keeping a warmonger at peace for a long time

I just played a king level game as Siam sharing a continent with Japan, me in the north with only 3 cities, he in the south with twice as many. At mid-continent two CS's on the east coast and two on the west.

I've grown accustomed in the past to Japan DOW's so prepared by allying with all but one of the CS's and spread my religion to all of Japan's cities (he had no religion), with the wonderful Holy Warrior belief that gives me +20 near any city following my religion.

He spawned a huge army, endlessly squirming around on his tiles eager for a fight but past the midgame (turn 250) the entire world never had a single war. I was just enough ahead of Japan in techs to keep a small jump in unit quality and with only three cities and a minimal army I had a huge population with high city defense numbers.

Finally, I figured war would come because several CS's were asking me for gems, only Japan had them and with one tile of them on the border I could grab it with a GG/citadel, a slap in the face to Oda. He had many infantry to my few riflemen, a few machine guns and three Great War Bombers. But he only threatened me when I did it!

Finally, I had to be the warmonger. He got the Manhattan project and with my biggest city nearest his border, I knew he would drop one on me as soon as he could, so it was war, but my choice.

He immediately went for my ally CS's and took two of them, but in the process his forces melted away before my citadel and rocket-artillery in the rear, well away from my nearest city. I put his nuke program to an end.

So you can keep a warmonger at peace for a very long time, even if he is your next door neighbor. This is a new experience for me, as is going so long with no war between any civ in the game.

I am sure Oda was thinking the same thing until you declared war on him.

Oda can be "peaceful"... my experience at deity are german, roman, early hun, korea (?) are war monger you cannot have peace with ... all the other can sometimes stop attacking you if they are your neighbour...

I also found Oda peaceful. I think that if you keep him happy he'll behave. This will not work with Isabella tough.

I had more cases where I could keep a warmonger at peace. The AI only DOW's when it moves its army on your borders. If there is a chokepoint between you two (doesn't have to be near your territory), if you put units on it, the AI will never come to DOW, cause it simply can't get to you. They may threaten you, get hostile, call your nation puny, etc, but they never actually come to fight.

This kinda needs to be fixed...

Good thread was curious if some of the diplomacy gurus had been able to tame the warmongers. Haven't had Oda not declare on me at prince or above.

Current game Mongolia is a close neighbor but we haven't scrapped yet. We've had open borders so he could attack other Civs. So far so good as Bismark and Alexander are on the same continent.

Oddly enough I've only been troubled by Persia so far and their DOW was perfectly reasonable. Settled close, bullied a protected city state, gave Alexander open borders so he was attacking through my lands. It was a move of desperation (gave me the ol "I may not win but its all I can do" line") but I may have done the same in his shoes.

But no attack from Mongolia, Greece, or Germany....yet. I think once they've settled matters they'll turn their attention to me.

Haven't had a game yet where Atilla isn't declaring on me, regardless of location.