Friends and enemies: DoW

[alvan]

I seem to have problem with getting my 'Pleased' and 'Friendly' friends to join me in battle! Most of the time its because we dont have the same enemies. Most of the times my friends are enemies with eachother, and pals with MY enemies.

I only once bribed Fredrick to help me out with Montezuma (gave him Astronomy) which didnt turn out that great cos Fredrick didnt up much of an offense and Monty didnt care about Fredrick. Even if we all 3 shared borders.

Do I need more diplomatic depth? Like actively be-friend enemies of my enemies? I've noticed that the AI seem less eager to go to war if your not at war with the target urself.

I usually play 18civs, huge, B&S/Fractal/Hemishpere and just stepped up from Prince to Monarch.

 

[KMadCandy]

I seem to have problem with getting my 'Pleased' and 'Friendly' friends to join me in battle! Most of the time its because we dont have the same enemies. Most of the times my friends are enemies with eachother, and pals with MY enemies.

Do I need more diplomatic depth? Like actively be-friend enemies of my enemies? I've noticed that the AI seem less eager to go to war if your not at war with the target urself.

they definitely are easier to bribe to go to war if you're in the war already yourself. even if they're willing to without you starting it, their price tag will go down after you start the fight.

my style is that i don't like for folks to declare war on me in the first place, i'm not very good at wars even when i start 'em. so most folks, including you, probably don't have to go to the extremes that i do *giggle*. i also don't play with 18 civs on the map, that's bound to make it harder in your case.

but the key for me is to make a "you're my friends" list and a "you're the enemy, who cares what you think" list and then try to make sure that my friends are friends with each other. that's partly so that they don't come demanding that i cancel trades with each other, etc. and partly because i need my friends to stay my friends and help out poor-little-defenseless me if some enemy (who i need us both to dislike) starts to be mean. i don't want them going to war with each other, since they'll ask me to join and i'll get negative modifiers for not helping, yuck.

this can sometimes help you: if i want my friends to be not-so-much friends any more since i decided CivA has to die, but i don't want the -1 you DoWd our friend with CivB, i look at their civics. if CivA is using CivB's favorite civic, that makes CivB like him, and if i can get CivA to swap civics (in BtS, using spies, in other versions bribing is your only option), then CivB instantly likes CivA less, sometimes a drop of 3-6 points. often (but not always) that's enough to take their relationship from "pleased" to cautious"; it's usually enough to knock down "friendly" to "pleased". that's much easier if you're spiritual of course, so that you can change civics to do the bribing/espionage civic-switching without anarchy.

you can try to break up religious blocs / stir up tension with religion to get your friend to hate your enemy. or try to get rid of religious differences that are making your friends be enemies with each other. i gifted churchill education and then liberalism in one game to get him to go FR, since he didn't want me to trade with hatty, and she had the only pigs on the planet. i needed her pigs for health, but i didn't want to get -you traded with our worst enemy with churchill, if he invaded me i was toast! for me in that case it was worth giving away (selling/trading to the rest of them) a monopoly tech.

so you might try stuff like that to encourage your friends to be less buddy-buddy with your enemies.

 

[dante alighieri]

I seem to have problem with getting my 'Pleased' and 'Friendly' friends to join me in battle! Most of the time its because we dont have the same enemies. Most of the times my friends are enemies with eachother, and pals with MY enemies.

I only once bribed Fredrick to help me out with Montezuma (gave him Astronomy) which didnt turn out that great cos Fredrick didnt up much of an offense and Monty didnt care about Fredrick. Even if we all 3 shared borders.

Do I need more diplomatic depth? Like actively be-friend enemies of my enemies? I've noticed that the AI seem less eager to go to war if your not at war with the target urself.

I usually play 18civs, huge, B&S/Fractal/Hemishpere and just stepped up from Prince to Monarch.

I've had the same problem. Even when I get my "friend" to help me out in war time, they don't really seem to contribute much. Thats why I do this....I don't depend on any AI friend unless they are a vassal or we have a defensive pact. I know that probably doesn't help you much, but the AI's all have a habit of stabbing me in the back so I try not to rely on them too much.

Also I try to make the cost of DoW on me too high. Especially if we share a border. Attack me and the result is you either become my puppet...i mean vassal...or die.

