My Strategy

[mgdpublic]

I thought "redded out" meant that they wouldn't trade/do this know matter how much you had to trade. Why else would they often say that a trade for one of their white techs
"can't happen?"

[Wild Pig UK]

To the best of my knowledge a "redded out" option for declare war means that the AI won't do it under the current situation (you don't have enough to make it worth their while, they don't like you enough, they don't hate the opponent enough, they are already at war on another front). In many cases, you'll notice that the computer is willing to go to war with 1 of 3 other AIs. When you send them to war with 1 AI, the option to go to war with the other 2 invariably "reds out" on the same turn.

What you'll find is that there is an ebb and flow to those sorts of relationships. An AI that has a "redded out" declare option 1 turn will change it to white the next. This depend on a number of factors, i.e. natural escalation of diplomatic pluses and minuses (note that bonuses can change depending on how long they have been in effect), the availability of an especially juicy tech, cultural expansion of borders, etc.

All of these factors change on a turn to turn basis, and therefore checking the trade options for a given AI on a regular basis is necessary. You only need to find 1 AI willing to declare war (making friends with an aggresive leader early on helps, change to his religion if necessary) to start a World War. Once the first world war is started, the diplomatic minuses make continued tech trading for war relatively simple.

I have also found that if you have 2 or 3 available techs to trade and the "declare war" option is "redded out", try gifting him one of the techs. This will give you a plus 4 relations bonus (changing annoyed to cautious and catious to pleased). This relations bonus often makes it possible to get the AI to declare war for the remaining techs. This may seem like a borderline exploit, but I justify it as gestures of friendship sometimes outweigh logical analysis of trade value.

[Riotamus]

I'm pretty sure "redded out" means the AI won't do it no matter how hard you try (I presume this is done to prevent loopholes and exploits). You can hover the mouse over the text and it will tell why exactly it's redded out (some of the reasons are "We just don't like you enough", "We have nothing to gain from it [note it's from it, not from you]", and "We have enough on our hands already").

[Wild Pig UK]

Again, I'd like to reiterate I've done the following scenario a hundred times.

I go to the diplomacy screen, I have two tradable techs.

The AI has all "declare war on " in red.

I give him a tech, and 3 of the previously red "declare war options" become white. I trade him the remaining tech and start a war.

Moreover, a number of times with a spiritual leader I have left the diplomacy screen, switched religions to the AI I'm trying to get to attack someone, and come back to the diplomacy screen to find the red options have become white.

Red does not mean will not trade under any circumstance, it simply means will not trade under the current circumstances.

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Wild Pig UK
To the best of my knowledge a "redded out" option for declare war means that the AI won't do it under the current situation. [...] When you send them to war with 1 AI, the option to go to war with the other 2 invariably "reds out" on the same turn. [...etc]]

Indeed; confirmed in my latest game. I was looking for Bismark (friendly) to change warring with Quin to warring with Toku. He wouldn't do it. I asked him to stop warring with Quin as a favour, he granted this. Immediately the 'redded out' 'go to war with..' sections were back as white, so I asked him to go to war with Toku as a favour, he wouldn't accept this so I had to trade a couple of techs for it - all in the same exchange. Maybe if I'd waited a turn or two he'd have done me better, but this was a tight little combat: all his units were in place to switch easily from attacking one side to another, & he was almost as upset at Toku as I was!

[ghen]

Very well written, I'll have to try this strategy out after vel's warmongering builds

[GusSmed]

I just gave this a whirl using the 1.09 patch, and it doesn't actually work. While it's certainly true that early cottages give you a big research boost, none of the AIs would go to war for any price, even for Alphabet and Animal Husbandry combined, even though I shared their religion and they were "pleased" with me.

The timing you describe seems way off, too. I was done researching Alphabet well before I finished a library in any of my cities. Are you chopping those out too? Wholesale deforestation seems like a way to cripple your long term hammer production.

I've been using the Civil Service / Oracle combination so much recently that using this strategy made me feel kind of stunted, especially since someone else built the Oracle well before your timetable called for switching to Wonder production.

- Gus

[Wild Pig UK]

I both chop and pop rush everything. I chop all available trees on green tiles, all trees on plains connected to rivers, and all trees just outside of my cultural border. I pop rush any time a city gains an unhappy citizen. Normally, I try to pop rush only when it will cost me less than 3 citizens, unless I'm trying to get an early wonder in under the wire. If you are not chopping/pop rushing when unhappy, I have no idea how well this strategy would work.

I'm usually grabbing alphabet while I'm getting the libraries. As I trade Alphabet for techs to those who won't go to war, I fill in the majority of techs I have skipped. I can normally find one AI to go to war with alphabet and a tech I have just obtain through trade. A

On rare occasion, I have to wait until I grab metal casting (which I grab after Alphabet). By the time I've finished with Alphabet and start metal casting, libraries are done in all cities, and the science specialist makes reseraching metal casting go quickly. At that point, I can always find someone to go to war for Alphabet/Metal Casting.

