Anyone know what are the conditions for a AI to suddenly declare war without warning. I had just taken a barb city last night, 5 turns later Auggies 5unit stack show up and declare war on me :confused:

1. we don't share a border
2. he has state religion but i didn't have one
3. he didn't make any pervious demands on me.
4. i was ahead in points and tech but i think he had more cities.

He just show up and declare war. I wonder if he was planning to take that barb city and got piss i took it first.

i beat him off and made peace, now we are best buds after i converted him to christianty. i plan to backstab him later once i got to around 10 cities and built up my core cities :p

RNG can roll war as long as they're below the disposition that prevents it. Probably just bad luck for you. You two were probably @ cautious when he decided to go for war.

Yesterday, Genghis declares war on me when he wasn't in WHEOOHRN. I should know, as I checked the diplomacy screen the turn before he DOW'ed me. Anyway, nothing happened for about twenty turns until he showed up with a couple of swords, spears and chariots, after which I gave him so useless tech for peace. I'm still perplexed as to what happened. Either he decided to attack me the turn he went into WHEOOHRN or someone bribed him to attack me, but I don't think the computer bribes AI's to attack another player without being at war with that play themselves.

I've had Monty DoW on me before without going WHEOOHRN. It was very early in the game. He just moved a stack of axes and chariots up to my border, and the next turn he rolled.

Sudden DoWs early in the game w/o war mode usually means they're in the dagger AI script...although my understanding of the script is hazy at best it's basically something you see out of pre-renaissance era warmongers.

When you get the asp-hats (or feather heads) on your borders earlygame, try to settle a hill city on that border since they can roll RNG screw-you odds not matter what you do.

An unfortified, unpromoted archer in a hill city will defend at strength 6. If it's fortified, it will be a bit stronger than str 6. Anything like 20% culture defense or walls later on will make it so that literally nothing the AI can make in that time-frame has winning odds. Put about 6-9 of those in the city and even immortal AIs will fail attacking it.

If you're protective or get city garrison (or guerrilla) as your barracks promo, it's even advantageous.

Without the hill, archers are far less powerful on defense. They lose a built-in extra 50%, not good. If you anticipate war, definitely make a concession to settle the nearest city to that AI on a hill if you're going to be on defense.