TheMarshmallowBear
Benelovent Chieftain of the Ursu Kingdom
Ok, having to prepare before DOWing might actually be better than % strength bonuses. Instead of choosing war, you choose "prepare for war". After 5/10/15/20 turns (depending on game length), the option to go to war becomes available. You can DOW at any time while prepared, and can choose to stop preparing, which diminishes the preparation counter. But if a spy catches your preparing from another civ or third party, that's the downside to simply preparing for everyone all the time.
If you are DOWed upon, then you simply go to war. Might not make sense that the DOWees don't need to prepare, but it could work best this way.
While it does sound intresting, I don't think that :
A. What you're saying suggest the lack of ability to DoW at any time without preparing.
B. If you don't actually exclude A, then preparing doens't provide anything positive, except negative (possibly getitng caught).