How to provoke a war?

If you have a bigger/stronger military than them, they'll NEVER DOW (except maybe Shaka). All they do is denounce and insult you the rest of the game, and undermine you without force (world congress, religion, CS, etc).

I've actually only been DOW'd once, when it was mid-game and I only had a couple warriors.

Sturmgewher88mm said:

If you have a bigger/stronger military than them, they'll NEVER DOW (except maybe Shaka). All they do is denounce and insult you the rest of the game, and undermine you without force (world congress, religion, CS, etc).

I've actually only been DOW'd once, when it was mid-game and I only had a couple warriors.

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Probably my favorite improvement over pre-BNW Civ. It really got tiring when the only way the AI knew to stop you from winning was to try to exterminate you, and half the time it wasn't any good at pursuing any victory conditions itself.

That, and the fact that even when it does get into a war with you, it's smart enough to pursue goals other than just taking the closest city...it'll pillage your resources to ruin your economy or snipe your CS allies where it can.

Sturmgewher88mm said:

If you have a bigger/stronger military than them, they'll NEVER DOW (except maybe Shaka). All they do is denounce and insult you the rest of the game, and undermine you without force (world congress, religion, CS, etc).

I've actually only been DOW'd once, when it was mid-game and I only had a couple warriors.

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Not "NEVER", but definitely less likely... I've had AIs DOW me when I had a bigger/stronger/better military many times in the past. Sometimes early eras, sometimes late. They ARE far less likely if you have a bigger army yet(as others have said) don't factor in quality of units so when they have a huge force (say lots of muskets/cannons) they may DOW me when I've got just a couple Infantry.

Provoking war.

Make defensive pact with friend.
Bribe someone to go to war with same friend.
You are drawn into war.
Destroy the person you bribed.

Small warmonger penalty and large benefit with friend.

jlim201 said:

Provoking war.

Make defensive pact with friend.
Bribe someone to go to war with same friend.
You are drawn into war.
Destroy the person you bribed.

Small warmonger penalty and large benefit with friend.

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That's still you declaring a war, though, and doesn't really help achieve what the OP wants...not that what the OP wants is actually a thing.

The real problem comes when you conquer cities, Dow is not that important. Just DoW, kills are their units and take cities for peace. However if you go for domination, better wait until industrial to take his capital, hopefuly you can draw some other into war and take out the capital without many warmongering points.

Could selling a dow to one of the target's Civ's enemies work? I did that recently with the Celts to have a reason for DOW Siam in order to nab an already crumbling capital with four wonders. I was already bitter rivals with Rammy though, so I can't be sure if it had an effect.

FeiLing said:

He's not all that wrong. When you dow like 3 times everyone hates you, including then former friends. If the AI declares 3+ times (or 10 times, why not) they never get hate from their allies.

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Wouldn't surprise me to learn that the human player gets more grief from allies than the AI does, but I've certainly seen an AI civ being the one as the focus for the world's hatred. I played an almost completely peaceful immortal game, the Zulu were my closest neighbours. Their other neightbour was Carthage, they went to war early and took 2 cities, then in a later war took the 3rd, exterminating Dido. Between the two wars I had all 5 remaining AIs, on the same turn, come and ask me to go to war with Shaka. Few turns after that they must have started asking each other, because they all dogpiled Shaka while I sat back and watched. The rest of the game was a constant stream of Shaka vs 1-3 AIs, with only occasional help from me any time it was completely peaceful and Shaka might start looking my way. I'd bribe Shaka to attack someone else, his warmonger level would get worse, more AIs would join in by themselves.

Do agree that if you really want a war, just start it yourself.