When you bring in the AI (whether through bribery or a defensive pact) on a war do they actually attack the cities you suggest or do they just pick and choose which ones they want to attack? (if they attack at all?

i dont usually suggest any cities to my allies but i did one time with my vassal and sure enough they attacked and captured the city... but that could have been a coincidence

Unless you can actually see the city you want attacked, you really have no idea of knowing unless they take the city. You are never notified of them losing troops or just failing in general.

If you ask them to attack a city, they may choose to ignore and go for what they want.

I have had this happen with capitulated civs and colonies.

:eek: :eek: There is an option like this in Civ ? Anyone can tell me how do you exactly suggest a target city to your ally ?
I'm afraid I'm missing a very important feature in the game.

Thank you in advance !

If you click on the leader...

Then I think the option says 'Lets Discuss Something Else...'

Then you should be able to click, 'Why don't you attack...'

And it will pop up with a list of enemy cities you can 'ask' them to direct their forces too.

it seems to me they often go where you direct them if they're not already at or very close to another city. if i want a certain city for myself (izzy's holy city with 2 pre-built shrines for example), i'll ask them to go for another city ASAP to keep them distracted. it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. they can ignore it, but if they're still in the "must kill ... but i'm not at a city yet, still travelling" stage is when i have the best success with it.

way back in vanilla, alex and i were at war with isabella. i was in a phony war with hatty at the same time, but alex wasn't fighting hatty. when i tried "why don't you attack Salamanca" to get him away from Seville which i wanted for myself, hatty's cities showed up on the "why don't you attack..." list too, which ought not to have happened! i saved and did a test where i told him to go after Thebes, he said "we'll do our best" but it didn't case him to declare war on hatty, so it wasn't a huge bug, just an oversight i suppose. the good news is, i did get Seville and i was rich rich rich! :D

i haven't been in a situation to check that in warlords or BtS.

Well, I just learned something new. I'll have to give that a try the next time I actually have an ally in a war.

Agree with what KMadCandy said. If they are moving forces, they will go where you say... if they are already smashing the enemies walls at a city you like... probably not.