I know that the weakest part of my game right now is managing (manipulating?) diplomatic relations. But it seems like in my games I'm the only one who's ever waging war. And the effect is that I can bring down who ever I'm beating on at the time, but the rest of the world can continue devoting all their resources toward researching and blowing me out of the water in the points department.
I'm playing a game on Noble right now, fractal, standard map. I started on a continent with the Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish. We all had a big Buddhist love fest going on, but I quickly got cut off in my little corner with only four cities. I knocked around Izzy and captured her cities until she chose to become a vassal to the Portuguese. The buddhist love fest remained though.
I finally found the other civs on two separate continents. None of them liked me from the start, mostly due to religion. But somehow they all loved each other, even the guys on my continent who were still Buddhist. I'm now in the early 1900's and I'm the only one who has ever declared war! Everyone else is content with their pacifism and watching the Portuguese run away with the game.
So my question is how do you stir things up a bit? It's probably too late in the game now to have much influence, but looking back I'm still not sure what I could have done to ferment some chaos. I tried to get the AP, but I got Theology too late. Way to go Mansa.
If you are able to get an Open Borders agreement with someone, you can flood their empire with a different religion. That will shift the "love fest" a bit on the other continent.
Sometimes, giving away all of your extra resources to one person can get them to sway your way a little.
As a vassal, you can't declare war, so no one could ever drag you into a war which can yield nice diplomatic relations if played right.
What version of BtS are you playing on? I know the AI likes to fight more in BtS but even more so with version 3.13. You could also try turning on the Aggresive AI option on your next game.
The problem with Aggressive AI is that it puts further strain on you militarily. There will always be that ONE Civ that manages to not ever get wrapped up into warfare, and thus has incredible stacks of units.
Then, just when you think you've finally beaten off your last enemy, and rebuilt your army. You get slammed by that one Civ that hasn't warred at all, and attacks you simply because you are weaker than them.
I find it simply impossible to stay atop the power graph playing aggressive AI
I'm playing version 3.03(??) right now, haven't downloaded the latest patch yet, trying to finish this game first. I've never tried aggressive AI before, assuming that it just meant the AI would come after you more often. Under aggressive AI they'll actually attack each other? That would be novel, because I'm tired of having my opponent totally stacked with troops every time I invade. Those that are never involved in a war retain HUGE standing armies. Even with a tech lead it's tough to take down a 50 unit SoD.
I'm playing 3.13, and out of 5 wars, 1 was directed against me. And it was a Caesar pointing his Prats at me (which was scary). And I don't play with Aggro AI. Really scary.
Since the AI is building more units (way more then needed, IMO), it would make sense that they would attack each other. Think about it, humans can plan stacks and attacks, and tend to upgrade units (at times). Computers tend not to. So humans (who pay attention) are more likely to stick in the pack or get high on the power chart. So the AI will pick on AI instead.
Yes, they attack each other all the time from my experience with 3.13. I've even seen them wipe each other out and declare holy wars on each other (using the Apostolic Palace).
Well finally in the year 1918 a foreign war began as Ragnar declared on Mansa. Strange move, since Mansa is far superior in technology, is on a different continent, and Ragnar had a defensive pact with Pacal.
I don't have much hope of winning this game with Joao light years ahead of me and everyone else. But to make things interesting I think it's time to get my troops on the move. So I could attack:
1) Mansa - already has his hands full with Ragnar, so his forces will be divided, only civ besides Joao that is ahead of me on the scoreboard and not by much
2) Ragnar - He's going to have a tough war with Mansa, and his backwards technology could easily be overrun
3) Pacal - By Ragnar delcaring war he canceled the pact between him and Pacal. So I could effectively invade without drawing two Civs into conflict. Pacal would be an easier target than Mansa, but he'll still put up a good fight.
It is great for you that someone is going at Mansa (second place). You can forget him for a bit.
Forget the weak guys too. You need Joao taken down or you will lose.
So you need to look at who is most likely to help you. I can't tell from your outline of the situation, but ask yourself - who hates him, or if no-one does, who is enough of a backstabber to go after him if you pay? Best if they are closer to him that you are.
Declare on Joao and then rope in your ally (it is easier and cheaper once you are at war yourself).
