Casus Belli?

[athorpel]

If an AI civ starts marching troops through my territory without a ROP, I can only grin in anticipation. As long as my military is ready for it I will make the AI declare war against me. How does one force the AI to declare war you ask? Most of you guys probably already know this but here goes. I go into the diplomacy screen and demand that the AI in question give me a city, repeatedly, as many times as it takes to get them furious with me. Make sure it's a city they won't actually give up. Once they are furious, you then demand that their military units withdraw from your territory and the demand will be met with a declaration of war. Instant war that you didn't start. War weariness accumulates more slowly, international opinion of you doesn't nosedive. Everybody else is still your buddy. The continent is one civ closer to being totally controlled by you. I marvel at the AI when it tries to march units across my territory, especially when it seemingly doesn't have a valid destination. It just wants to go in that direction. Whatever that direction happens to be.

[Last Conformist]

I, for one, hate the quasi-automatic declaration of war when you demand that the AI's troops leave. I've crushed a dozen empires for no reasons beyond their unwillingness to leave my turf.

A little more respect, on the AI's part, for superior strength would be most appreciated.

[eric2075]

Back to the topic, it seems the ai players often declare war on me just before a significant military breakthrough too. Many times I have been getting geared up to go to war but the ai attacks just a few turns before I am ready. Of course, this could be selective memory too.

[Knecht]

In my current game, the Greeks and their allies, the Babs, declared war right after I got Modern Armor. It's true that I've been glaring covetously across my sourthern border at those Greeks the whole game but I've never (until recently) been in a position to jump them. They were definitely next on my list. Now, both the Greeks and the Babs have Mechanized Infantry (making this a tough fight even with my MA) but no MA. The Greeks have no aluminum and the Babs have one. I'm guessing the Greeks have everything but the Aluminum to get modern armor though I can't be sure (maybe not but they seem to have had time to build beaucoup Mechanized Infantry). Since the Babs have the Aluminum but haven't built any MA, they must not have the tech yet (and they can't share with the Greeks because they have only one, right?) Do AI allies automatically share resources? Are they likely to? I have at this point knocked out the roads to both of the Greek's rubber plantations but the Babs also have 2 rubber and no oil (the Greeks have one oil, soon to be mine). Are they sharing rubber? The Greeks can't be swapping oil cause they only have one. They Babs must be getting their oil from someone else or how else are they building those MI? Anyway, they did declare right after my advance to MA but it looks to me like their primary motivation was a poverty of resources (mainly oil and aluminum).

[Cort Haus]

Knecht,

Check the trading/diplo f4 screen. There's a trading tab which shows which civs are trading with each other. Not which particular resource (wld be good, though), but a grey line or no line means they're not trading anything.

Use the investigate city option on a small (cheap) connected city to see if they have the resource. You might have had an idea how close Greece was to MI before the war.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I, for one, hate the quasi-automatic declaration of war when you demand that the AI's troops leave. I've crushed a dozen empires for no reasons beyond their unwillingness to leave my turf.

A little more respect, on the AI's part, for superior strength would be most appreciated.

yup. and i really hate the AI trying to cross my empire EVERY SINGLE turn... it's so annoying to have to chase him out again and again... and it really sucks if he happens to have some horsemen just around the corner of my vertually undefended rexing cities

[Joe Average]

This was my recent solution to Russian troops galloping across my plains.

I call it "The Great Iroquois Wall." Underneath each Mech Infantry is a fortification. The wall was not designed to repell serious invasions, but to merely solve Russia's sudden desire to walk across my continent to attack the Aztecs (dark green) a thousand miles away (circa 1870.)

Besides, certain pedestrian AI's cannot resist a sneak attack deep inside your heart land.

[Joe Average]

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[sabrewolf]

i meant more in the early stages when populating. by then you usually havn't got enough units to divert the AI.

[Arrian]

I view settler teams trying to move to the other side of my empire as gifts (2 slaves each).

-Arrian

[vmxa1]

Yes settler teams are double bonus. I get to kill a unit and maybe get a leader or a promotion and two free workers.
The AI loses a trooper and a settler. If you tried to walk a spear and a settler across their land, they would not allow it.
Plus I have to be concerned that if I asked them to leave the game will toss them to a better point and closer to their target.

[zorbop]

what bothers me is when you ask the ai to leave your territory, and they do, but come back the next turn. OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
on that topic, RoP's should have to do with more than territory... but on who needs to get where and why (mongols need to cross your territory to crush celts)

[vmxa1]

It would be nice if it could be a tad bit more robust, but I suspect that the last thing they want is more code and longer turns.