In my present game (Random-Zulus, Emp, Large 40% Archi), it's the early Modern era, and my very long cold war with Hannibal (mostly fought by Rome on my behalf) had just gone hot. My Cav-Armies (I only just got MotorTrans, and have only built a couple of Tanks so far) were in the last stages of taking apart his empire, but he's also somehow managed to annoy everyone else, and has lost a Tundra-town to the Ottomans (the most advanced + powerful Civ). The same turn as Ozzie also took Nora out from under my nose (using an impressively co-ordinated ship-bombardment followed by Marine-assault!), I captured Sabratha(?) and Carthage, finishing Hanni off — but that left a couple of small stacks of Ottoman Tanks + Sipahi running loose on my continent, which made me rather nervous. But I couldn't simply DoW Ozzie, because he has an MPP with the Vikings, currently the 2nd most powerful Civ on the board (I'm a close 3rd, because my military is smaller — but I have many more towns).
So I came up with a devilish plan: entice Ozzie into war (he was already Furious at me, and militarily stronger), and then get everyone else to fight him for me — primarily to sink his navy, because I've built very few ships myself.
I had been careful to keep my trade-rep intact throughout this game, so I temporarily zeroed my SCI%-slider (giving me >700 GPT income), and signed MPPs with Scandinavia, England (4th) and the USA (5th) — the latter two sharing their continent with Ozzie (and formerly Hammurabi). Then I asked Ozzie whether he wanted to share his monopoly on Fission (which he got as his freebie; he's already built both UN and Manhattan) or Computers (which I had already partly researched, with a SETI prebuild 8T from completion), but he wouldn't sell either of them, so I asked about AmphibWar instead: he was willing to sell that for my WMap and ~225 GPT. Then I told him to leave or declare, and — even though he had only a single Inf on my land at that point — he went ahead and DoW'd me!
I immediately destroyed all his Tanks + Sipahi I could reach in neutral territory, then ended the turn. During the IBT, I lost 1 of the 2 defending Infantries in one of my Carthaginian-captures to a combined Bomber + Sipahi attack; and 3 just-promoted elite Tanks (which were left damaged and in the open) to his remaining Tanks + Sipahi (1 defeated). His first bombing-run activated my MPPs, and since Lizzie already had an MPP with Hiawatha (who wouldn't bite when I offered, not even for >100 GPT), Ozzie was now at war with the Iroquois as well. Because everyone was now on my side, I was free to capture both the towns Ozzie held on my continent: in the meantime, he's fighting 5 of the 8 Civs remaining (he's not going to win any UN votes in the foreseeable future!), 4 of whom can easily get troops onto his lands, and I ended up paying nothing for AmphibWar (which I might still be able to use as trade-bait).
Even better, Lizzie finished researching Computers herself, reducing its cost, and War Happiness allowed me to lower LUX% and increase SCI%, so I now also have it, allowing me to switch my Palace-prebuild to SETI (now due in 5T), and start on Miniaturisation (for Internet). I also promptly sold Comps to Ragnar for >5000 gold (plus ~50 GPT, plus some other trifles), which let me instantly upgrade all my mainland Infs to MechInf (I have SunTzu). And best of all, my trade-rep is still intact.
And soon, PolandZululand will into Spaaaaaace!
) declare on another AI, suddenly has lots of gpt available that it did not have a minute before. and in some cases it is pretty sure it was formerly paid to that other AI nation for some technology, for example. which should never be possible with busted trade-reputation, no matter how large the AI-AI trade discount might be.