Then let the other guy do most of the fighting, remember the aim is not really to destroy Joao, it's just to disable him enough so you can overtake him.
You definitely need to help out, but without crippling yourself. Get mobile units in there and pillage the hell out of his resource and his towns. Go for maximum damage at minimum risk. Meanwhile keep your own core well-defended and keep aiming for the victory you have in mind - at this stage it sounds like points (or space race?) is your only option, unless you have some great culture going there...
Anyway, hope this helps, from your diplomatic situation it sounds tricky but once you start a war yourself, it can catalyse other things...
On "stirring the pot" in general - the leader personalities and their starting positions are key - sometimes you get a game with mostly peaceful leaders and other times war rages endlessly if aggressive types get jammed up against one another.
But it's not all luck... Like most things in Civ IV, pot-stirring and other diplomatic shenanigans are most effective when planned well in advance. There is a great War Academy article on "triangle diplomacy" (alliances and manipulation) here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/triangle_diplomacy.php
Right. I've pretty much conceded victory at this point. I'm not sure how realistic my chances are, even if I go after Joao. Everyone in the whole world loves him, and he loves everyone. The chances of me pulling anyone else into that conflict are slim, and he'll probably pound the crap out of me if I go in alone.
Still, if it's my only chance at victory I might as well give it a shot. Joao is on the same continent as me. It's pretty much just the two of us and our vassals now. Izzy, his vassal, is closer to me, so I'm debating wiping her out first or just going straight for Joao's bigger cities. I'm likely going to spend a lot of time fighting off his larger number of troops, so I might be better off attempting smaller bands of pillagers than one SoD. Our tech is about the same level, but his production is through the roof if he mobilizes for war.
Hmmm... tricky. Taking on the big guy alone is always tough.
And in BTS, the old Strategy Number One (putting together a giant SOD that heads straight for the enemy capital) is much harder than it used to be, because siege units are nerfed plus the AI will spam/rush/draft units as soon as war is declared. You might find the capital is invincible by the time you arrive, especially against a strong opponent with a distant capital.
So if you think a full-on assault will fail, the nimble pillage-and-damage approach may be the way. Your key advantage over the AI is that you are smarter and more innovative/flexible/opportunistic - use this advantage. Get close to his key cities if you can, and then nail the villages and towns, which rebuild slowly. Do as much damage as you can, and then sue for peace if necessary.
It's also useful to take a weak border city or two as a preemptive defense measure - you may not keep them forever, but once his military is powered up and he comes at you hard, they are a useful buffer and you can give them back in return for peace if need be.
Even if the damage you do is not massive, making him switch his economy to a wartime footing should slow his development. And you never know, you might even be able to bribe an ally to get involved, although as you say, it sounds uncertain.
Either way, it won't be easy but it will be interesting to hear what you choose, and how it works out!
finessing diplo can be huge in avoiding wars / getting help in wars / stirring up discontent so that the guys you don't want picking on you instead bicker with each other. i call it jedi mind-tricks. it's the only part of the game i'm good at, i'm the worst warmonger you have ever seen!
i hadn't ever seen that article on triangle diplomacy, but it's kind of what i do. i don't try to get along with everybody, but i do try to keep an eye on whether my friends like each other. the article doesn't go into a lot of details about how to make them like or hate each other, so i'll tell you part of what i do. i hate the -3 you traded with our worst enemies and the guaranteed -1 if someone demands you cancel trading. i'm real careful with resource trades, even tho i love to get resources since i like big cities and i don't like to go to war, so i tend not to have a huge amount of land. but if somebody i want to stay friends with is likely to come demand that i cancel trading with my rice supplier, i often do it myself ahead of time, so that i don't get a -1.
one example is that if two people like each other but i don't want them to, i check out why they like each other. often a big part of it is +wise civics, so espionage the guy using the other's favorite civic into something else. that loses him 1-6 points right there. he might not stay in the new civic, but timing it right can make the difference in bribing him into a war (whether i need the help or i just want the two of them to fight so that they're not concentrating on my weak self). they're much more likely to go to war with someone they're not pleased with, and the price tends to be cheaper. same theory works the other way, espionage/bribe the ones you want to be friends with you and with each other (so that you can freely trade) into +wise civics. of course that's easiest if you're spiritual (my favorite trait by far), since you can change civics without anarchy, and you can't bribe/espionage them into a civic you're not using. in one warlords game i gifted churchill education and liberalism in the hopes he'd go FR, since he was mad at jewish hatty and i needed her pigs for health. it worked.
