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

[Velociryx]

Bah...sure you can beat all three....it's not as though they've got their forces poised and optimized to attack you this turn. If you've got a big military, pick your target and blitz. If you have good culture, you can prolly reach out and ping at least a couple of enemy cities during the opening turn of the war...that's 2-3 razed cities, with no retaliation (or, keep them if you've got a REALLY big army)....then hold up there, wait for their goods, and butcher them. After that, they'll tend to hole up in their cities and you can swing by at your leisure.

-=Vel=-

[Addled Platypus]

no open borders seems to po several leaders

may take awhile though

[axisworks]

If you have open borders, cancel them. Also, if you have any trade with them whatsoever, cancel it, too. Start trading/making alliances with France's enemy, too. That seems to work for me. If that doesn't get them to attack you, I don't know what else will.

[KeiserSose]

I hate that some seemingly simple things confuse me...

BUT,

I am Ghendis Khan and using Keshiks to take over my small continet early and it's just me and Cyrus left (Fredrick has been exterminated). I have open borders with Cy. I line up a stack of Keshik's rightoutside one of Cy's cities and click on "the Declare War" comment, and my KEshik's are magically sent out of his borders. I have to waste two or three turnes getting them back in position. What's that all about?

[Velociryx]

That is correct. There is no ROP Blitz in Civ 4. If you declare war with open borders in effect, the first thing that happens is open borders are CANCELLED. This, of course, means that all your military units exit stage left.

Your best approach is to use culture as a weapon on the borders. Build up a strong cultural presence to "push back" enemy borders so much that you can park a stack of your best and bravest adjacent to their city, while still inside your borders (or at worst, only one turn away).

That way, when war is declared, you are an instant threat. If you can DoW and raze or keep a few cities as the opening shot of the war, it's already over, and you just won big.

-=Vel=-

[axisworks]

Really? That's strange... I had another odd result of having war declared on me. I had a couple explorers in the guy's territory just wandering around, then when he cancelled open borders a few turns before declaring war, the units didn't have a chance to escape and were attacked and destroyed before war was even declared.

[Yosho]

This is an unusual problem, and perhaps I'm missing something obveous, but is there any way to declare war on someone who won't talk to you?

I made Napoleon so angry he won't talk to me, so I can't declare war in the diplomatic screen, and I can't go into his terratory without declaring war. I suppose I could try to attack one of his units, but they're all in his terratory, and I'm not sure if that would work anyway. Is there any way around this?

[Dis]

Originally posted by axisworks
Really? That's strange... I had another odd result of having war declared on me. I had a couple explorers in the guy's territory just wandering around, then when he cancelled open borders a few turns before declaring war, the units didn't have a chance to escape and were attacked and destroyed before war was even declared.

I believe explorers ignore open/closed borders. They can go wherever they want.

[Jaybe]

Yosho, hover over Nap's name in the score area. Then look at the message area in lower left. I tells how to use Ctrl/Alt keys to declare war, etc.

[Dis]

or just attack his units.

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Dis
I believe explorers ignore open/closed borders. They can go wherever they want.

I don't /think/ so, but caravels certainly do (ignore closed borders)

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Yosho
is there any way to declare war on someone who won't talk to you?

Move one of your units into his territory. There are various ways of moving: click & hold on destination with mouse, arrow keys, etc; only some of them work for this situation. Try the different methods

I know this works - it pops up a dialog asking if you want to declare war - it's just finding /which/ method works..

[Hermann the Lombard]

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

It's that bad habit Vel has of roasting and eating envoys, or nailing their headgear to their heads. Some people just can't take a joke.