Offensive use of MPP

[Usually Insane]

haven't seen this posted, if so, just do something naughty

what to do if all your computer-generated civs have mutual protection pacts... can't pound anyone to dust right.

wrong

they all have MPP, so if anyone get's pounded, all others will gang up against him or her...

now, talk to one of those powers, let's say france, near the one you want to take over, let's say germany. give her what she wants and get yourself a MPP.

now walk into the territory of whomever you want to pound into fragments (germany) and find yourself a cozy place on top of a mountain (if that is possible) and fortify.

germany will declare war (eventually), and attack your units... oops, shouldn't have done that. your nice friend france will undoubtly come to your aid... not that she had mmuch to choose from...

now, either germany will attack france... and everyone will declare war on germany. or france will attack germany, and everyone will attack france, in which case you just switch priorities and attack france...

[IronSpam]

Won't the Mutual Protection Pacts be activated only if Germany attacks you on your home territory? Otherwise, it sounds like a plan. Divide and conquer!

[gfrazieror]

I think IronSpam is right.

Here's the situation. I'm Germany. I've been enemies with England for some time (they had saltpeter, they were in my way to expand to the south, I need saltpeter, I need lebensraum to the south, you get the general idea).

I have a MPP with Persia. England has a MPP with Persia. I have a MPP with France. English pikemen wander into my territory. I demand they leave, or declare war. England declares war. I attack invaders, destroy them. No action by Persia or France. I cross border, capture English worker. Persia declares war on me (despite my MPP with Persia, and despite England's declaration of war on me). Oops. Don't want this. Hit reset button, go back in time.

So, instead of going after the English worker, I put a worker deliberately in front of one of my cities (different front), in the path of invading English units. England crosses border, captures my worker, on my territory, Persia declares war on England, France declares war on England. Much better.

So, the bottom line is: you can attack invaders on your territory without triggering an MPP that the invader has with someone else. However, if you attack the enemy on neutral ground or his territory, you will trigger the MPP by being an aggressor. So the catch is you must let the enemy attack you first on your ground or neutral ground to avoid triggering an MPP that will bring another civ into the war against you.

[tsnelson]

I had a very interesting game where I played the Germans, and the French were getting on my nerves, demanding things time after time, well, since the French were MPP'd with the Indians (my nearest neighbor, and the Indians were MPP's with the Chinese, and the Chinese were MPP's with Me, I wanted to experiment for a moment, so I talked to the French, and told them I was declaring war with them.

There MPP treaty didn't take affect during my turn!

On their turn, they attacked me, and all the civs declared war on them! Since I had a decent buffer of Chinese between me and Frenchie, I could take it fairly easy, and only concentrate on taking the cities, and gained quite a coffer in my conquest!

I find this a neat trick to use to my advantage, when I want to declare war on an enemy, but don't want to burden myself with going all out militaristic.

Cool, eh?

[sachmo71]

I had a situation where I attacked a French unit in German territory and took the oathbreaker penalty.
This was the last French unit in the world, or close to it anyway. He ran past my city and into german territory. I went to attack, and the advisor popped up tell me that doing that would cause war with Germany. Thinking I had made a mistake, I tried again and killed him. Then I was the oathbreaker...no more warnings or anything. It was strange.