religion is really powerful for that too. if you have access to two religions, it's wicked fun to spread the unpopular one to the guy you want the world to pick on. it's much easier to find the time/hammers for the missionaries on lower levels of course.
of course building up your powergraph is the most straightforward way of protecting yourself (altho even that doesn't always work). 9 times out of 10 that's not what i do. here's an example of my current game in the spoiler box.
Spoiler:
first things first. here's my powergraph, i'm the blue. i'm playing this game half like i'm going for diplomatic victory, i am definitely not the strongest out there!
Spoiler:
obviously i'm not the strongest one out there! most of my power is from population / barracks / walls / castles. i got the castles quest and picked +3 relations with everybody so that helped. i haven't concentrated on military techs but i stole MilTrad and Rifling from zara so that gives a boost too.
i'm playing sisiutil's original gilgamesh map from the current ALC, where he was isolated. settings are no Agg AI, emperor, hemispheres but i ended up isolated, the 6 other civs were in groups of two. i'm playing a weird variant where i want to win by culture, but i've never touched the culture slider and i never went into caste (so i got only 3 artists, settled them in the slowest of my 3 big cities). and gilga's traits aren't great for this: creative (which i never use for cultural, i think it's not worth as much as spi / phi / fin for my style of play) and protective which i just plain don't like. i've been in HR -> rep / bur -> FS / slavery / merc / OR with pac during 2 golden ages the entire game. i didn't build pyramids so rep was a long time coming.
isolated starts are really really hard for me, since the only part of the game i'm good at is diplomacy and tech trading! so i figured i'd impose those weird rules on myself so that when i lose i have an excuse. i also wanted to have a culture game where i teched all the way to hollywood / broadway / ET since i never do. but i just started building them, 12ish turns to finish them and i'm about 20 turns from winning, go figure. that's of course assuming nobody gets antsy in the meantime, but they're all pleased. except sitting bull who is zara's vassal so he can't declare. mehmed is at WHEOOHRN but i think he'll go for darius. just to be safe, i asked him to spare his world map for a friend, he did, so 10 turns of peace treaty (i think that applies to both sides?).
i've had one war started against me. it was mehmed and he was being totally stupid. he wanted a city i'd settled on his continent to get marble. the rest of my empire was on another continent, separated by ocean, and he didn't have astronomy. dork. anyway, i let him "have" that city, since it had never been above pop 1 so i knew it would auto-raze. i bribed darius into the war to be a brat, but i never went on offense. when the dust settled i made another city exactly where that one had been. i mean come on, marble doubles some cathedrals, priorities! later zara asked me to join on a war with sitting bull and i did, thinking it would be phony, but it went so long that i sent some troops over and took a couple cities after zara had weakened them for me .
they've had multiple wars with each other tho. mehmed and darius fought 3 times before i ever met them and twice since. mehmed declared on gandhi and took his capital 2 turns later . zara declared on sitting bull and crippled him severely. but they're not picking on me. and that's how i like it!
i include that ramble because so many people say you cannot win without going to war, particularly with an early rush. the reason for that ramble is to show you that ain't true, you don't have to have war in every game. granted here i started isolated so i couldn't early rush and didn't need to since i had land available, but i'm terrible at axe-rushing. to me, a war before steel is an early rush. seriously, war is not necessary to win at civ4, depending on the victory type you're aiming for of course. more than half, maybe 75% of my games i never start a war at all.
KMad, thanks for the insight. I don't consider myself a warmonger persay, but I do enjoy a good fight. I get too antsy when I see some weak cities nearby and I just happen to have a nice offensive stack But I do have to be better early in the game about choosing who are going to be my buddies and who I don't mind pissing off. And then like you said I have to take actions based on those choices. Or else I wind up like my current game where no one really likes me except the guy who's about to win.
