How do you provoke an enemy to declaring war against you?

[CoolingRequired]

I have France at my borders and Napoleon has asked me to stop trading with their bitter enemy Washington. I have refused but France have yet to declare war on me. What else can I do to get France to attack me. I don't want to be the initiator of war.

[Hellcat]

Disbanding your military should do it.

[CoolingRequired]

Can you clarify your previous reply? Do you mean disbanding the entire army? How would I defend if France attacks? Can't be right.

[-SafaN-]

thats right what he meant, nap will be quick in attacking u if u can't defend urself (sarcasm)

u can change to an other religion then his, place more cities near his borders, trade with his enemies, and use spies to sabotage

[trev]

Generally do not bother with being nice, better to attack yourself when you are prepared, than try and provoke them into an assault, when it suits them.

[Datajack Franit]

-switch to a religion they don't like
-use a spy to sabotage around
-stop trading with them when another AI asks so
-save some money and pay another AI to declare war or stop trading with them

[Swiss Pauli]

You can demand all their cash as tribute. Even if they pay they may attack on their next turn.

Also, when answering the stop trading question, agreeing to their request can cause them to DoW you: I had a scenario when Inca was stomping Mao and Inca asked me to stop trading. Thinking he would elimate Mao this time I agreed.

Inca then made peace with Mao and sent his ships over to fight me, knowing that Mao was so angry with me that I couldn't bribe him into declaring war on Inca!

[Hermann the Lombard]

In Civ3 it was a Bad Thing to declare war with units inside the victim's borders because you ruined your reputation--if you cared about it--with other nations. I know your units get kicked out if you declare in Civ4, but do you also ruin your rep? So far I've been scrupulous about removing all units before declaring, though I have *not* been scrupulous about declaring and attacking in the same turn.

[Todd Hawks]

There's no rep in Civ IV, so you can do whatever you like.

[axisworks]

I had a rather odd situation in a game I was playing last night. Alexander wanted me to declare war against the Japanese (for who knows what reason... he didn't even attack anything of theirs, outside of a couple ships). The Japanese had built a city on one of my home islands and grabbed an oil resource, which I needed, so I said sure.

Two turns later, Alexander was still at war with them, and I tried to invade the island I wanted (I got my ass kicked because it was a single-tile city island). Suddenly, Alexander declares war on ME, even though the turn before we were on friendly terms. He has a gigantic army, but luckily our border isn't that large so I'm attempting to fend him off.

[Velociryx]

exist.

-=Vel=-

PS: add any of the following for an even greater chance:
* be of a different religion
* have a smaller military
* be their next door neighbor
* don't give in to their stupid demands

but yeah...you'll pretty much piss the whole world off simply by not being AI and by surviving another turn. Getting into war has NEVER been an issue, IMO. Now...getting into war EXACTLY WHEN YOU WANT TO....that's trickier.... (unless you just DoW yourself and save the trouble of having the other guy do it....that's much quicker, cleaner, and easier in any case)

[Velociryx]

pps: but why don't you want to initiate? It's not like there are big penalties for doing so....none, as far as I can tell. Just hit them, kill them in the first four or five turns, and then hum a happy tune....

-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

I haven't had all that much trouble getting good relations with other civs, Vel...

...

Just attack them. There really isn't a reason to prefer them attacking you (it's not like CivIII) that I'm aware of. At most, you might get a -1 "you declared war on our friend" modifier with some of the other AIs (only those that are on good terms with the French).

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Actually neither have I...we get along just fine....


....the moment that their last city falls to me

-=Vel=-

* That's become my standard operating practice, btw...the speed will vary, but one thing holds true in about every game of civ 4 I play.....sooner or later, there's only room for one civ on my continent.

and it's usually sooner.

With my beeline to early bronze, I'm not above chopping out 4 axemen (no barracks) and running a near neighbor down (chopping an early settler too, if there's no copper in my starting radius). Piece of cake. Six axes that early, and I can run over two neighbors. Good investment....cheaper than settlers and workers (cos I invariably capture some of those when beating the stuffing out of terrified archers).

Civs....they're what's for dinner!

-v.

[Toddzilla]

I'm playing a small one-continent game and it's down to me and 3 other civs. Everyone seems friendly and all 3 of the other civs have just ended a war agains the 5th now deceased civ. It's going to be a tight race for victory, but one avenue that I have in my favor is my military. Especially since the other civs have been waging war for a while. I could probably take one of them out and be very close to a Domination victory.

Problem is, I know if I attack one of them, the other two will join in against me. I can't beat all 3 of them, so I need to figure out a way to make one of them attack so the others aren't bound by a potential defensive-pact.

Ideas?