Can the AI be provoked into declaring war?

they will accept it even if your rep broken. If you ask 1 g for 1 gpt with broken they will disagree. Note that you have to have positive gpt income to offer gpt payment.

 

Yes, that is a great strategy.

But be careful, elimination does not work here in this case. You just trash your rep, and will not receive war happyness. The same holds if you are the one who signs peace.

I.Larkin posted a thread that sheds some light on the finer points:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246590

What you quoted is something does not necessarily work for you. What I have experience with at least are situations where I import the lux and pay with gpt for it. Now if that deal goes "paranormal" I am the one who keeps paying money for a lux that I never receive.

If it would also work the other way 'round I admittedly don't know. I almost never export luxes or resources.

 

Yes, it works. You may be even at war with AI and receive money from them via "Grey Deal". They, of course, get nothing.

 

What I found that works for me almost 99% of the time to get the AI to declare war on me is the old "remove your forces from my territory" ploy, but it needs the AI to be Furious with you.

How to accomplist that? Easy - just talk to him/her and demand a city from them. If they give you the city - well, that's gravy! If they don't give in, demand the city again. Keep demanding the city time after time (all in the same turn) until eventually they become Furious with you. NOW demand that they leave your territory! In almost every instance that I have tried this, the dumb slob declares war on me!

However - this will not work if you have an ROP or MPA with them - you need to wait until it expires.

One thing that I do with neighbors is to wait until they cross my border with a settler going on its merry way to build a city somewhere. If I have 8 slave workers handy (scouts work just as well), I surround the settler with the workers/scouts/units and just fix them in place until I need a convenient unit to kick out of my territory. Ever notice that when you need someone to kick out as a pretext for war, there are no enemy units available?

As I said - about a 99% success rate, and I normally don't entangle myself in ROPs or MPAs, as you never know when that "friend" will suddenly need to be your enemy!

 

Grognard's idea is the best I have heard yet...awesome simplicity!!

 

Yup, that works for me too.
Then, later on in the game, I'd use a spy to steal techs or plant a spy in a city on the civ in question. If the civ is already furious with you, he'd probably declare war on you for doing that.