Defensive Pacts Need to be fixed next patch.

Scenario:
Me (Morocco), Spain, Arabia and India are all friends and I have a defensive pact with Arabia(Spain does to).

India decides to go to war with Arabia and the defensive pact activates, putting me and Spain at war with India as well.
Immediately after,Arabia and Spain both denounce me for going to war with an ally even though they just went to war with the same ally for the exact same reason.

A few turns in other civs I was friendly with start to denounce me as well and on the diplomacy screen it shows the red "You declared war after a DOF" thing even though I never declared war. Then Arabia the nation IM DEFENDING BECAUSE OF THE DEFENSIVE PACT sends me the "oh great the rats are breeding" message, and thinks Im a warmonger.

This is completely broken, going to war with someone because of a Defensive Pact, after they already DoW'd a nation you are protecting should not be treated like you are the aggressor.

This is an issue that's existed since vanilla, I think. The warmonger-penalty is far too simplistic, but at this point I doubt they'll change it, as the release of BNW was my last real hope for a change and I doubt we'll see a tweak this late after.

That said, the easiest solution is simply to not use Defensive Pacts. After all, you could always just wait until a DoW against you and then make a deal for a third-party to join your side once you know who your attacker is, which is generally a better option anyways.

But Defensive Pacts really have been just about useless since the initial release of vanilla.

I like the concept of pacts since the AI seems to understand them way better than in IV, but they're still a letdown and I rarely use them.

One of the things where the pact is lousy is also the fact that it doesn't really mandate any defensive collaboration, just a single DoW. If Alice is attacked and Bob doesn't want to join the fight, he won't even if he's got a defensive pact. If Alice is attacked and Bob wants to join the fight, he could do so even without a defensive pact. What a hollow promise, although at least in BNW this means a few cut trade routes to hurt the participants in any case.

Yeah, joining a war through defensive pacts must not count as declaring war concerning diplomacy.
Also, what happens if you got defensive pacts and are allied with 2 civs which then declare war on each other? Or if they got defensive pacts with other civs which force them to declare war on you? You'd probably be at war with everyone and have backstabbed them automatically. It's all not really thought through.
They either should rework it to not be ed up or just remove it - currently the only right recommendation about defensive pacts is to ignore them and never ever sign one.

PS: I also want me declaring war on someone that got caught spying on me not to cause any warmonger/diplomatic penalties with other civilizations, in particular not my allies and their enemies.

Rule number one: Don't sign DoF with everyone you meet unless you really mean that. Think ahead, will there be a conflict with this guy in the near future that I can be dragged into (or freely).

Rule number two: Don't sign DP unless you really mean it and preferable only if the world has been divided into blocks or if you do sign them without a block world, make sure that you are friend with your DP partner and not anybody that has a high risk becoming an enemy of your DP partner (neighbours, typically).

Edit: DP is an offensive act. You have sign a treaty with another country to defend them if anyone attacks them and vice versa. The "Duel Alliance" of WWI between Germany and Austria-Hungary is the perfect example of this.

Another funny thing:

End of turn, my defensive pact expires

During AI turn Civ 1 declares war
Civ 2 offers to renew defensive pact

my turn, I check: Civ 1 and Civ 2 are at peace.

DemonMaster said:

Rule number one: Don't sign DoF with everyone you meet unless you really mean that. Think ahead, will there be a conflict with this guy in the near future that I can be dragged into (or freely).

Rule number two: Don't sign DP unless you really mean it and preferable only if the world has been divided into blocks or if you do sign them without a block world, make sure that you are friend with your DP partner and not anybody that has a high risk becoming an enemy of your DP partner (neighbours, typically).

Edit: DP is an offensive act. You have sign a treaty with another country to defend them if anyone attacks them and vice versa. The "Duel Alliance" of WWI between Germany and Austria-Hungary is the perfect example of this.

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I did all of this, Gandhi just went insane and DoW'd an ally he had no chance of beating. (Typical Gandhi) I guess Rule number three is never DoF Gandhi, ever.

Magic of Friend said:

I did all of this, Gandhi just went insane and DoW'd an ally he had no chance of beating. (Typical Gandhi) I guess Rule number three is never DoF Gandhi, ever.

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So true

Yeah, it's a huge problem and it really grinds my gears that it has not been fixed. It seems so easy to fix - just force a player who DoWs against one of civs in pact to DoW all of them. Instead, you DoW against them and cannot even refuse to do that.

My solution is simple: sign DP only in situations in which you fear for your own safety. It's an awful tool to protect a 3rd party not only because the penalty described in this thread, but also because AI is completely oblivious to DPs and doesn't take into consideration the fact that it will have to fight against a coalition.

Makavcio said:

Yeah, it's a huge problem and it really grinds my gears that it has not been fixed. It seems so easy to fix - just force a player who DoWs against one of civs in pact to DoW all of them. Instead, you DoW against them and cannot even refuse to do that.

My solution is simple: sign DP only in situations in which you fear for your own safety. It's an awful tool to protect a 3rd party not only because the penalty described in this thread, but also because AI is completely oblivious to DPs and doesn't take into consideration the fact that it will have to fight against a coalition.

Click to expand...

It's nothing wrong with the DP system, it is just that some people wants to have the cookie and eat at the same time. They want to be friend with everyone and enjoy the benefits from that but also sign a defence pact with one of them, telling everyone else, beware, we will protect each other. Defence pacts belongs to worlds that are divided. Early 20th century (pre-WWI) is a perfect example. Europe was divided into two groups.

Then, me personally think that some diplo-modifiers (positive and negative) holds for/against you a little to long.

Edit:The only buggy thing with DPs are that your DP partner got the same modifiers as well (if you by mistake being forced to DoW a friend that DoW your partner). This should be removed (I have not seen it myself, since I don't use DP unless my world is divided). To force the DoWer to DoW the DP partner also is very bad. Should he be punished more. Not only is he forced to fight both of you, he is the blame. In RL, that would mean that the Russians and French was to blame, not the Germans and Austria-Hungarians.

DemonMaster said:

It's nothing wrong with the DP system, it is just that some people wants to have the cookie and eat at the same time. They want to be friend with everyone and enjoy the benefits from that but also sign a defence pact with one of them, telling everyone else, beware, we will protect each other. Defence pacts belongs to worlds that are divided. Early 20th century (pre-WWI) is a perfect example. Europe was divided into two groups.

Then, me personally think that some diplo-modifiers (positive and negative) holds for/against you a little to long.

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but this also means you can only have one friend at a time, no matter how many civs there are in your game, because if you have two friends and they DOW each other, your diplomatic integrity is instantly destroyed.

Quineloe said:

but this also means you can only have one friend at a time, no matter how many civs there are in your game, because if you have two friends and they DOW each other, your diplomatic integrity is instantly destroyed.

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If you want to play the diplomatic game, you should survey the diplomatic map, that way you can find friends both here and there.

I use DP and also DoF, but I don't use click yes because I can. If an AI wants a DoF with me and evaluate my intentions with him and if I can see a conflict within the next 30 turns, the answer is no. I only sign DPs if can see a common enemy between me and my (DP) partner. I don't sign a DP because "just in case" or "well, can't hurt".

In one of my latest games, I was playing Germany, during the modern era, I had bad relations with Songhai. Byzantine also had bad relations with them. This was a perfect situation to sign a DP. I did sign it and it also came into effect. In another of my latest games, I played Sweden and was on the same continent as Byzantine and England. There where no clear love-hate picture between us and since I played Sweden I didn't want to jeopardize my potential friend status by getting a diplo-hit. So in this game I didn't sign any DP deals, even though the English wanted one.