Buying cities and causing incidents?

[ksdurg]

Can someone explain the intricacies of buying enemy cities? please?

I know that subverting a city doesn't cause an incident, but it is much more expensive to go that route.

If I just go for Incite I run the risk of an international incident, which leads to war (with more than one civ?) and my govt can collapse.

So should I avoid that by subverting each time or should I just save my game and reload if things go wrong?

And does my reputation suffer when I successfully Incite or Subvert? Does it matter? 'Cause I can't seem to get my reputation up anyway.

Thanks.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

If you incite while you are already at war, you don't even have the option to subvert and the incited revolt has no impact on your reputation ("All's fair..."). If you incite a revolt in a city belonging to someone you are not at war with, inciting will cause a reputation hit, while subverting will not.

The only things that will recover your reputation are time (it might come up a notch or two if you remain perfectly well behaved for a long time) and Eiffel Tower, which will bump you up a rep level or two, and supposedly increases the rate at which time "heals" your reputation a little bit. But generally, once you've been bad several times, there's almost no way to recover your reputation by the end of the game, so you might as well continue being nasty. Keep in mind, as you get stronger, the AI will hate you and sneak attack you regardless of your reputation.

A lot of people maintain a spotless reputation as a sort of additional challenge - goading the AI into declaring war first, instead of breaking treaties. It requires patience, careful use of the Diplo window (asking them irritating requests like demanding tribute [when available] and asking them to remove troops, even if they don't have any in your territory), it means you often have to wait before attacking, and sometimes lets the AI get the first salvo in a battle.

 

[Peaster]

I agree with Tim's answer. I play for conquest and like to stay spotless (though it usually has little effect on the game). I try to get all the AI's gold by demanding tribute, then keep on demanding it until they declare war. Do this at the start of your turn, so you get to attack first. The primary target is their capitol. When it falls, they can't afford to build another one. Then you can incite the other cities very cheaply and move on to their neighbors. It seems a little ironic that your reputation is still spotless after all that, but you haven't broken any laws.

Until the capitol is down, I almost never incite riots. Maybe a very small AI city, very far from its capitol, but only if I have lots of gold (which is rare).

 

[ksdurg]

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll definitely try those tricks out soon.

 

[Duran]

If your playing on MPG... you will have to down load the a patch that will make it so the AIs attatude isent reset to 100, most hateful, after every turn.... the patch i think is in genral discusion of this forum... i think.