So here's how it went down. I decided to man-up and declare war on Joao. Marching into his territory didn't appeal to me, so I decided on a two-prong attack. I loaded up 6 transports with troops ranging from cannons to anti-tank, quite a mix. I dropped these troops in two stacks on Joao's coast. My cavalry went to work on destroying towns while the rest of the stack protected.
I launched a second platoon over land, toward his nearest city. They too started pillaging squares, prioritizing commerce and resources. That army fared quite well, Joao just let them be. My sea-based stacks, however, were quickly disposed of. Joao killed all 24 troops in one turn by attacking with 12 artillery and a giant mix of infantry, SAM infantry, and tanks. Over the course of this attack he didn't lose a single unit. I watched as his troops attacked over and over again, each time a red message appeared at the top of the screen.
When the dust settled I sighed, looked over the map, and then clicked to start a new game. Learn from the mistakes I guess.
I'm off to a better start in my new game, diplomatically. I kept getting scouts from goodie huts, so I was able to explore my entire landmass rather quickly. I also established Hinduism early on, and none of my neighbors have a religion. The missionaries are poised to spread, and that should help me manipulate things easier. We'll see how it goes. Alphabet here I come!
Okay, so let's see if I've learned anything, and if I'm applying that to the new game. I took a random leader and wound up with Boudica of the Celts. This will be interesting, because I've never played as an aggressive Civ. Like I mentioned in my last post I wound up with about 4 scouts via goodie huts. Not the ideal bonus from the huts, but it was interesting to have the entire landmass scouted out so early in the game.
I'm on the east coast, Ragnar to the SW, Darius to the NW, and Pericles further west from Ragnar. Also ran into the Khmer, but they're quite far away. Now, I founded Hinduism very early but didn't actively spread it right away, owing to other priorities. By the time I got Organized Religion and started building missionaries my religion had already spread to Ragnar and Darius. Both of them are cool with me, but they don't like each other.
Pericles is not a big fan of mine. He and Darius get along fine, but there's tension between him and ragnar. Pericles adopts Confucianism, further widening the gap. So far I'm the only one with decent relations to Ragnar. His cities aren't great, and I don't see him as a rival for tech or victory. But he might make an excellent pointy stick by proxy. For now I'm giving into his little demands but still keeping close with Darius. I've decided to shun Pericles altogether and will hopefully watch him and Ragnar do battle.
I kind of want Darius' land, and I'm sure that I could get Ragnar to help me in a war, but I want to wait until Alphabet to see who will be a good trading partner. I'm also just beginning my offensive military at this point. Let's see if I can keep a better grasp on the diplomatic relations this time!
Firstly, at KMad, nice read I usually do about the same "let's-all-beat-the-guy-on-the-other-side-of-world" thing to get mutual military struggle plusses.
Ragnar thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread (maybe even better!). I got tired of seeing all his military units marching down my roads (open borders), so I convinced him to go after the tech leader, Pericles. He didn't go cheaply, because I didn't want to get myself mixed up in that conflict. I'm not quite ready for Pericles yet. I gave the crazy Viking a few military techs so that he wouldn't get his ass handed to him.
So far it's worked out wonderfully, they've been at war for ages, and neither has gained any ground. I'm chuckling to myself while imagining all the wasted hammers and commerce on fruitless military production. Meanwhile Pericles is understandably upset with me, but not enough that he wants to fight a two front war.
An unexpected bonus of this move is that Ragnar no longer considers Darius his "worst enemy", allowing me to trade once again. I made a few nice tech trades with Darius and then decided that he simply had too much pretty land, cities on plots that I had coveted earlier in the game. So I launched my Gallic Warrior (swordsman) assault and took three cities before agreeing to peace and accepting another tech.
If all goes well I should be able to keep Ragnar and Pericles at war while I take over the other half of the continent. Hopefully that will put me in a powerful enough position where Greece is easy pickings!
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. zara declared on sitting bull and crippled him severely. but they're not picking on me. and that's how i like it!
But I do have to be better early in the game about choosing who are going to be my buddies and who I don't mind pissing off. And then like you said I have to take actions based on those choices. Or else I wind up like my current game where no one really likes me except the guy who's about to win. 
You did everything right but it sounds like Joao was much much better than we figured. 
