Start a war without getting blamed.

[benjamin1981]

How do I start a war without the others taking my enemy's side, or them refusing to trade with me? Is it good enough if they walk on my territory a couple of time? I want a war with the French in my current game, but I don't want the Babylonians and the Ottomans to gang up on me and take away my right of passage. What do I do to start a war and keep public opinion on my side?

This could also be a lesson for President Bush...

Benjamin

 

[LLXerxes]

A way to not effect attitudes is going to do diplomacy with the warring nation, go to the active deals thing, repropose peace, and exit.

 

[Aggie]

LLXerxes: that doesn't help a thing... It may still ruin your rep when you have active deals.

To answer the question: the fact that the other AIs take the side of your enemy has nothing to do with who starts the war. It merely has to do with the question: who is going to ask the others to join? It appears that you don't do it, but an AI civ which has something to offer (gold, gold per turn, technology, luxuries, resources) WILL. If you want to avoid the other AI to gang up on you: get MA's with the others after you declared war and don't give the enemy the chance to beat you to it.

You also mention a stained reputation due to a war declaration (they don't want to trade). This has to do with the following:

-don't declare war on a civ while you have acitive deals with them (like you paying them gold per turn for a technology). Wait until the deal is over or let them declare on you.
-don't declare war on a civ when you have troops within their territory. This is consider a ROP rape (right of passage), even if you don't have a ROP with that civ. Declare on them first and then enter their territory to attack (this can be in the same turn).

To let the AI declare the war on you, you can demand them to leave when they have troops within your territory. You can also try to plant a spy (or try to perform other espionage activities). When it fails they may declare war. Getting them to declare ar will ruin their reputation instead of yours. It doesn't always work. When you are far stronger they may not dare to declare the war and then you have to wait.

 

[Samson]

To let the AI declare the war on you, you can demand them to leave when they have troops within your territory.

To make sure this works, you can get them furious with you. Just go to "I would like to propose a deal", put one of their citys on their side and demand it. This will reduce theoir attitude 1 point per request, so keep doing it untill they are furious. Then demand they leave.

If you have not been at war with them before, every time they will declare war. I think you need 20 turns or something after declaring peace to be certain it will work after war. This is so certain you can ask for any gold or techs they have for gold per turn, and then ask them to declare war. I think this is an exploit.

 

[alamo]

By 'blame' do you mean a negative impact on your reputation? To keep a good rep. simply do not break deals and declare war BERFORE invading.

AI attitude, on the other hand, depends on how you treat the AI. The definitive work on this is here:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_ai_attitude.shtml

IMHO, the biggest exploit is to sign a bunch of MPP's, then declare war and let the poor slob attack you first and trigger all the MPP's. That works even if they also have MPP's with the same civs.

 

[viper275]

Sometimes civs make demands to you. Refuse and they'll declare war. You could also tell their units to leave their territory. One last thing, AIs will probably get out of trade deals by declaring war if they can't afford to pay you large amounts of gold per turn.

About the civs signing against you: I think you should sign against them with those civs before the reverse can happen. Otherwise there are no guarantees.
P.S. Is it necessary to drag politics into this?

 

[alamo]

P.S. Is it necessary to drag politics into this?

Plenty of politics in the OT forum - check it out if you want to go there. Otherwise we'll need a red cfc and a blue cfc.


Just listen to your inner warmonger, young sith.

 

[Mr. Do]

If you demand the AI leaves your territory and they delcare war on you, you don't lose reputation if you happened to have units in their territory there and then, do you?

Also I think it's really funny how with Civ 3 asking "how can you start a war without getting blamed" is an entirely valid question. But then this is the game where if you have a trade going on with civ x and then civ y sneak-attacks and destroys x, then y will tell you off for betraying x

 

[Cuivienen]

There are two "reputations" -- your trading reputation, which is marred by breaking trades, and your Right of Passage reputation, which is marred by break RoPs or attacking a civ when you have units within their borders. In that case, neither would be harmed, but IMO the RoP rep isn't very important, anyway.

 

[bob rulz]

viper275, they won't always declare war on you if you refuse their demand and Aggie, if you try to plant a spy, they catch you, and declare, won't that ruin your rep since you kind of were planting a spy?

 

[Cuivienen]

Oddly enough, it doesn't. Another oddity of civ. All getting caught planting spies does is worsen your relations with the civ in question.

 

[MSTK]

I wouldn't recommend getting people furious with you on purpose -- at a certain point, they get mad at you enough that you will never see them at Annoyed again, and remain at Furious no matter what you do.

 

[Aggie]

@bob rulz: Cuivienen is right. You won't get any blame. I'm so used to that, that I forogt to mention it. But it indeed is strange.

And I agree that making the AI furious by demanding them stuff x times in one turn is a tactic that makes use of a concept that the AI doesn't understand. It is often banned in succession games.