The best thing that can happen to you...

[Bismarck]

...is if, in the ancient era, you have a few neighbors that are constantly warring.

For one thing, it cripples their culture, which allows you to invest less in temples and libraries, without worrying about being overwhelmed culturally. Secondly, it generally keeps the AI off your back, which is extremely welcome on Emperor/Deity. Thirdly, the AI is vulnerable when at war, so you can join in the attack yourself, forcing the AI to fight a two-front war. Fourthly, the AI will not trade techs while at war, so you can make some money by playing middleman (although civs at war are usually strapped for cash, so you won't get good prices).

Had this happen to me last night. I was surrounded by Japan, Persia and India, who spent most of their time fighting each other. Meanwhile I was happily building up my horseman army, while accumulating gold and even some culture. It felt oddly like a Monarch game.

 

[Globetrotter]

I had a game on Deity where WW1 started around 2000 BC, and never ended...
I only joined around 1200 AD, as a superpower

 

[Hellfire]

My last game was a Contents.3 game on a huge map with 8 players. I was on a continent with 2 other civs. It was pretty peaceful, but I had so much room to expand it took forever to actually get a border with another civ, much less invade it.

England and China were on the continent with me and constantly skirmished. It wasn't until the industrial era when Babylon crossed the ocean with a single Bowman (!!!!!!!!) and attacked me. I signed some alliances, crossed the ocean myself, took a few cities, and killed off Babylon with the help of the Japanese. Next the iroquois came after me, and wiped them out. Then the French. Each one declared war on me and it just helped me expand. I had control of half of both continents, set up a forbidden palace, and dominated the rest of the game.

Before the wars, my economy was starting to stagnate

 

[Unregister]

That happened to me on my first deity game----China, Zulu, and Japan were constantly at war. By the end of the game China was gone, and China, Zulu, and then Persia had been at war for around 2000 years, one always against the other. It let me capture fifth place (out of 14) and i expanded quite far.

 

[Henry_X]

If I'm playing aggressivly I always get one of my neighbours in MPP's befor declaring war on the other one.

Once I had the arabs locked in my territory, but they had a big culture. The Zulu , who could only reach me through the Ottomans, had a huge army ( as usual ) . I let the Zulu pass , they took out a lot of arab cities. Then I got an MPP with the Ottomans and pulled back my ROP , splitting the Zulu army in 2. The Zulu tried to pass, I asked him to go back and we were at war.

So I easily got arab territory, I weakend the Zulu tremendously and the Ottomans were fighting a long war for me , both weaking them and the Zulus. With me taking out the locked in Zulu army , the ottomans and the remaining zulu were pretty well balanced. I'm so evil, and I managed to do it a second time on a slightly smaller scale.

 

[Tiger_Nation]

In the game i am playing at the moment (arpilaeo or whatever lowest land unvaried terrain) I declared war on the Spanish who were on a different continent and got the english + eygption to do the actual fighting whic weakened the lot of them too much for either to be serious threats in the game and when I discovered the rest of the civs later on in the game I got them to declare war on the iroquois with me and that severly weakened them too and I got to modern age when the rest were in late mid age and a couple were still in ancient era enabeling me to go on a huge war with every other civ except the romans all at the same time. It is so easy to cripple them it is hillarious they couldn't even get to my island to actually fight me.

 

[Bismarck]

Originally posted by Henry_X
If I'm playing aggressivly I always get one of my neighbours in MPP's befor declaring war on the other one.

This technique is so powerful that I almost consider it an exploit If you're even medium-strong, you can secure MPP's from everyone else before declaring war on your neighbor. Voila... instant lynch.

The only downside is that you can't fight clean, surgical 10-turn wars; you need to stick it out the full 20 turns.

 

[Amask]

Originally posted by Bismarck


This technique is so powerful that I almost consider it an exploit If you're even medium-strong, you can secure MPP's from everyone else before declaring war on your neighbor. Voila... instant lynch.

The only downside is that you can't fight clean, surgical 10-turn wars; you need to stick it out the full 20 turns.

Another downside is that your enemy can sign military alliances against you with other civs before attacking. This happened to me once - I decided to get rid of France because they were too powerful and way ahead in tech, and signed MPP with every single civ. Just before attacking my forces, stationed outside their territory, they signed MA with half of my allies, and now it is a world war.

 

[elpadrino87]

Lately, what I've been trying out is actually quite helpful. I can make the AI declare war on me almost whenever I want them to. It's not terribely complicated:

1) Make sure that you have a unit from the civ that you want to go to war with within your territory. It doesn't really matter how you do this, either wait, or sign an RoP and cancel it when they still have units in your territory, then wait till the next turn to start Step 2.

2) Open the diplomacy window with that civ, and make ridiculous demands that you know he/she can't make, like all of their cities, 100 gpt, etc. Do this until they are furious with you (if they already were furious with you, skip this step).

3) Ask them to remove their forces or declare war. If they do accept, close the diplomacy window, reopen it, and tell them to move their units or declare war again. After 2 to 4 tries they should declare war on you.

This can be pretty helpful if your gov't is a republic or democracy, in which it takes longer for war weariness to set in if you are not the agressor in the war, since the opposing civ is the one who declared war on you. Not only that, but if you have trade deals with that civ, only their reputation will be ruined, since they broke the deals by declaring war. You look like the innocent civ that just wanted some respect of your territory.

If you use this strategy, not only will war weariness be held off for a few more turns, but your reputation will be flawless.

 

[Beanzy]

This same thing happened to me in a game I was playing a little while ago. I was playing on the world map with about seven other civilizations. I was kind of falling behind in regards to territory and culture, although I was ahead scientifically. So, to remedy this problem, and thanks to some MPP's and MA's, I managed to engage every civilization in giant WW. I hastily made peace with everyone without having to fight a single battle and left the rest of the world to slaughter eacher. A little while later, I developed tanks and reentered the war. By that time, two civilizations were gone and I managed to crush the others. This strategy hardly ever fails, I know it has always worked for me.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by elpadrino87
Lately, what I've been trying out is actually quite helpful. I can make the AI declare war on me almost whenever I want them to. It's not terribely complicated:

...

If you use this strategy, not only will war weariness be held off for a few more turns, but your reputation will be flawless.

And the added bonus of getting a 'traditional enemy' happiness bonus the second time they declare war.

In one of my current games I let 2 far-away civs declare war on me (I am in Republic), and I got a big happiness bonus because they had done it before. By the time the AI reaches me WW will only just be setting in (if at all), I will kill the first 10 units or so that I see, then make peace (gaining a couple of techs along the way).



Who said war in Republic was a bad thing?