Like that thread title? Doesn't make a lot of sense so let me explain the concept. Basically, you manipulate the AI civs to the point where you can actually be at war throught the entire game but you don't upset any of them enough to where they will declare war on you. In fact, you'll find your 'enemy' one turn can be your trading partner the next turn.
The core idea behind this concept is to be the puppet master controlling all of the other civs and city states to do your dirty work for you. You can effectively run proxy wars across the globe with the intention of beating down the game leader or your closest competitor if you're in the lead. It works with any civ in any era as long as you don't break it by making enemies early.
What Upsets the AI
To begin, make sure you understand what it is that upsets the AI and makes them hate you. For the most part you only need to worry about two things, settling close and conquering cities. Your reputation as a warmonger or land hog will spread between AI civs that have made contact so you have some degree of freedom early in the game if you're quick. The good news is that the AI gets just as upset at another AI civ in the same circumstance so we'll explore how to use that to your advantage.
You can do this very effectively with a small empire or a large empire and you can use the same basic strategy for any victory condition except domination. The goal is to disrupt your opponents, not conquer them and if you decide to conquer them you won't be able to do this as effectively. So just remember not to settle too close to the AI civs and not to ever conquer any cities EXCEPT a capital or city state that somebody else conquered for the sole reason of liberating it (liberating doesn't count as conquering).
How do I know this? A bunch of testing from the same base save games. I may be entirely wrong but I won't know for sure until we have the DLL source to dig around in.
The Basic Strategy
What I do is really simple and really effective. When I go to war I never go to war alone and I put all of my effort into destroying units and bombarding cities. The general idea is to make it easier for whoever else is also at war with my current target to get in and capture/raze cities so I don't have to.
From the start of the game you need to focus on having enough cities with the proper focus to do whatever it is you need for the victory condition you're aiming for. There is no set sequency of city types or techs you need. You will need to be able to field a decent military, it doesn't need to be huge but it needs to be good. To this end, having good income will help keep your military upgraded and having good production will let you produce the units as needed and you'll need more than you can normally purchase easily.
If you're on a continent with one or two neighbors you can rush and conquer them as long as you can have them out of the game before any of you meet the other civs of the world. You don't have to do that, but if you want more room to grow you can do that early and not suffer for it. It's best to go all or nothing here, so if you don't want to eliminate them all you probably shouldn't eliminate any of them.
Diplomacy
When dealing with the other civs you have two goals: research pacts and not making any real enemies. This means you should reject virtually all other offers so you don't make the mistake of backstabbing one of them. No cooperation pacts, no secrecy pacts and only use open borders if you absolutely need them. Since research pacts take the same lenght of time as the default trade agreements that's a good time to unload some spare resource for a little extra cash.
If you do this you can declare war on any one of them at any time (research pacts excluded) and when you make peace they won't hate you. You also won't make enemies out of their friends and nobody will worry that you're bullying the weak... unless you start conquering cities, so don't do that.
Your Army
Unlike a more traditional conquest strategy that requires a a large and well rounded force this takes something more specialized. Your offensive force will need strong 'melee' units, a great general and one or two siege weapons. I don't recommend archers since they lose the benefit of their promotions if upgrades to riflemen. Once aircraft are available you'll fall in love with aircraft carriers.
On a large map my offensive force consists of 5 'melee' units, 2 'siege' units, a great general and 2-3 naval units. You need early wars to get them promoted beyond 30xp and getting the double xp from the honor social policy branch is definately worth it. Training them up is as easy and declaring war on your first neighbor and then hanging around their capital killing any units they send out and bombarding their city. One or two units with the medic promotion make it easy to sit within the target cities bombard range without getting slaughtered. As long as you don't conquer their capital you can take peace whenever they offer it and you want it and then get back to business as usual (see above).
Easy Mode
The easiest way to do this is with Greece. Your hoplites are very strong so they'll do very well early in the game and they'll be highly promoted by the time you upgrade them (spear->pike->rifle is also a short & cheap upgrade path compared to warrior->swordsman->longsword->rifle). City states are the easiest allies to get to do your dirty work for you and conviently enough when a city state conquers a city they raze it so you can move in and settle if you want. City states don't seem to do amphibious assaults very well if at all and they don't cross any borders unless they're at war so you'll need allied City States near your target. If you find a conquered city state declare war immediately and liberate it... instant ally
The reduced decay rate for city states is a huge advantage for this strategy, you will inevitably reach the point when most of them have 'destroy city state x' as their mission and you don't ever want to do those so you get stuck paying them. With Greec and the Patronage branch you'll spend 250 gold every once in a while to keep them allied, it's tougher (but still doable) for anybody else.
