The Distant Foe

[Captain_Jack]

I am seeing advice from the experienced warlords.
Here is the scenario: I am surrounded on all sides by Civilizations with whom I am at peace.
A distant Civ, say the Chinese or Aztec, demand tribute. I refuse, they declare war.
They now send their armies to my land through my neighbors. The only way I can attack them directly is to send an army at their cities, but to do so I need to travel through my neighbor's territory and no one will grant me right of passage. What gives? How does the hated Ai get to travel through my neighbors but I do not?

 

[Theov]

You are surrounded by friends, you can’t get them involved in the war?

 

[Captain_Jack]

In this instance, no. I am playing at Emperor and that is a new and higher difficulty level for me. I ask for right of passage and am denied. I don't recall if I asked any of my neighbors for an alliance vs. my enemy but I don't think that wouldn't automatically grant me RoP even if they accepted.
Do you think my enemy has been granted right of passage by my neighbors, or is he just trespassing and they turn a blind eye? Regardless, I do not have that some opportunity. If I tried that they would declare war for sure.

The only solution I see is to have a navy and transport an army to their shores via the sea. Even that is not possible in this instance since I am land-locked. Lesson learned I suppose.

 

[Kirejara]

I ask for right of passage and am denied.

Sounds like you have declared war at least once in the past with your units allready in enemy territory.

The KI never forgives a human player if she/he makes a sneak attack or breaks a treaty (even if a trade delivery became impossible because they sell or lost their only harbour!).

Other KI players are however easily forgiven. So even if they executed sneak attacks on each others in the past, they still make ROP.

 

[justanick]

In this instance, no. I am playing at Emperor and that is a new and higher difficulty level for me. I ask for right of passage and am denied. I don't recall if I asked any of my neighbors for an alliance vs. my enemy but I don't think that wouldn't automatically grant me RoP even if they accepted.

Still a military alliance will help a great deal. Do you even need RoP? Just let your troops stay at home and wait till it actually becomes convenient to act differently.

If you need RoP, than adding a few gold to the deal tends to help. Also negotiating alliance and RoP in one deal is an option. But RoP is not what you really need.

What need is to take land that is closer to you. You could let your friends fight your war and after 20 cancel the alliance, make peace and then make an alliance with our former foe against one of your former friends. This makes expanding your borders so much easier.

A sideeffect of a larger territory is that AI will value a RoP with you better since it gains the right to passage for a greater territory.