Proxy Wars -or- Funding the Underdog

[Volstag]

I'm sure this has all happened to us before, but here's the general scenario:

It's late-Medieval/early-Industrial. You're sitting in 3rd, or 4th place on the Histograph (assume 7 or 8 other civs). The 1st place Civ is on another continent (large map). They're running away in score, and you're worried that if they're allowed to go unmolested for too long, they're going to "win". War is, obviously, an option -- but it's looong way to the enemy coast and they have a large standing army and/or you're already embroiled in "disputes" with the intransigents on your continent.

Basically, you can't, for whatever reason, effectively commit to the huge military build-up/transport-time required to wage an effective war against the Big Bad Civ [BBC].

At some point, the BBC declares war on a smaller Civ on the same continent as BBC. I immediately begin thinking, "How can I make this help me?"

Has anyone had any success attempting to help a smaller Civ against a larger Civ indirectly? I've tried giving away "military" techs (to the smaller Civ), but most of the time they simply use them to broker a peace deal. I've tried giving away large sums of cash, but I have no way of knowing what becomes of it. I suspect that, much like techs, they simply use it to secure a peace deal. Gifting a strategic resource might be an option.

I think, given two (roughly) equal size Civs, you could tip the scales one way, or another, via the "gifting" of techs/resources/gold... but in a situation like that, you'd probably want them to duke it out anyway.

Basically, has anyone had any success helping a smaller Civ against a larger Civ, w/o becoming directly engaged in the war?

-V

 

[Mr. Do]

I've tried many many times to help the underdog but never had any success. When one AI civ wants to take over the lands of another AI civ, there is very little the human player can do without getting involved directly in the war.

 

[IbnSina]

No, the AI are so doofy in the way they make war that it's hard to influence it very strongly. Of course, we all gift techs to the weaker side, and that may help them to last a little longer, but in general, if one AI is clearly larger and stronger at the start of the war, the weaker one will go down.

These days, I try to use this to my advantage. I ally with the weaker one. They draw off troops of the stronger AI, so I can land/attack with less resistance. I hack out the powerful cities of the strong AI while they take the cities of the weaker AI. At the end of the day, I destroy the strong AI, and get the cities of the weaker one without ever having to declare war on them. AI attitude toward me remains good. Everybody is happy, except the poor sots from the weaker civ.

 

[T-Money]

I have only succeeded in this once, by giving iron to the underdog when the "BBC" had none, and the little civ kicked the big one's arse. Every time I try this in the Industrial era, the large civ usually has the most advanced tech and the most resources, so it's kind of impossible for the small civ to stop him. However, I do find this method useful for whittling down the large civ's army and then making a frontal assault while their forces are fighting the small civ.

 

[Ovulator]

I wish you could still trade units like Civ2.

I'm playing a game on a world map where I am the Japanese with 16 other civs on the map. The Iroquois, American, Mayan and Inca share the whole western hemisphere but the Mayan and Inca are so far behind that they basically qualify as barbarians. The Iroquois lead the world in everything and started a war with the Americans who are also significantly behind and quickly start to crush them. My army is far to small to cross the pacific and put up a challenge so in an effort to turn the tide I gave the Americans half a dozen technologies, my excess horses and rubber and a hundred some gold. But a dozen turns later the only American city left is in Greenland.

 

[Kalach]

I often gift the smaller civ gpt, not too much so they cant really trade with it, but enough to help their war effort (at least I hope they use it for that). Or giving them luxuries to help lower their WW, or increase their gpt, It's got to help them more than hurt them right?

I have suceeded in dramaticly changing the course of wars before though.
I was at war with the Dutch, so I gave their neighbours, the English, a lot of techs plus a pile of gold and gpt. The English managed to at least hold their defence (they were losing a lot of cities before). Then when the English cancled the alliance (after giving them 10k gold and 200gpt to renew it) I peaced and allied with the Dutch against the English, gave the Dutch gold, gpt and tech's and the English defence fell quickly to them again.

 

[amadeus]

Right of passage maybe and fill the country with explorers. That'll stop the advancing army as long as you're at peace with them.

 

[Frollo]

I usually try not to let one civ grow too big in the first place.

What I do is, when there are, say, 3 civs on a distant continent, I try to support them all. A luxury to one civ, a tech to another civ, some coins to the third...

That way, I hope they keep each other in balance so there will be no one really taking the lead.

Not sure if it works though...

 

[Phal78]

Right of passage maybe and fill the country with explorers. That'll stop the advancing army as long as you're at peace with them.

Yes, Ive had success with this too... ROP with the weaker civ then send over afew galleons full of units. You obviously dont have enough to challenge the power of the BBC but you can funnel his units around and give the weaker civ time to get their defence back in order. You can use this trick to stop a very large civ taking over a whole nother continent. Its worked several times for me

 

[Volstag]

As T-Money mentioned, the only time I've seen it work is when you're dealing with relatively equal sized civs, and you're able to tech/resource your "champion" enough to give them a decisive advantage.

I would love to see the ability to funnel money/material/techs (for the purposes of fighting a war against a larger aggressor) in Civ IV.

-V

 

[Xavier Von Erck]

The ROP/Explorer trick helps the smaller civ, but also allows the larger civ to build up forces outside of your peacekeeping forces. Then when you move your peacekeepers, they attack. The trick with ROP/Explorers is when there is a small or medium border chokepoint. Then you control the flow of troops and just allow border skirmishes.

Usually in these situations, the larger civ is further away from you, hence why you're not attacking. The best way to influence the war is by Diplomatic proxy. IE, declaring war on the big Civ only to be able to get closer allies to help out the smaller civ against the larger.

I hope Civ4 has a way to "gift" non-infantry combat forces like Lend/Lease at a rep hit with the opponent of who you're lend/leasing to.

 

[crimson238]

I"d like to see a proxy war ability in diplomacy, set up where you sell a civ a unit for gpt, resource tech, whatever, but is dependent on them remaining at war with whoever theyr'e at war with. as soon as peace is declared the deal is terminated.
For example, civ a is at war with b and c. you could either give them an arms deal for both b and c, or b only or c only. If it was b and c, peace would have to be declared with both to end the deal, if it was just b or just c, the one peace would be all that was needed.
that or the ability to sell training to the enemy, or armies. for as long as the deal is in effect their units gain and extra HP when produced (so regs are always vets, vets always elite) and the elites they do have get a higher chance of creating a MGL for them.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I often throw resources at the underdog just to prolong the pain, but if I really want to stop the BBC, I declare war on it, and bribe everyone near it into military alliances against it. Usually works if there's 3-4 smaller civs around it.