Help, new to civ3

[Phatphal]

Ok i'm right into the game, borders out and everything. The greeks start to come into my land without a right of passage. They had a settler and a hoplite trying to get through my lands to build cities on the edge of my empire. I open up diplomacy with them and tell them to get out of my lands. They say " War is declared ", then all of a sudden every other civ in the game views me as the bad guy and the one that back stabbed the Greeks.

How can I avoid this ?

[MrWhereItsAt]

You need to be certain that you don't have a Right of Passage agreement with them. This is where you each agree you have free access to each's other's territory for 20 turns. Violating this in any way will result in much international scepticism towards you.

Otherwise the only way would be to ensure you are on good terms with these other civs - through frequent gifting or trading, or maybe a MPP or alliance agreement. If they favour you, then when war breaks out they will be on YOUR side.

[vmxa1]

Re: Help, new to civ3

Originally posted by Phatphal
Ok i'm right into the game, borders out and everything. The greeks start to come into my land without a right of passage. They had a settler and a hoplite trying to get through my lands to build cities on the edge of my empire. I open up diplomacy with them and tell them to get out of my lands. They say " War is declared ", then all of a sudden every other civ in the game views me as the bad guy and the one that back stabbed the Greeks.

How can I avoid this ?

First check with the military advisor to see if the Greeks are stronger than you (sounds like it).
If they are they will tend to not respect your request to leave, if you had been very strong they never would have crossed them in the first place.
Once you were force to toss them out, you need to look to see if they have any MPP's. If they do those civs will come after as soon as you attack the Greeks.
The best thing to do at that point is to make MPP's with as many as you can to avoid a piling on of your civ.
If you have an MPP wiht the same ones they do, you will need to force them to attack first. Best way is to surround the units and wait for them to strike.
This presumes they did not have an RoP with you in the first place. Never make RoP's unless you have a very compelling need.

[Phatphal]

Thanks, I ended up at war with the Americans, Russians, Aztecs, Greeks, and Japanese.

Too bad for them my panzers where rolling in, so I gained something like 100 + cities out of the war... not bad for my first game . I need to try a harder difficulty

[notyoueither]

Sounds like you had a trade going with them when you demanded withdrawal. When they declare war, the trade deal is broken, and everyone blames you for it. It sux, but that's the way it is.

[Harovan]

Best what you can do to fight settler/spearman shuttles:

Take some horsemen (about 10 should suffice) as "shepherd dogs" and herd the shuttles together and lock them up, where they bother you the least. If you have enough together, declare war and attack them.

I once collected 6 russian settlers together, escorted by 2 spearmen and 4 warriors. That made easy 12 slaves in 1 turn, yum!

[Jamski]

Or, try to work out where they are going to, and block this place. Often the settler "team" has a specific destination in mind. If you stick a couple of units in the way the cheating AI will "know" that its destination is blocked, and will go home. Works for me.

-Jam

[Phatphal]

I did actually break a right of passage early on in the game when I wanted to kill of the americans. That could have sparked some resentment but I don't see something that happened 1 AD should continue on for 2000 years :/

[Jamski]

They never forget a Right of Passage breakage. At least almost never.

-Jam