You can also use City States as training for your military, just don't conquer them. Find a City State with a bunch of units and attack them then make peace when their units are all dead.
If you do it right you're army will have a bunch of units with close to 300xp by the time you upgrade to rifles & canons. This means you'll have canons with 3 range, indirect fire and logistics, in other words if they try to attack your front line they'll be mostly dead as soon as you can see them. It also means your canons can sit outside of the city bombard range and plink away at no risk.
For social policies you should complete the Honor Branch. The double XP bonus, +15% strength for each adjacent friendly unit (stacks with flanking) and 50% upgrade costs will give you a significant edge and let you get away with a small and highly mobile army.
The War
The actual wars are pretty straight forward. You'll move your small army in, wipe out any units in the area and then bombard cities. You should also pillage every improvement along the way as that gold will add up quickly. Since the idea is to cripple your opponents rather than conquer them pillaging their empire keeps them down a bit after you make peace. In cases where you can't get an ally in the war just the act of killing their units and pillaging their land will be sufficient.
Ideally you'll have a third party involved and your actions will let them conquer a few cities. It is very hard to get people to join you in a war but it is very easy to join them. Most of the time I simply check the scoreboard anytime I see two civs go to war, I then declare war on the high ranked of the two and help the other. The only thing to watch for is any existing research pacts, if you have one active do not declare war on that civ or it will cancel it and you lose the gold. It's also a good idea to fight on their behalf if they're weak as you'll lose the research if they get eliminated.
If you kept your main army small and mobile you can move them around the globe easily. Make sure you have escorts when you're embarked (they double as bombarment on coastal cities too) and try not to declare ware until they're within range to disembark immediately. Mobility is important since you'll probably end up at war with almost every other civ at one time or another, not just your neighbors.
Conclusion
It's a fun alternative strategy, it may also be exploiting broken AI. I think it just confuses them because they're not seeing you conquer anything so you don't seem like a warmonger. As long as you can defend yourself against anybody who attacks you you can just go about whatever it is you like to do in Civ 5.
I hope that all made sense. I also hope somebody from Firaxis sees it and improves the AI diplomacy a bit so they aren't so easy to abuse. This strategy also exposes the potential exploit of farming xp through city bombardment which renders all those +xp buildings all but worthless.
The core idea behind this concept is to be the puppet master controlling all of the other civs and city states to do your dirty work for you. You can effectively run proxy wars across the globe with the intention of beating down the game leader or your closest competitor if you're in the lead. It works with any civ in any era as long as you don't break it by making enemies early.
What Upsets the AI
To begin, make sure you understand what it is that upsets the AI and makes them hate you. For the most part you only need to worry about two things, settling close and conquering cities. Your reputation as a warmonger or land hog will spread between AI civs that have made contact so you have some degree of freedom early in the game if you're quick. The good news is that the AI gets just as upset at another AI civ in the same circumstance so we'll explore how to use that to your advantage.
You can do this very effectively with a small empire or a large empire and you can use the same basic strategy for any victory condition except domination. The goal is to disrupt your opponents, not conquer them and if you decide to conquer them you won't be able to do this as effectively. So just remember not to settle too close to the AI civs and not to ever conquer any cities EXCEPT a capital or city state that somebody else conquered for the sole reason of liberating it (liberating doesn't count as conquering).
How do I know this? A bunch of testing from the same base save games. I may be entirely wrong but I won't know for sure until we have the DLL source to dig around in.
The Basic Strategy
What I do is really simple and really effective. When I go to war I never go to war alone and I put all of my effort into destroying units and bombarding cities. The general idea is to make it easier for whoever else is also at war with my current target to get in and capture/raze cities so I don't have to.
From the start of the game you need to focus on having enough cities with the proper focus to do whatever it is you need for the victory condition you're aiming for. There is no set sequency of city types or techs you need. You will need to be able to field a decent military, it doesn't need to be huge but it needs to be good. To this end, having good income will help keep your military upgraded and having good production will let you produce the units as needed and you'll need more than you can normally purchase easily.
If you're on a continent with one or two neighbors you can rush and conquer them as long as you can have them out of the game before any of you meet the other civs of the world. You don't have to do that, but if you want more room to grow you can do that early and not suffer for it. It's best to go all or nothing here, so if you don't want to eliminate them all you probably shouldn't eliminate any of them.
