Manipulating the AI Treaties

[Skanky Burns]

In my current game, the Zulus andAztecs are roughly the same size, with my own territory just a bit larger than theirs.
Out of the blue, the Zulus decide to declare war on me. I checked their treaty status, and they had a Mutual Protection Pact (MPP) with the Aztecs. Well, this isnt good, I thought. I had just finished off the Germans, and my army was in need of repair, upgrading, and rebuilding. My democratic population weren't happy about the prospects of another long war, especially with the rest of the world. But what to do??

Rather than attacking the Zulus immediately, I instead contacted the Aztecs to ask them to declare war on the Zulus. No deal. They wanted an arm and a leg, and massive quantities of resources, luxuries and tech. Not too happy, I instead asked them to sign a MPP with me. For a small amount of gold, they agreed.

Now the Aztecs had a MPP with both the Zulus and myself, while I was at war with the Zulus. I ended my turn, and the Zulu invasion force moved towards one of my territories. Their closest ship began to bombard my terrain in preparation for the invasion, but instead caused my MPP buddies, the Aztecs to declare war on the aggressive Zulus, their former MPP buddies!!

The Zulu invasion force turned tail and returned home, to prepare itself for an invasion, leaving me alone in peace.

The moral of this story: If a third party has MPPs with your enemy, get one as with them as soon as you can, and be the 'victim' in the first attack. Your new ally will be valuable in helping defeat your enemy, or just to prevent you having to fight a 2-front war.

Note: Pretend this color is Yellow.

[Dom Pedro II]

This is a good strategy, BUT it does not always work.

In one game, I was getting ready to go to war with the Persians. Now, the French, a rather strong world power at the time, had a Mutual Defense Pact with the Persians. I signed one with the French soon before my war with the Persians, but rather than blitzkrieg the Persians, I moved a rather weak unit out into the field to be struck first. They took the bait. No response from the French. Then I began my assault. Immediately, the French declared war on me despite the fact that I had been attacked first.

[Skanky Burns]

Interesting. Perhaps it had to do with the fact they declared war on me, or maybe your unit was in their territory?? I guess more testing is in order, unless someone out there knows for sure why it works sometimes, and not others??

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, it's rather interesting that they DIDN'T declare war when the Persians attacked me!

I mean, the Japanese, my buds on the other part of the world made good on our deal that turn. And I know that I am forced to declare war when my MPP partners are attacked. I wanna know why the French get a choice and I don't!

[Blaupanzer]

It appears to matter whose territory in which an attack occurs. In my most recent game I had MPPs with several civs warring among themselves. I was only called to honor the ones where that civ was attacked inside its own territory.

[eMarkM]

This is a good MPP strategy and has worked well for me. I was on my way to a space victory as Persia w/ China and France having MPP and I wanted to avoid war at all costs. Combined, their military was better than mine and could have hampered my chances if they formed an alliance. I paid through the nose in luxuries to get MPP with France. This way France was not a threat to attack and if China was the aggressor, France would help in my defense. No war was ever started and I launched the ship in peace.

I think MPP is only triggered when defending homeland against aggression, not for aggressive offensive moves into enemy territory. I guess having a unit in other's territory is considered aggressive/offensive, even if you were the defender in an attack.

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