Paying AIs to go to war... Strategy?

[eteuky]

Looking for some thoughts and tips on paying AIs to go to war with each other. Currently, I only really do so in two scenarios (that I can recall)... First, if I suspect or find out that an AI is planning to attack me, I try to bribe them to attack other AIs instead, or have the AIs attack them. Often, this completely avoids the attack, and otherwise delays it enough to let me build up a military. And secondly, if I have a clear shot to victory and spare gold, I set the AIs against each other just to preoccupy them and make sure they don't ally against me.

What other uses can you suggest?

Furthermore, how do you decide if it's a valuable use of resources or not? Eg how would you weigh up paying 400 gold for two neighbours to go to war, weakening each other and hurting their relations, versus, say, buying a certain building or another settler? How do you quantify that decision?

 

[Raiki]

I usually play continents, so I love bribing AIs to DOW each other. Particularly, I try to bribe the runaway on the other continent to attack every one of his/her neighbors. It's a great way to prepare the way for an invasion.

As for when it's financially worth it...well, that's situational. If Attila is massing battering rams on your borders, a baracks or a settler isn't going to help, an archer won't be able to do enough to save you, but if you can bribe him into pointing those rams at someone else, you can buy yourself time to react.

 

[smallfish]

You see that over the charts score leader going to win a victory you want for yourself soon?

Well, distract him from building spaceship parts by making him go to war with everybody else

 

[Heretiv]

Can you give any rough idea of costs of this?
Does it cost 500gp or 1000gp say?
If so then the cost is small compared with say building an army for yourself.

 

[spendor]

I usually pay one luxury or 240g if they are neighbors w/o a DoF. (Deity, Standard Speed)

 

[The Pilgrim]

The only situations when I see a reason not to bribe AI into war with each other are when there is a beast runaway that will only get more cities - I'd better deal with him myself rather than rely on noneffective AI. And the other is when I've signed RA with one of the involved parties. Wars slow them down and I don't want to sabotage RA's output in any way. All other cases whenever the opportunity presents itself and the price is reasonable.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Can you give any rough idea of costs of this?

It varies. And depends (I guess) on the willingness of attacker to attack in the first place and on how much he likes you. Usually if the price is low it means soon enough the DoW will come anyways even without your bribe.

 

[sveint]

Number one priority when playing Diety/Immortal is to keep the AIs at war with each other and not with the player.

The art is to make sure none of them get too dominant.