive amount of units and crush them.

Um, I find that having more gold than anyone else makes them afraid of me. But like everything else in this game the map/speed/diff makes a huge difference.

[fmalfeas]

I found that this worked on a 'peaceful' Alexander run.

I only fortified my capital, (which was also my most powerful production city and home to my main encampment). Due to Alexander's unique barracks, I did have a crapload of troops, because barfing them out constantly = science. I just kept them at my capital, and refused to open my borders to anyone. I deployed a single /archer/ to each city I had to repel barbarian scouts, and that was it.

My seeming weakness would get people to wardec me.

Then the giant swarm of troops lurking at the core of my empire would be rapidly moved via my shiny roads to the front lines, where they would slaughter the entire opposing army, then stomp in and pillage /everything/. The ranged units would hammer every nearby city down to zero, and keep hammering it every turn.

I would then refuse any an all peace offers that did not include all neighboring cities to me, along with their entire treasury and GPT. And I'd get it. Being immune to war weariness has perks.

I ended up loyalty flipping capitals and owning the entire continent without getting a single warmonger hit.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Tyrion:

So, let's say you're going for domination victory, you get warmongering for defeating a civilization, yet you get points for it too. Seems a bit scizophrenic.

Points are meant as a show of progress, that you're winning from a certain perspective. Warmongering is a penalty but it isn't the opposite of points, it doesn't mean you lost progress our that you got further from victory. Warmongering is merely one of the tools to keep conquest in check because of how powerful conquest is. You get a new, already developed city, hurt one of your opponents but you pay for that diplomatically. It's also a way for the AI to recognize you as a threat and treat you properly.

Warmongering means progress on its own way, it's a penalty meant for the winner. It's not schizophrenic, you're getting penalized because you're winning.

[Traveler]

I've been called a warmonger without starting a single war.

[leandrombraz]

Originally posted by Traveler:

I've been called a warmonger without starting a single war.

You conquered cities then. Once you start conquering cities you become the aggressor regardless of who started the war.

[Tyrion]

People got really mad when I defended my City State Ally, and basically forced the Cree to stop fighting them. I started a protectarate war when I noticed my neighbor civ was fighting and nearly taking over my ally. Was it because I defended the city states units inside Cree land? I never attacked the city itself, only enabled the City state to have free reign. Or was it because I declared a protecterate war in the first place?