Does taunting work?

[xanadux]

Been playing my second monarch game. I won my first one easily with an 1810 domination with HC on a small inland sea map. Thought I would give SE a go, and started a small monarch continents map with saladin. This was made all the more difficult by having an isolated start. I was considering a late cultural victory drive, but religions were late to spread to my continent, and I was unable to found any myself (I chose not to found one of the early 2). Once I met my opponents, here was the situation:

Kublai Kahn and Caesar on one continent, Mansa Musa and Hauyna Capac on the other. HC and Caesar are Buddhist, KK is Jewish, MM is confucian. I decided to convert to Buddhism, hoping to eventually bribe caesar to start a war. It is now late 1600s, and I have combustion and am driving towards plastics for 3 gorges then computers for research labs to drive to space victory. Problem is Caesar and HC together are teching just as fast as I am. MM is falling behind a bit (seems to no longer have any trading partners), and KK is the strongest, but also starting to fall behind in tech. I've become great friends with Caesar, and have signed a defensive pact. My navy is strong, and we be dominating soon as I get destroyers and battleships ( I have 4 coastal cities just waiting to build them with forges, drydocks, and factories built). I don't fear a war since no one should be able to reach my continent.

Here's the problem ... no one wants to go to war. I've got Caesar up to +20, but he's not interested in war with anyone. So I thought i would try to pick a fight with KK, with the goal of getting Caesar in with me. I repeatedly made demands of KK, and have gotten him furious with me at about -30 relations. The question is ... will he declare war? Can this work, or will I end up having to attack someone myself to get a war going? The other question is do I go for a permanent alliance with Caesar so I can force him to war, and can then pretty much declare war with anyone to slow down the AI? I had to stop playing only 2 turns after taunting KK, so I haven't tested it myself. Also, If I start some wars, war weariness won't be a problem if I don't go into enemy territory right?

 

[xanadux]

played another 30 turns or so. Its about 1750, have computers and plastics, building research labs, have about 6 destroyers and 10 battleships. Still no war. Still about keeping even with JC and HC. Thinking about declaring war on the Incans. But is this pointless if I don't invade? Looks like HC only has 3 infantry in most cities, and although he can, isn't building tanks. I haven't looked at his capital yet. Noone has bothered building any navy past a couple galleons.

 

[johncross21]

AI does not like to attack opponents more powerful than himself

Try deleting obsolete units

Building a city close to his border and leave it weakly defended

Having nera buildt troops in your build queues. Those can be buildt quickly but don't count towards your power score

 

[KMadCandy]

WW only kicks in for enemy territory true, except for nukes they count anywhere. WW info

PAs are only an option if you enabled when starting the game.

for taunting the AI into war, it depends on a couple of things. each leader has his own, i don't know what the word i'm looking for is, basically 'comfort zone' where he will or will not DoW. if your power is too much more than his, he won't. if you're far away from him, the power ratio limit for that calculation changes.

for kublai in particular, the power ratio he'll declare at is exactly the same as Hatty's. gandhi is actually braver as far as his power compared to your power than kublai is . KK is more likely to DoW in general than either hatty or gandhi by far, but he is nowhere near as psycho as monty in the "i don't care if you're stronger than i am" sense, not by a long shot. so just plain taunting won't work if you're too much stronger than him.

 

[xanadux]

Being isolated, and with the only navy on the map, All I have is a unit in each city ... half warriors, a few axes and a lone camel archer. At the time I taunted I had only 2 caravels, 2 galleons, and 5 frigates. His continent is only about 10 squares away from mine. Maybe if I go to war first, I can bribe Caesar. It is kinda funny we have the Caesar-Saladin defensive pact.

 

[johncross21]

AI doesn't like launching naval invasions - if there space start a city on the AI's land mass (that will raise the temperature a bit)

 

[xanadux]

Well, it turns out I didn't have much to worry about. It didn't take much more play to realize that I was in fact out-teching the AI. Eventually it was obvious that they weren't even close. Looks like my decision to beeline computers late was good.

In the end, I won the space race in 1887. I had 4 or 5 techs on all oponnents. My super science city not only had a beaker output over 670, but also 31 hammers! Space ship launched 20 turns after Appolo program was built (actually built Space Elevator about 5 turns before Appolo). All this without a single cottage built and an isolated start on monarch. Feels pretty good for my first SE attempt, and only my second Monarch game after never winning on prince (the forum and strat articles help if you read them).

In the end it looked like the AI was getting restless ... demanding techs of me, sabotaging my oil ... but I spammed out about 15 sentry subs to surround my continent, and that stopped the spies. Along with 15 battleships and 10 destroyers, none of those backward folk was taking this island! I didn't see a ship more advanced than a frigate from the AI all game, although I am sure they had subs.

 

[KMadCandy]

hehe grats !