 

[alvan]

they definitely are easier to bribe to go to war if you're in the war already yourself. even if they're willing to without you starting it, their price tag will go down after you start the fight.

my style is that i don't like for folks to declare war on me in the first place, i'm not very good at wars even when i start 'em. so most folks, including you, probably don't have to go to the extremes that i do *giggle*. i also don't play with 18 civs on the map, that's bound to make it harder in your case.

but the key for me is to make a "you're my friends" list and a "you're the enemy, who cares what you think" list and then try to make sure that my friends are friends with each other. that's partly so that they don't come demanding that i cancel trades with each other, etc. and partly because i need my friends to stay my friends and help out poor-little-defenseless me if some enemy (who i need us both to dislike) starts to be mean. i don't want them going to war with each other, since they'll ask me to join and i'll get negative modifiers for not helping, yuck.

this can sometimes help you: if i want my friends to be not-so-much friends any more since i decided CivA has to die, but i don't want the -1 you DoWd our friend with CivB, i look at their civics. if CivA is using CivB's favorite civic, that makes CivB like him, and if i can get CivA to swap civics (in BtS, using spies, in other versions bribing is your only option), then CivB instantly likes CivA less, sometimes a drop of 3-6 points. often (but not always) that's enough to take their relationship from "pleased" to cautious"; it's usually enough to knock down "friendly" to "pleased". that's much easier if you're spiritual of course, so that you can change civics to do the bribing/espionage civic-switching without anarchy.

you can try to break up religious blocs / stir up tension with religion to get your friend to hate your enemy. or try to get rid of religious differences that are making your friends be enemies with each other. i gifted churchill education and then liberalism in one game to get him to go FR, since he didn't want me to trade with hatty, and she had the only pigs on the planet. i needed her pigs for health, but i didn't want to get -you traded with our worst enemy with churchill, if he invaded me i was toast! for me in that case it was worth giving away (selling/trading to the rest of them) a monopoly tech.

so you might try stuff like that to encourage your friends to be less buddy-buddy with your enemies.

Thanks for that espionage tip. I never pay too much attention to espionage, guess I have to.

 

[Fjordson]

Usually I Just gift them money if I really value their relations and I cannot go to war.

 

[madscientist]

Bribing an AI to help in war is really a crapshoot. Sometimes you will have an AI save your butt and sometimes they sit arroundfor 10 turns then declare peace.

I have found it best to get one of the war-mongers to declare on the AI you want out of the way by giving them what they want, then declare on that AI later.

Example: My current game as Ghandi, not really the war monger but in solid control of 2 religions and spiritual. Mansa Musa was axe-rushed and eliminated by myself leaving Ghangis, Boudica, Wang, Pericles on my continent. Wang and pericles were the tech concerns, Ghengis and Bouduca are the military concerns. I had close border with the 2 war mongers.

I continually bribed Ghengis into warring with Wang or Pericles, joining in the fight when asked (never sent a soldier), and got on a friendly basis with Boudica using religion. Both war mongers were pleased or friendly. Finally, financial Wang was destroyed by ghengis, so I bribed him into attacking Boudica. Once her army was flattened by Ghengis, I attacked her and vassaled her. Ghengis declared war on me trying to get to Boudica and I fought him to a stalemate. We still were on pleased turns after a while (he delcared war on me afterall), then I opened borders and bribed him into attacking Pericles. After 3 continual masulem assisted Golden ages (Taj + 3 GPs, 72 turns) and the tech edge of the rifling/cavalry I stabbed Ghengis in the back taking most of his core cities. 10 rounds of peace I declared again taking the Korean cities and vassaling him. At the moment I am finishing off Pericles leaving only a tech backwards DeGaulle on the other continent. Looking to build an armada for a conquest victory or waiting for the AP election.

The point is how and when to use diplomacy (plus the value of an early axe-rush), and how to leverage you leader abilities (Lot's of golden ages for philosophical Ghandi, plus flecibility with civics because of spiritual). Gifting 4 techs to Ghengis at once to declare war on Boudica got me both as vassals.

 

[Big Boss Man]

If you want a war buddy befriend an agg. rivial . Just tech them something low tech now and then or an extra food to keep'um happy . I think you'll get better results when you sic'um on somebody down the road cause your relationship will be better . Keep a leash on your pet dog , watch your back &
don't get back stabbed .