How do I have a splendid little war?

[Arrian]

Firefly,

My suggestion would be a targetted strike against the weakest AI you can find. The plan:

Land a force of your WE's next to the city or cities controlling a luxury resource. Bring along 1-2 pikemen or musketmen (whichever you have) and maybe a settler or two if you're concerned about possible flipping.

Take the area, either building a new city or two with settlers or simply capturing their cities and pacifying them. Then muster as many WE's as you can and do as much damage as you can (cautiously, though, try to keep your casualties low) while trying to contact them every turn.

Initially, no matter how badly you hurt them, the AI will refuse to speak to you for about 5 turns. After that, the more damage you've done, the more likely they will talk peace and cough up money/tech/etc.

-Arrian

[Catt]

I have never seen an AI civ accept an envoy during turns 1 - 4 of the war. I always need to get at least 5 turns in.

Purely anecdotal, but I've come to believe that a particular AI civ is much less willingly to talk peace if the current hostilities represent just one instance of an ongoing pattern -- in other words, the third or fourth time I beat up Caesar, he will be far less willing to talk peace than the first time I pay a visit.

If a short war is desired, it's nice to find an enemy that's not a "traditional enemy" who might hold a grudge (against all seeming "reason").

Catt