Lately I've been tinkering trying to figure out ways to ruin the economy of an AI Civ. By "ruin" I would like to have them running such a defecit that they can not afford upgrades or tech research, much like if the human player expands to quickly. I've met with some success and some failure, but I wouldn't mind help at all. I will update this post if I get some good ones (some good ideas so far).

Sucesses:

Pillage your enemy: Take out resources, towns and improvements. This is quick, but the damage can be repaired when the war ends (Except for towns rebuilding)

War: Obviously if you take out the money makers of the Civ its economy can be ruined.

Culture War: A well timed cultural bomb (or 2-3) can absorb a large amount of enement territory at once. This is the only "peaceful" way that I have heard of so far.

Holy City Raze: An addendum to the War/Pillage strategies. I like this one. In many games a Holy city with a shrine makes up a large percentage of a nations income. If you only have the man power to take 1 city choose that city. Razing it to the ground insures your enemy will never reclaim that bonus.

Failures

Diplomacy: Close to success (but for now I put it in the failure category) and I think there is a way and I just haven't found it. I have had very little success enacting large trade embargos, and even if you do, it doesn't gurantee a crippled economy. I have also had no luck in trading a large number of worthless cities through diplomacy as the AI is selective and won't mindlessly take over or accept useless cities.

The only way to totally destroy AI's economy is to kill him:p .

Seriously, I think there's no easy way to cripple one's economy such they'll completely out of the game without taking/destroy half of his cities.

However, to slow their economy, I use what you said : fast attack to destroy a key money-maker city or large pillaging missions.

If war is out of question, try to divert him by making another AI attack him.

I think the answer is never let an opponent breath. Make him use his productive power to make military units instead of buildings. Make him use civics oriented toward military power rather than commerce/science power.

An alternative to massive pillaging might be sending in your spies to knock out some of his luxury resources, preferably many simultaneously. This could cause some unhappiness in his cities, leading to loss of commerce and perhaps starvation as well.
Otherwise, war is probably the best way, preferably if you can "arrange" one between your enemy and another civ, so you won't have to devote your own economic power to military.

Their are a few different ways of hurting your rival civ's economy, but that all depends on how you want to play the game, and how long of time you've got to spend on your new project. Personally, I like playing for cultural wins, so I tend to amass large amounts of great artists as quickly as possible (wonders/civics/specialists). After I've got a good amount of them, I send them to the border cities in which I want to start taking over land. If you only send one great artist out and use the great work option, the amount of territory you steal will be largely dependant on how far you're into the game. I generally send them out 2 to 3 at a time, to ensure that I grab a lot of their land, a lot of improvements, and hopefully be able to cut off some of their cities (for eventual revolution). This can really run a civ's economy, especially if they had needed terrain improvements near your great artists.

You also can do the pillaging and warfare - that will bring about the same effects, as long as you are winning. Then again, pillaging and warfare are kinda the same - you cant really just destroy their cottages and mines and expect to walk away freely. You also are gonna lose a lot of favorable points with any other civ that may've been friends with whomever you just attacked - all in the name to slow down their economy.. Frankly, I find cultural takeovers to be much more desireable.

If they have a religion, find their holy city! Direct your whole attack on that, and raze it. I did a backwater invasion on Asoka, who was raking in 150+gnp in Delhi, his Hinduism holy city. I surprised him and razed it quickly, and then just proceeded to destroy his many towns. I wasn't trying to wipe him out, that was too tedious. I decided that I would just destroy his economy.

if you have ever studied history...

Attrition is a good way to ruin there economy, for instance: Hitler found resources of other nations, that of which were there prime resource for economy and pillaged them, so they would go into limbo.

I like to pillage :)

Thanks for the suggestions, I have 2 questions so far:

The Cultural way (Saint Sturm). I like this as the only peaceful way I have heard of so far. When I am going for the cultural win though I rarely have the time to spare a Great Artist to go culture bomb the frontlines. How do you deal with this? I like the idea though, especially if I;m not going for a cultural win but have generated a GA anyways.

The Holy City Raze (Tick Tock Clok): I forget but does razing a holy city cause everyone who was a part of that religion to hate you? Nice idea for a precision weakening though.

Thanks for the feed back.

Personally, I never raze an enemy Holy City.
I always try to steal it for myself, then stock it with strong defensive units (and maybe a Great Artist or two for a culture bomb).
That way you get the GPT instead of the enemy, you have a strong foothold from which to spread outwards and attack other cities, and if it just happens to be your religion's Holy City, you even get a sneak peek at your enemy's battle plans.
Sure you have to endure a few turns of resistance, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

The Holy City Raze (Tick Tock Clok): I forget but does razing a holy city cause everyone who was a part of that religion to hate you? Nice idea for a precision weakening though.


I don't think so. I believe that it gives -2 to the holder of the holy city.

MrUnderhill: This holy city was just so far away that it would have been a burden to try to hold it. I just razed it to get it out of the way.