Poking the Bear

[bobbyboy29]

Da-da-da-da-da-da!!!
It's most dreaded sound in all of civilization, ask not for whom the war horns blare, they blare for you!
Yes getting DOW'd can be the most annoying, frustrating unanticipated event and is often enough to make anyone quit rather than face wave after wave of monty's outdated units while they try to keep up in tech with Mansa.

But is being DOW'd always a bad thing? In recent games I have found that there are many times where being declared war upon is a good thing. I have found on many occasions that it was very useful to soil diplomatic relations with an aggresive neighbour(aka poke the bear), here are a few pointers as to why and how this works.

So just say that you want to conquer a nearby enemy, here are some reasons why you would prefer to be DOW'd upon rather than doing the DOW:
1. Diplomacy: When you declare war not only are you seriously pissing off your target, but you also get a diplo hit with all of his friends increasing the likelihood that they will be bribed into war on you or stop trading with you, conversely your opponent gets the diplo hit with all of your friends!
Furthermore, if you do declare peace eventually with your enemy, you suffer virtually no diplomatic hit. I've found it very easy to get a vassal to friendly if they DOW you.

2. Strategy: If your enemy has some big stacks it's much easier to take them out in your own territory where they are often exposed and you can use your own roads, a well defended hill city can also draw a lot of suicides after that you can move on the offense. You could DOW and wait for the stacks but that takes time and they dont always come.
Also, when their units are in your territory, they pay maintenance this can save you coins and cripple them.

But even if you don't want to conquer them just yet. If an enemy DOW's you and doesn't succeed in the war they will have wasted a lot of hammers on now dead units, spent upkeep on those units in your territory and lost their diplomatic footing. And don't worry, after the war you can resume trading with them again.

To pull this off effectively timing is the key. Just after Feudalism is the best time to get DOW'd because on a hilled city longbows can take just about anything the AI throws at you. This is also the best time because it's one of the worst times to invade an enemy as these wars can be tedious and costly especially in the lib race. Once you get rifles or cannons you're probably better off just invading.

So next time you find yourself next to monty give this a go. Put a hill city next to him, build walls and a few longbows, make some unreasonable demands of him, hit end turn and hear the sweet beautiful music of his war trumpets blowing!

 

[troytheface]

valid points- i would add that there is a fort kill theory someone posted and i read on here as well-
(a well placed fort- the enemy ai does not get a defensive bonus while in it?- been awhile since i read that but i think it is still valid.

perhaps an illustration of your tactic?

 

[duckduckswan]

Interesting, but what to do when you want to take that lovely land from a peace lover like Gandhi? His attitude doesn't change for the worse when you make demands, the only way to goad him into attacking would be to have a lower power rating I guess? But then that would mean you run the risk of being steam rolled by him or someone else.

 

[Nothingontv]

It never even occured to me to "start" a war like this. I suppose this doesn't work with all leaders, so when i try this is there a certain number of turns that i should wait for a DOW before i can assume there won't be one?

 

[none]

It's always good if you can avoid the diplomacy hit. Good points.

 

[Pim]

nice idea. Will try it when i have the possibility.

 

[capnvonbaron]

what is frustrating, though, is when the attack comes off boats. It is really hard to protect all coastal cities at all times against a serious naval invasion. Even though it is usually easy to go in and wipe out the landing troops a turn or two after the assault, you have to rebuild the city, which is annoying and taxing. Especially so since many times coastal cities aren't the best producers.

I still hate the war horns every time.

 

[Taran'li Maren]

Doesn't making crazy demands result in a diplomacy hit also? If so, are there other ways of "poking the bear" that don't?

I remember one time in Civ 4 vanilla, I gifted a stack of my outdated units to a neighbor who was getting stomped by a rival of mine. A turn later, that rival declared war on me. Does this work reliably, or at all, in BtS?

 

[jauggy]

Making a demand has a memory decay of 20 i.e. after roughly 20 turns the -1 should go away. Declaring war is -3 permanent and -1 permanent with his friends.

 

[Taran'li Maren]

Ah, good to know.

 

[bobbyboy29]

Here's a good, less damaging way of enraging your neighbour without long term diplo detriments. If it's a zealot (and you are preferably spiritual) just switch out of their religon and get them to annoyed, after the DOW switch back and they'll come out of the war pleased. Same goes for favourite civic.

Another fun one to try would be to get DOW'd and then raze nearby cities to lose the close borders spark tensions diplo hit!

 

[NihilZero]

Except that razing cities carries a diplo penalty...

 

[Silu]

Except that razing cities carries a diplo penalty...

And beware - if most of the city's culture isn't the current occupant's, you will get the hefty diplo penalty with the "rightful" owner, not the one that had it at the time (possibly both - not sure). Learned this the hard way...

 

[troytheface]

i suggest you poke bears with pointed sticks or in Civ4 terms -spear

ie- after war is delcared take a spear with woodsman and make the enemy chase him around

 

[J-man]

If you have a long border with the zealot you don't always know where he's going to throw his SoD at.

 

[troytheface]

there are several areas one could cover in the poking and then counter-

"The Cowards -Ploy" - if your a cowardly type of player you can build a stupid city and as soon as possible surrender it for peace.

Scout and woodsman cowards in enemy territory running away all over the place.

as the greatest espionage player of all time= no enemy should ever surprise a player

 

[Derp]

This never seems to work for me, even with someone like Monty or Alex. I dunno, maybe I'm just lucky (or unlucky), but I rarely seem to get DoW'd well, ever, even when I'm going out of my way to piss people off so that I can conquer them. Maybe it's just me though, I play on Emperor if that helps.

 

[dirtyparrot]

The only complication might be that you might be throwing away your chance to catch the enemy off-guard with much less amount of troops, instead of he's preparing for war and spamming troops. So, it's situational imo.

 

[Jehoshua]

The strategy has less certainty then simply DoW yourself. And of course annoying someone enough to get them to declare war on you can have unintended side effects. I personally had to deal with a general crusage by the hindu block at one point. Ofc if you can get a person less likely to bring in war allies go ahead.

Its a good strategy, but its only worthwhile in certain situations. And it involves a lot of guesswork. Your best bet would be to simply have a massive build up and invade the local diplomatic pariah.

 

[cabert]

I never managed it, but I consider being doWed only a minor nuisance most of the time.
Of course, in a deity game, when I have 2 warriors, getting dowed by someone with 4 or 5 axemen isn't funny.