Diplomacy
When dealing with the other civs you have two goals: research pacts and not making any real enemies. This means you should reject virtually all other offers so you don't make the mistake of backstabbing one of them. No cooperation pacts, no secrecy pacts and only use open borders if you absolutely need them. Since research pacts take the same lenght of time as the default trade agreements that's a good time to unload some spare resource for a little extra cash.
If you do this you can declare war on any one of them at any time (research pacts excluded) and when you make peace they won't hate you. You also won't make enemies out of their friends and nobody will worry that you're bullying the weak... unless you start conquering cities, so don't do that.
Your Army
Unlike a more traditional conquest strategy that requires a a large and well rounded force this takes something more specialized. Your offensive force will need strong 'melee' units, a great general and one or two siege weapons. I don't recommend archers since they lose the benefit of their promotions if upgrades to riflemen. Once aircraft are available you'll fall in love with aircraft carriers.
On a large map my offensive force consists of 5 'melee' units, 2 'siege' units, a great general and 2-3 naval units. You need early wars to get them promoted beyond 30xp and getting the double xp from the honor social policy branch is definately worth it. Training them up is as easy and declaring war on your first neighbor and then hanging around their capital killing any units they send out and bombarding their city. One or two units with the medic promotion make it easy to sit within the target cities bombard range without getting slaughtered. As long as you don't conquer their capital you can take peace whenever they offer it and you want it and then get back to business as usual (see above).
Easy Mode
The easiest way to do this is with Greece. Your hoplites are very strong so they'll do very well early in the game and they'll be highly promoted by the time you upgrade them (spear->pike->rifle is also a short & cheap upgrade path compared to warrior->swordsman->longsword->rifle). City states are the easiest allies to get to do your dirty work for you and conviently enough when a city state conquers a city they raze it so you can move in and settle if you want. City states don't seem to do amphibious assaults very well if at all and they don't cross any borders unless they're at war so you'll need allied City States near your target. If you find a conquered city state declare war immediately and liberate it... instant ally
The reduced decay rate for city states is a huge advantage for this strategy, you will inevitably reach the point when most of them have 'destroy city state x' as their mission and you don't ever want to do those so you get stuck paying them. With Greec and the Patronage branch you'll spend 250 gold every once in a while to keep them allied, it's tougher (but still doable) for anybody else.
You can also use City States as training for your military, just don't conquer them. Find a City State with a bunch of units and attack them then make peace when their units are all dead.
If you do it right you're army will have a bunch of units with close to 300xp by the time you upgrade to rifles & canons. This means you'll have canons with 3 range, indirect fire and logistics, in other words if they try to attack your front line they'll be mostly dead as soon as you can see them. It also means your canons can sit outside of the city bombard range and plink away at no risk.
For social policies you should complete the Honor Branch. The double XP bonus, +15% strength for each adjacent friendly unit (stacks with flanking) and 50% upgrade costs will give you a significant edge and let you get away with a small and highly mobile army.
The War
The actual wars are pretty straight forward. You'll move your small army in, wipe out any units in the area and then bombard cities. You should also pillage every improvement along the way as that gold will add up quickly. Since the idea is to cripple your opponents rather than conquer them pillaging their empire keeps them down a bit after you make peace. In cases where you can't get an ally in the war just the act of killing their units and pillaging their land will be sufficient.
Ideally you'll have a third party involved and your actions will let them conquer a few cities. It is very hard to get people to join you in a war but it is very easy to join them. Most of the time I simply check the scoreboard anytime I see two civs go to war, I then declare war on the high ranked of the two and help the other. The only thing to watch for is any existing research pacts, if you have one active do not declare war on that civ or it will cancel it and you lose the gold. It's also a good idea to fight on their behalf if they're weak as you'll lose the research if they get eliminated.
If you kept your main army small and mobile you can move them around the globe easily. Make sure you have escorts when you're embarked (they double as bombarment on coastal cities too) and try not to declare ware until they're within range to disembark immediately. Mobility is important since you'll probably end up at war with almost every other civ at one time or another, not just your neighbors.
Conclusion
It's a fun alternative strategy, it may also be exploiting broken AI. I think it just confuses them because they're not seeing you conquer anything so you don't seem like a warmonger. As long as you can defend yourself against anybody who attacks you you can just go about whatever it is you like to do in Civ 5.
I hope that all made sense. I also hope somebody from Firaxis sees it and improves the AI diplomacy a bit so they aren't so easy to abuse. This strategy also exposes the potential exploit of farming xp through city bombardment which renders all those +xp buildings all but worthless.
) so why should the AI hate you for it? It's about the balance of power and keeping it is good for everyone, but especially good for you
