Starting a war

[Solomwi]

I have successfully used Espionage missions to get war declared on me in the past. In fact, I've had 100% success with it, regardless of balance of power at the time. However in this one turn, I have spent over 8,000 Gold sabotaging India's production, focusing on the cheaper ones, then working up, which means I've sabotaged a LOT of his cities, gotten caught a few times, reinserted the spy and went right back to work, yet... no declaration of war . Is it because I already have a few troops in his territory or is Gandhi just THAT BIG A ****ING PU... uh, pacifist? C'mon, Gandhi, you know you want some!

[vmxa1]

It is hard to say. I had the AI declare a war on we with the year being 2048. This mean 2 turn left and I have all of the map, but its one city.
IOW it was as hopeless as could be and it still declared war.

[TheArsenal]

I've only done this twice, but it worked twice. A more seasoned player can tell you if it works everytime, or just some of the time: Next time India rings you seeking an audience, refuse.

[ghen]

if he's scared of you he will never declare war.

[Epistax]

Civilizations declare war on me for the most inane reasons.

Case:
I am Carthage. I get the lighthouse first, and make it to the new world (real world map). Americans make a demand, I say no, they declare war. They wont make it to where I am for over a thousand years.

[Solomwi]

if he's scared of you he will never declare war.

I've got to call you on this. Granted he SHOULD be scared of me, but in just about every late game I've had, the AI should have been scared of me. I've run up 800 unit armies built around Modern Armor and had Montezuma declare war because he got his grubby little hands on a few Cavalry. Kind of like vmxa1 and Epistax said, hopeless situations never seem to deter the AI from declaring war. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean by "scared"?

[Aeson]

Try making outrageous demands (about 20 of them in a row, just keep clicking the proposal over and over) before the espionage. Each demand lowers their regard for you by a bit. My experience is the less they like you, the more likely it will trigger war when you fail. Also if you have a ton of spare workers, you can give a bunch of them to the AI first... they really hate that for some reason.

I've gotten a 1 city AI to declare war on me this way, even though I had over 400 cities of my own. I don't think they put much thought into it...

[Solomwi]

ROFL, Aeson, good tips, thanks. I did the demand thing, though, to the point they were already furious with me. My patience ran out and I just declared war myself. Oh well, I'll just have to use my new favorite airborne tactics to end it quickly . Swiftness of war is all about projection of force.

[cumi]

Once the AI declared war on be, because I wanted to block his REXing. We were on the same continent, but the AI was on a part of contintent, which was contected to the rest only with a 1 tile width corridor. I fortified there an veteran spearman . The AI was waiting there with some settler/worrior combo for a few turns, then declared war.

This was surprising for me, althouth I would do the same, but immedietly...