Cool Use Of Diplomacy And Trade In Warfare

[Peterk]

This was kind of cool and impossible to do in CivII.

I'm locked in a medium sized continent with Egypt for most of the game. I saw really early on that a war eventually was inevitable if I wanted to be one of the leaders in the game as Egypt came away with the lion's share of the map out of the opening. Our cultures were tracking one another pretty evenly throughout the entire game so no hope of "invading" that way.

I waited until right before the Modern Era, and then set up mutual protection pacts with 3/4 of the biggests civs (for the most part all they asked in return was Medicine - Germans wanted medicine and 220 Gold so I left them out). Then I cut Egypts supply of steel, they were getting it from me only. Then I goaded them into declaring war on me - I was going to start asking them for cities, but all it really took was asking one of their damn workers to get off my territory.

Next thing egypt knows, it has lost access to steel, lost 3 major trading partners for the next 20 turns, and I took 2 cities very quickly and others were smoking all over the map due to lost luxuries. This is WWII style diplomacy and backstabbing!!!

They set up defense behind a massive mountain range which is also kind of cool. The war has been seesawing back and forth for control of moountains that lead to their heartland.

[Stromprophet]

Very cool indeed.

My prob is that the comps seem to nice to eachother, I got 10 civs on one continent, and they won't engage eachother. I think I'll pit them in a war against eachother, or try to.

Anyone know how to contact all the civs??? I can only contact ones on my foriegn minister screen. ????
Hmmmmmmmm.

[ixnay]

My current game has descended into a WW1-style spiral of world war (but I'm not involved). Egypt attacked America, and from there all of the people with mutual prot. pacts declared war on egypt. But wait, theres more: eventually greece ended up declaring war on france, who allied with germany to declare war on india who declared war on the romans who were allied with the russians. Meanwhile, the germans turned on the french and declared war on the english, too, while the chinese sided with the zulus to go against the french! All in one turn. Everyone is engaged in a pretty tight space race, so hopefully this will divert attention and let me win...

[Stromprophet]

How do you make contact with all 16 civs from one screen? Anyone know?

[Peterk]

you contact from the foreign minister screen. But you have to have had dealings with them before they show up.

[Gorbad]

The easiest way to contact other civs is with the diplomacy menu, which you get to by hitting Shift-d.
If you're playing with more than 8 civs it only shows you and 7 others on the foreign advisor screen, but you can get the others to show up. Control-Shift-Right click on any of the faces will allow you to swap in a different civ.
This is handily documented in the readme file only...

[Diety]

Yep, diplomacy will be a major part of war. If I play a wargame, I trade for contacts ASAP and then try to get everyone get to war together with my enemy.

[CivExtrodinaire]

Originally posted by Peterk
you contact from the foreign minister screen. But you have to have had dealings with them before they show up.

Not true. I've had dealings with England for a long time, we've been trading back and forth since the game started and they still don't show up on the diplomacy screen - same goes for japan. It only shows 8 civs.

[ixnay]

Shift+Right Click on a portrait in the foreign advisor screen to change it to another civ.

[Peterk]

> Yep, diplomacy will be a major part of war. If I play a wargame, > I trade for contacts ASAP and then try to get everyone get to
> war together with my enemy.

CivII kind of had getting help from another civ in a war in it, but what is really cool here is that the trade effects can be used to intentionally keep the enemy in the stone age.

Well, my huge alliance finally broke up after 20 turns. I got two cities out of it as well as control of a crucial mountain range, militarily and strategically (especially with uranium appearing one of these days soon). France helped themselves to 3 cities and germany to one, so it was a true world war! And there was even a bit of chance co-operation thrown in with French and German ships bombarding the same city right alongside mine!

Most of the leaders asked to terminate their mutual protection pact when time was up but all agreed to continue a 20 turn trade embargo with Egypt just in return for my promise to do the same, and that's really the key for me.

I have to say the game really impressed and surprised me here in how deep and complicated the situation was and in how well it was handled. Nooooo comparison to Civ2 - not even close.

[Vitmore The Great]

Originally posted by Peterk
you contact from the foreign minister screen. But you have to have had dealings with them before they show up.

Also, to the right of the window that gives you unit desription on the main screen, there are four "mini buttons" which I only noticed last night. The mini button with the D is a shortcut to a listing of all the civs you have contact with (no pics, just tells your status). It is very handy and solves the problem of not all the civs showing up.

Vitmore

[CivExtrodinaire]

I feel stupid.

Sorry for my newbness.

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by CivExtrodinaire
I feel stupid.

Sorry for my newbness.

Don't worry, I'm still trying to figure out all the shift and ctrl shortcuts too, damn there's a lot of them and their hidden, it's a realtively intuitive interface, but none of the shortcuts are.

I accidently put half of my workers on fortify during my first game because I used the wrong "clear forest" key command. Needless to say that game was a loser from the get go.

Besides, everyone's a newbie with Civ3, it's only been out for a week.

[Kc7mxo]

U can type SHIFT+D to get to that listing of them too. Much easier than the button. :-)

[Chuckles]

I am quite happy with the diplomacy, just the interface for it all sucks.

My first game I got squished in between the French and the British, and both were about my size. I couldn't really afford to go to war with either of them, and I had no access to iron or saltpeter, so I was going to give up.

But then the British decided to walk through my territory. I asked them to leave so they declared war on me. I then got the French, Germans, and Greeks to declare war on Britain by giving them techs, and gave them rights of passage so they could reach the British. Pretty soon a very fun war started in which we all took several cities. Funny thing Hastings was captured by French, recaptured by British, captured by Greeks, British, Germans, British, Greeks, British, French, British, me, British, then me again. That's one bombed out city. Had Leonardo's in it theough so everyone wanted it. I like this kind of war and diplomacy.