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Ha good question, does taunting work.
I was in a similar situation a couple of weeks ago, was playing a Huge/Emporer/Pangea/Marathon game as Napolean. I'd finally beaten Augustus after a 2000 year war(he was massive but never once launched anything even resembling a counter attack, over-expanded I think)
Started a new war.
After taking a couple of Gandhi's cities he capitulated to Tokugawa(the power leader). Military Tradition comes in and I decide to sign a defensive pact with Hannibal(2nd in power) thinking this was the best time to piss off Tokugawa, which isn't that hard anyway, I made a series of demands bringing him to furious.
Then sat back and waited.
Meantime I signed a defensive pact with Roosevelt also, which turned out to be a huge mistake, 10 turns later I find in the interturn that I'm now at war with Hannibal, I'd completely forgot that Hannibal and Rosevelt had been at war a couple of time and weren't to happy with each other, anyway I move my army over from Tokugawa's border to Hannibal's and scramble an awesome defense .
Then Tokugawa declares on me

So yes, it does work.

 

[Vizzini]

I repeatedly made demands of KK, and have gotten him furious with me at about -30 relations. The question is ... will he declare war?

Yes, I did it to Monty in my current game.

The problem in your game is he might not have been able to attack you yet. Did KK even have Astronomy?

In mine Monty kept demanding Astronomy from me (wasn't foolish enough to give it to him) and I kept making arrogant demands on him. Oddly enough he declared on me one turn before I was going to attack him anyway and despite the fact that I had Defensive Pacts with two other Civs, both of whom were more powerful than Monty - so the idea that an AI won't declare if you're more powerful than that AI isn't really true. If they're mad enough they'll declare regardless of the power stacked against them. They just have to be able to attack you.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Yes, I did it to Monty in my current game.

The problem in your game is he might not have been able to attack you yet. Did KK even have Astronomy?

In mine Monty kept demanding Astronomy from me (wasn't foolish enough to give it to him) and I kept making arrogant demands on him. Oddly enough he declared on me one turn before I was going to attack him anyway and despite the fact that I had Defensive Pacts with two other Civs, both of whom were more powerful than Monty - so the idea that an AI won't declare if you're more powerful than that AI isn't really true. If they're mad enough they'll declare regardless of the power stacked against them. They just have to be able to attack you.

Hate to break it to you, but that's just Monty, he'd attack you even if you didn't taunt him.

 

[Vizzini]

Hate to break it to you, but that's just Monty, he'd attack you even if you didn't taunt him.

Oh I know. I hate him and if he's in a game you can bet he'll be my first victim if it's at all possible. The taunting him was just gravy and probably expedited the declaration a bit... which helped loads. If he had JUST waited one more turn I would have started the war which would have meant my two Defensive Pacts would have been void.

Gotta love Monty.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Oh I know. I hate him and if he's in a game you can bet he'll be my first victim if it's at all possible. The taunting him was just gravy and probably expedited the declaration a bit... which helped loads. If he had JUST waited one more turn I would have started the war which would have meant my two Defensive Pacts would have been void.

Gotta love Monty.

Monty is my favourite AI to have in a game, get him to pleased and he'll attack his own grandmother.

 

[strategygamer]

Well, it turns out I didn't have much to worry about. It didn't take much more play to realize that I was in fact out-teching the AI. Eventually it was obvious that they weren't even close. Looks like my decision to beeline computers late was good.

It looks like the computers might have been intentionally avoiding a war with you, no matter how rude you were!

 

[xanadux]

It looks like the computers might have been intentionally avoiding a war with you, no matter how rude you were!

Anyone know if the computer takes navy strength into account much? At the time, my target, KK, was #1 by quite a bit on power and score. I had the only real navy in the world. Not much, about 6 frigates and a couple caravels, but all I saw anywhere where a few galleys hiding in cities. My total power was pathetic ... I think my total land army was 5 warriors, 3 axemen and a camel archer. I'm playing vanilla civ, and the AI is dumb enough to attack a fortified woodsman 2 quechua in a forest across a river with a city garrison archer, I wouldn't think a handful of frigates would stop galleys from trying to get troops to me. No one else was going to start a war ... although MM and KK were different religions from us buddhists, through peace, open borders, and other trades, noone was worse than cautious with anyone else. Like I said before, in the end it didn't matter because my specialist economy was a monster late game ... I had 8 great scientists settled in my oxford city along with 10 science specialists, and beelined ahead while JC and HC picked random techs. I saved the game around 1200, and have considered going back and seeing how late cultural victory try would have turned out. I've never tried cultural victoy, and was considering it, but at the time, I only had 1 religion in 1 city, and it seemed it would take a long time to get those cathedrals going, and it seemed JC and HC were teching so fast that they would launch a space ship before I could conceivably get the required culture ... then again, with MM and KK backwards, and if I stopped teching, JC and HC would stop trading since any new tech they had would be a monopoly tech, so maybe it would have worked.