[Wild Pig UK]

By the time I'm in the middle ages (with farms spread irrigation), I have deforested everything withing my cultural borders. I rely primarily on hills and irigated plains, + resources to get my hammers. If necessary, I will irigated a green tile to make sure there is enough food to support a hill tile. With forges/factories in every city, I've always had more than enough hammers during the end game. I also find that by the time lumbermills are available, you are actively trading so many resources that health is not really an issue. In cities with alot of hills, I can grow them to 14 without issue including health problems, and cities that are coastal grow to 19-20.

[Cort Haus]

There are other ways of establishing an early tech lead without trading away Alphabet. Have you tried the Civil Service Slingshot, WPUK?

Research Code of Laws before completing the Oracle and take CS as the free tech and switch to early Bureaucracy. Use a lib + 2 scientists in the capital to get to CoL in time. You'll have less cities (usually 2) and a pathetic military at first, but a research superiority that can hold a tech lead up the the Renaissance. It should work well with this 'Instigator' strategy of buying AI-AI wars with tech. You also bag Conficianism too. Which is nice.

[Wild Pig UK]

I've tried a number of strategies in other threads (actually most of them, I'm an avid reader of this forum and play this game way too much... I love the Vel strategy sections), including CS slingshot with Oracle, etc, in conjunction with this strategy. When they work, coupled with formenting war, they tend to work very well. Unfortunately, I find it is possible to get beaten to both Oracle or the Pyramids. This may happen a low percentage of the time, but when it does it is crippling to your strategy, and I was more interested in developing a strategy that works in as many scenarios as possible. Moreover, I've had games where I lose a city early to barbarians or an aggresive civ by overlooking military in the first 40 turns.

I've also found that in a number of cases, I can still get Pyramids or Oracle after I have build 3 cities, 3 workers, and 2 units per city as long as I use chopping forests/pop rush appopriately. It helps greatly if I can find a civ willing to go to war immediately after I get alphabet to stunt the growth of the AIs. I will also chop forests outside of the workable tile cross of my cities to rush the early wonders (I'm a wanton deforester).

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Wild Pig UK
I've also found that in a number of cases, I can still get Pyramids or Oracle after I have build 3 cities, 3 workers, and 2 units per city as long as I use chopping forests/pop rush appopriately. It helps greatly if I can find a civ willing to go to war immediately after I get alphabet to stunt the growth of the AIs. I will also chop forests outside of the workable tile cross of my cities to rush the early wonders (I'm a wanton deforester).

The CS beeline makes a lot of sacrifices - growth, military, but also alphabet has to be delayed after the long haul to Code of Laws while backfilling urgent terrain & military techs. Hence it would be much later before hiring the AI Mercs to fight each other could start, and the AI growth would be less stunted. However, the extra tech power from Bureaucracy could strengthen the tech lead and the abililty to buy new conflicts.

I started instigating wars during my current game after reading this thread, and have all civs but one slowed down. India is ahead, but at least they have no-one to trade with (they won't trade with me!), but they've got twice as many cottages as me. I might not win this game but it has demonstrated the principle for me. I didn't have much territory so I wasn't expecting to be at all competetive, but I'm 2nd.

It's a shame the thread didn't have a name to match the strategy. It sounds like 'My Documents'. Someone suggested Instigator (sp?), but how about Kingbreaker?

[GusSmed]

I tried another game using this strategy, again on Monarch, and again it failed miserably. No one would go to war for Alphabet. No one would go to war for Code of Laws. When I got Civil Service, only one of the known civs would go to war for that. I don't know how you're getting the AI players to fight among themselves so easily.

It's not that the war options are marked red. It's that I select a valid war target, I ask "what do you want for this?" and they say "it can't be done."

Leaving that aside, I don't think this works very well as an early script. The early period when you're just building Warriors seems all wrong. It doesn't lead to anything, since you concentrate on building cities as soon as you get Bronze Working. I'd think it would work a lot better to just go for Bronze Working first and found cities 2 and 3 earlier. While your working on that, you can spend the time researching the Wheel and Pottery for those cottages.

- Gus

[Wild Pig UK]

All I can say is what works for me Gus. I'm not certain how much my micromanaging style contributes to the overall effectiveness (i.e., obtaining enough techs to get the people to go to war). I do know that if you pop out settlers on turn one, you are not working as many cottages as possible early on. Moreover, I find that this early settler strategy comes with a very large amount of risk on the higher levels due to barbarians.

This strategy is not just about getting AI's to go to war, its about developing enough early technology to have tradeable techs for formenting war, in combination with intelligent use of diplomacy (changing religions, tributes, etc) to get the right diplomatic relationships. If you are only doing part of the strategy, my suspicion is it will fail abysmally, as you will not have enough techs/appropriate relationships to forment war.

[AgentTBC]

There is a big catch with this strategy, as I've found in my current game; whether someone will start a war for you appears to depend heavily on their relations with you. In my current game, only one civilization (Alexander) doesn't have "Declare War On" redded out despite there being no current wars in progress and my civ having buckets of techs to trade, including Civil Service, Code of Laws, and Alphabet.

And Alexander will only declare war on Washington... and only for all three of those techs. Not worth it. So this strategy works great, if the conditions are right. But you can't count on it.

Plopping a few cottages right off the bat is good under most circumstances, though, even if you cant get wars to start.