How to start a war?

[Frink]

160 X 160 map, regent difficulty, islands (though some are rather large). the world looks like:
Me: medium sized island all to my self in the center of the world, second strong point (with the FP) north of the Iroquois (sp)
another large continent to the west and south west with the Babs, French and Greeks (from east to west), all larger than me except France. To the North of this continent is the Japs on a large continent. And to the east of them (but my North West) is the small artic island of Zululand. To my south is another large continent containing mostly the Iroquois.

It is the middle industrial age, and I have just discovered refining. I have one oil resource and a second one on a 3 tile island 2 tiles south of one of my colony islands. Just before I settle a city, the Japs plop one down. I currently have one oil resource, but I always seem to lose them rather quick, so I want this one on the island.

I am currently a Republic, but I have the Suffrage...so war weariness won't be a problem in a short war, but may become a problem in a drawn out conflict, and I have no intention to change my government (I only want an oil resource on an island inside my sphere of influence, and outside my rivals).

The political situation is rather simple: The Greeks are gracious towards me, Zulus are cautious and everyone else (including the Japs) are polite.
The Babs are the science leaders, but I buy any tech they discover and sell it to everyone else, so the world is at the same tech level as me (riflemen and cav)

Some final things to consider: The Babs have several oil resources (and are very strong), so if things go south, I don't want to alienate them. The Greeks have a large military from an earlier war with the French, have vast supplies of coal (and I currently only have one) in addition to being gracious towards me. I have 2 luxuries under my control, and I am importing 2: 1 from the Iroquois and one from the Japs :-(. No one else has any surplus resources (though some a certainly trading with the Japs... a potential for replacing a lost luxury. Finally, the Japs have an MPP with the Zulus, but the Zulus are a non-entity.

I could take the resource island in question in 3 - 5 turns (before any significant tech advancement) with my limited (2) number of offensive units. The city in question is defended by a dragoon currently (I added 2 units between musket men and riflemen and delayed riflemen until the advance of steal...the dragoon and the Napoleonic Infantry). Should I do a surprise attack, declare war, or try to get them to declare war? Once war is declared should I seek alliances and accept the 20 turns of defensive war (the Greeks and Babs could keep the Japs rather occupied at home). Or should I try some tricks such as get MPPs now with my major allies (Greeks and Babs), send an undefended galleon near the shores of Japan (or even a land unit to Japan itself), declare war, let them attack my unit and let the MPPs kick in (this way any MPPs they make between now and war will be nullified...he attacked me first). Or should I do something else?

 

[hHh]

i have almost the same problem except that all the left civs are annoyed at me because i did some breaking of peace treaties. There are 3 continent - the largest for the chinese indians and germans(Chinese the second force after me) The second continent is for myself and the third for the english. i want to make them declare war by moving a unit in their territory but they ask me to move it and and if i say yes the troops move automatically and appear on my continent. And if i say just goodbye the military advisor asks me the thing about scum and so on and i suppose that it means that i am declaring war on them. So how to make them declare war. I'll try to make MPP with the germans and then make china declare war on them.

 

[Ironikinit]

MPP don't kick in unless you get attacked on your territory. OTOH, seems that I've had them kick in just because somebody declared war.

The easiest way to get somebody to declare war is if they like to get on your territory. Constantly telling them to get off your land annoys them.

MPPs are a good way to get into a low blame war, but you still have war weariness.

If you really want a war, switch to communism and mobilize. Have ships full of units right off the enemy coast ready to go. Or stacks on the border, whatever. Once you have your guys ready to roll, declare war, and buy some allies. Note that you can supposedly cue up a line of production prior to mobilizing so you don't have to get stuck making units in cities where you really don't want to.

 

[Syndrome Zed]

You can make relations with someone go south fast diplomatically - at least to the level of annoyed.

Just propose a deal that your advisor says would insult them.

Then keep hitting "would you accept this deal?" until your status drops to annoyed. It only usually takes 3 or 4 clicks.

I haven't gotten them to get furious yet, but if you did that to someone who is already furious with you, you might get them to declare war.

 

[Zouave]

You want a war??

Just try some of that ridiculously expensive Espionage. It will, as usual FAIL, and they likely will declare war. That's all Espionage is good for.

 

[cegman]

You can use espionage to get wartorn cities under your control if they are out of reach and smashed by you or anouther country or they have strong defences around and in it

 

[Umask077]

I like to plant my spys but i quickly discovered its a really good way to start a war. If I want to make someone start a war I choose low success spying missions and do 2 or 3 in a turn. They always fail and piss off the other person till they declare war.