I’m surrounded by IDIOTS!

[TimBentley]

Either you or the AI has to be at war with the other civ to sign a MA, AFAIK.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

OK, I see the smilie, but a serious question. Can you get an AI civ
to sign a MA with you *before* war is declared?

Yes I believe I did that a long time ago. Was at peace, made an offer to civ A to declare war on civ B. We both declared war on B at the same time. This is just what I believe to remember, I have not done some recent testing to be 100% sure.

I'm not engaged with Civ these days, but you can easily try this yourself. Then you'll know for sure.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I highly recommend being careful signing ROP after MPP's are out there, and being even more careful about leaving ships or scouts in territory of people you have ROP with during that period. I was once playing an emperor 20K game and about 10 turns from the end, I had ROP with Rome, who had an MPP with France - these two had been my trading partners for about 2000 years. Rome finds an unoccupied city near my core, so walks in, declaring war. that was annoying... but more annoying was that I had a unit in Roman territory, and so France got pulled in on the MPP. Joanie's bombers were a total pain in the ass. though it didn't make any difference in the game.

 

[Game_Addy]

Yeah, watch out for MPPs. One game I played, I think it was Persia who had the oil on the continent. I signed a MPP with my friend, the Dutch, because I had let Rome get too big for comfort. Neither of us had oil, and it was towards the end of the industrial age, right around when bombers come in. Netherlands declares war on Persia, which brings me into it. Not too bad, I hadn't seen any signs of bombers from Persia. I march most of my forces down to Persia, without any Flak. All of the sudden, when I'm on the border of Persia(Netherlands was between me and him), my forces get the stuffing bombed out of them followed by a counter attack. I dont think a whole lot of them survived when the flak came. Stupid MPP agreement. Even stupider Netherlands.

Isolationism all the way

Michael

 

[Dynamic Cow]

OK, I see the smilie, but a serious question. Can you get an AI civ
to sign a MA with you *before* war is declared?

Yep. All you need is an embassy, and then it's just a matter of signing the papers...

 

[seanos08]

To sign a MA you must currently be at war with the target of the alliance. Also your ally needs a bribe of a tech or some gold.

 

[vorlon_mi]

To sign a MA you must currently be at war with the target of the alliance. Also your ally needs a bribe of a tech or some gold.

That's what I remembered from my experience, and was corroborated by
Tim Bentley above.

 

[Queen of Swords]

I just finished a Deity game where despite my land grab at the start, I was low on resources - only one iron, one horse, and a couple of saltpeter and coal. No rubber or oil. I bought those off other civs to produce infantry and tanks so I could be prepared for the war.

I've never seen civs war so much as they did in this game. They were constantly at it; Aztecs v. America, America v. Rome, Rome v. me, England v. everybody. Military alliance, MPPs, just plain aggressiveness, any reason to start a war. My sources of oil and rubber were erratic, constantly being cut off and restarted, and sometimes cut off entirely as cities were razed. I thought everything was going all right once I'd started on my spaceship parts, though - everyone had ganged up on the Aztecs, who'd gone from being top dog to having ICBMs dropped on their major cities. Then I made the very bad mistake of failing a couple of plant-a-spy trials on the Iroquois to see how their spaceship was going, and not only did the Iros declare on me, they signed the Americans up as well. I had great deals going with the Americans, too. There went my rubber and oil. Luckily they were on another continent, so while their transports were heading over, I researched Synthetic Fibers and built the last few spaceship parts. I was going to use my one and only leader to rush the Exterior Casing. I couldn't build it. Why? No rubber.

I waited a few turns until the Americans would speak to me and offered them a peace treaty, then gems, dyes and ivory for the rubber. They agreed. I rushed the Exterior Casing. They declared war on me again in the next turn, but I launched.

One interesting thing I learned in this game was that it's not over if another civ builds the UN. I'd always try to get this wonder just in case another civ built it and then held elections and I lost the game. Well, the Americans got it in this game, but they never even took a vote. They'd been at war with everyone else - who would vote for them?

 

[MAS]

To sign a MA you must currently be at war with the target of the alliance. Also your ally needs a bribe of a tech or some gold.

To clarify, if you sign a MA with an other civ against a 3th civ when you are not at war, you will be at war with the 3th civ at the moment of accepting the agrement.
So you don't have to first declare war before creating the MA, because the game automatically declares war when you sign.
But you can not have an MA while not being at war with the civ you have the MA against.

 

[Elite]

I'm always starting a World War(because war useally causes my profits to skyrocket) i'm always the supplier of technology and loans that cost you a arm and a leg to repay, though one time(as in my story:"Another World War") the Romans declared war on me, I told Switzerland/France and a few other countries to declare war on Rome, in turn Rome allied with carthage and a few other countries in Europe, then I allied with the remaining countries(Russia and a few others) and I started a slow war with Rome, it took me AGES to reach the country of Rome itself(mostly because I was busy with affairs elsewhere).

But, I eventually reached it, sooner then I expected(I really did expect this) everyone's MA's against Rome expired they made peace with Rome(then started killing themselves) so basically, I'm always in some sort of World war(one map I own most of central Europe and Russia) the only one part of the world that were safe from my crusading armies: the free people's of the middle East(I named them that for there were like 3 countries who could hold their own against my legions) so I just left them alone.

 

[archimandrite]

One interesting thing I learned in this game was that it's not over if another civ builds the UN. I'd always try to get this wonder just in case another civ built it and then held elections and I lost the game. Well, the Americans got it in this game, but they never even took a vote. They'd been at war with everyone else - who would vote for them?

Building the UN somewhat reluctantly--they are quite often rather late starting it--and then not calling a vote, seems to be the typical AI behavior. So much so that in my admittedly very limited number of finished games I've never seen them do anything else. I've also not so far seen a thread which deals with this...does the AI ever do anything else?

 

[archimandrite]

I'm always starting a World War(because war useally causes my profits to skyrocket)

Not sure about that. My experience is that excessive world-wide war shreds large areas of the AI-controlled map, and also causes AIs to incessantly switch from (whatever?) to fascist governments, meaning they spend too much time in anarchy even at higher levels. Either they won't pay gpt at all--and you go and look and see that they're raving anarchists yet again--or a bit later you visit and find they will only pay some fraction of what they used to--and once again you go and look and now they're raving fascists with rapidly dropping populations churning out loads of worthless conscript infantry. Fascists don't make very good debtors, in my opinion.

In my last game I'd been depending on AI gpt payments of at least 1800/turn to maintain my 100% science rate for a spaceship and nearly went bankrupt myself towards the end!

 

[Elite]

I stay out of the war(s) most of the part, I am useally spreading dissent and panic among nations, so they might buy my technologies and I make a huge profit, really though, it's more of a "European" War because I play on world maps, Korea/China/ME and a few other nations don't even bother with the war.

I'm never (fully) caught up in a war, unless I want more land(or if your sitting on something I want) I'm useally "behind the lines" of these World wars, I do have some military presence in certain countries(if at all) I've become more of a state-sponsored mafia, then more of a actual government.

It's nearly impossible to start wars, without becoming directly involved in them.


I don't take money that much (I take resources) in exchange for my money, you give me resources.


I know they are horrible loaner's(even when in other governments) not at war.

that's why I only take resources for loans.

 

[Sir_Lancelot]

World wars is always bad for the world economy. Very bad. It makes it difficult to sell stuff for gold. The (AI) countries at war will make less gold because half of their population are clowns. Eventually they go commie and that's not very good for the economy (small to medium sized nations doesn't benefit so much from the commie corruption formula).
But someone (you) can of course benefit from a world war, in one way or another.