This may have been touched on before....I would be surprised if it hasn't been, but I haven't been able to locate the answer to my query. This has happened several times, in several different games. The scenario is: Huge map, epic speed, myself and my wife playing...I am the Inca and she is Egypt. We do not use permanent alliances(the science penalties suck) and start nowhere near each other. The map is custom continents with 6 land masses and 18 civs including us(obviously). She and I both start very strong, I obtained Stonehenge and the Pyramids very early on. By the time we are starting to reach the middle ages I have a solid 250 point overall score lead(Monarch difficulty) and am feelin pretty good. Sometime shortly after she and I make contact and I catch her up the Russians(Catherine) declare war on me out of the blue. In fact Catherine was cautious towards me despite the war(and pleased before it started). She was a full member of my religion, had none of her own, and had noone elses. She had not a single red mark on our relationship till she declared war. The first question is...is this just how Catherine is? Attacking the preeimminent power in the world is nothing new(see 7 December, 1941) but she came for me in a clearly premeditated fashion. I suppose it seems a contrast to me that she is so warlike and yet creative and financial. Regardless she came hard and fast with three groupings totalling around 13-20 mixed units each. I had very little military aside from barbarian control and city defense and was hard hit. I managed to eke out rifling in time to upgrade anything I could to riflemen before she reached any cities. She managed to force me out of a size 12 city(I cannot recall the name...Incans heh) and this is the real impetus of the post....*SHE RAZED THE CITY!* She razed the holy city of her own religion! She razed a city containing the taj mahal! Is it just me or did they replace "AI" with "AS"? I mean I wound up hammering her so bad that at the end of the very turn that she burned the city she wound up begging for peace.

Also and this is important lol. Should I expect this kind of behavior from any of the other civs? I shudder to think what the possibilities are of the other 15 civs turning on me when I re-ignite the war with Catherine(do any of us really believe she intends to honor the peace treaty?).

I would really appreciate any feedback folks : )

There are some leaders who tend to do things like that. I tend to take a very counter-strike approach. I let them send hammer against anvil, then my counterstrike smashes into their cities. If they take a city, I make sure to get 2 before peace. If they raze one, I raze four of theirs. I've learned that with some leaders (Catherine, Isabella, Napoleon, Genghis...) a show of brutal, unforgiving force insures peace better than playing nice.

Certain leaders will go to war with you if your Power is lower than theirs on the Power graph (F9 I think), regardless of diplomatic relations. Other leaders will demand tribute instead.

Also, pretty much all civs will go to war if their Power outnumbers yours by a huge margin (like 10:1) unless you're Friendly status with them. :)