And one more way to exploit, err, sucker the AI into declaring war

[Solomwi]

Simply park a privateer in one of your cities. In 1766, I had a Roman frigate sail by and take a potshot at the privateer, which was the only unit in the city. This, of course, amounted to a declaration of war. Okay, I thought, I'm sure the guys at 'Poly have brought this up and I just overlooked it. I'm sure it happens if an AI ship is just tooling by and sees a privateer.

Then in 1770, a mere two turns later (and right after I had finished off the Romans ), a Sumerian frigate... Sumeria's only frigate, continued its beeline up my coast, which I had noticed the turn before, but not worried too much about, as Sumeria only had one island city well away from this area, and, you guessed it, took his potshot at my privateer, then turned around and started back home. Dammit, man, the AI sent its only ship half a world away just to fire on my privateer and go back home.

This just makes it too easy to control AI war declarations, IMO, but some of you may find it useful.

[Arrian]

News to me. I remember the AI used to hunt privateers the same way they did barbarians (single-minded devotion, from across the world). Firaxis at some point changed that, because the AI would try to hit Privateers underneath regular ships, and cause wars that way. Plus it was really easy to "herd" the combined total AI navies into basically one spot and then bottling them up or killing them.

I guess the one loophole left is having a privateer be the only unit in a city...

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Yes, it is a fact, I remember this. Pretty annoying to have a privateer in one of your cities with the sole purpose to repair it.

[Rommel2D]

Shades of Colonization...

[Tattila the Hun]

In my current game, the Iroquis, whom with I had ROP, declared on me, and took one city with an infantry unit. Now, I had plenty of my core cities defenceles, including few big ones with wonders. It was a big city, though.

And it had a privateer docked in it.... Conicidence? Or RIAA?