I need help with a domination victory, what do I when the whole world declares war?

CivAddict2013

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Hey, CivAddict2013 here. So here's my scenario.

I was playing for a domination victory on Prince with Songhai. I got Iron Working early, then took down Siam's terrority, most of Genghis Khan's and took out Egypt easily.

But then out of nowhere, right after I attack Egypt, BOTH Greece and Washington declare war on me literally out of nowhere. Worst yet, Greece gets every City State to declare war on me. This declaration of war seems to be almost scripted, because if I go back and DON'T take down Egypt, they still declare war on me.

So basically while my main army is finishing off Egypt, Greece randomly declares war and sends a ton of Pikemen into my terrority. This is literally out of nowhere.

So how do I stop this random Declaration of War BS? Should I just take out Greece and Washington first, before I take out the other nations?
 
Not quite random... you've been belligerent and expansionist, which usually raises eyebrows.

You've got to beat their armies. Best way is to be stingy with your units and let them get in range of your cities without capping them. It's easier to win the war of attrition on your own territory.
 
Were you keeping note of your diplomatic relations with Greece and the USA for, say, the 20 turns previous to their declaration of war against you? Because if they were both negative, that is a warning that they were planning on attacking you. Killing off multiple civilizations is enough to make the rest declare war on you.
You should view this massive attack on your empire as a blessing in disguise, because at the end of it, if you act correctly, your enemies will lose their entire armies, maybe some cities, and you will be in a position to do whatever you want militarily. The first thing to do, of course, is kill everything that has invaded your lands.
You probably got lots of gold from sacking Siam, Mongolia and especially Egypt's cities, as the Songhai UA gives you triple gold for capturing cities and barbarian encampments. If you have enough gold to do so, buy ranged units in the cities near the invading armies, then use them to snipe at the enemy, taking them down one by one, going for the weakest first. Try to concentrate firepower by using multiple ranged units plus your city attack on the same enemy, killing it before it has a chance to retreat or heal. Prevent as many enemy units from escaping as you can. Make sure to preserve your own units, as the AI probably has more than you in that area - at least initially. Don't send anybody into an area where four or more enemies can attack it in the same turn. Always keep an escape route open. If any of your units look like they will die in the next turn, move them away from the conflict and heal them.
If you don't have the gold to buy units, then immediately switch production in the nearest cities to build composite bowmen/crossbows, whatever unit you have access to. Emphasize production with the citizens; you can even starve your cities for a while to produce things faster, as long as you switch the citizens back to creating a food surplus before they fully starve. (easy to check this: open the city screen, look at the green 'citizen' icon in the top left. It will show you how much surplus food there is and how fast that amount is growing or shrinking. The turn before the surplus would go away completely, switch enough of your citizens back to gathering food that the overall amount of growth is neutral or positive, rather than negative.)
While fighting the enemy armies near your cities, move your army that captured Egypt back home in order to confront the invaders. You should be able to stall the foes for long enough that the army can make it back, and once it does, crush everything that remains. At this point the bulk of the enemy army should be gone, with your own army strong and close to their borders. This is a very good thing...
Once you've cleaned out your territory of enemy units you should appraise the situation. Are there any cities owned by Greece or the USA that you want to capture and take for your own, or raze? Are there any City-States that you'd like to make a part of your empire? If so, then don't make peace with the enemy until you achieve those goals. Remember, they cannot un-declare war until you decide that you want peace with them. You were able to conquer three other civs, so what remains fighting against you in this war shouldn't be a problem.
After you've taken whatever cities you want you can make peace, if you want to. At this point, with all of their armies gone and potentially lost cities, Greece and the USA will offer very nice deals for peace. It doesn't hurt you to accept them once you have what you want, as you can always go to war again after the ten-turn peace treaty is up.
Yep. Looong-winded post. Hope this is helpful for you.
 
For next games try to keep diplomacy as high as possible, there are many thins you can do/avoid to not lose much in the relationships while going warmonger:

- Don't conquer all cities from a civilization. Is a global penalty you will have to bear with the rest of the game.

- Don't conquer a city state, it counts as a civilization elimination or something very similar in relationships.

- Don't attack with friendship status.

- Don't declare war first, but if you do so, denounce first and try to take another civ into the war.

- Don't settle near someone who told you to no do that and you aknowledged. You can refuse the petition and the diplo hit is only for him.

- Don't deny to declare war if you mass units in someone's border. Of course is better to take the units a sqare away from their borders, and declare you first, as who declares first strike two times.

- Try to declare friendship with civs that are out of reach, and recognize the groups there are often formed (looking at diplomacy->global politics), and ally with one of them, not ally the rest to keep the best relationships with that group.

The first time if got that global hate status was on a game I abused DoW too much (10 turns of peace treaty and DoW again and such things)
 
Ninakoru's post above mentioned it, and it is something I've already been doing, but I just thought I'd bring it up again so that others can confirm it - is denouncing a civ before declaring war on them any better than just declaring war right off the bat?
 
Denouncing a civ has some effect on the game, but it doesn't lessen the warmonger penalty you get for declaring war on a civ.
If the civ that you denounced was also denounced/not liked by another group of civs, or if you are friends with a group of civs and denounce someone, that can make the group of civs more likely to not care so much about you declaring war.
The best way to do politics and diplomacy in Civ5 is to become buddies with the primary 'friend group' of AI civs, by trading with them, declaring friendship, denouncing who they denounce, doing what they ask, etc. (Giving away a luxury when asked, for example, typically gives you a better bonus than the 240 gold you would've gotten by selling it.)
Easiest way to think about it is like being part of the most popular clique at high school. Everyone may be jackasses, but once they like you, they can be manipulated to work towards your ends and will ignore a lot of the bad things you do.
 
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