Do you realize at least half the time why civs declare war on you?

Especially versus many civs?

yeah it's either because i'm too weak or too strong

Actually yes, they covet my land and think i am too weak, mostly. Sometimes they are bribed.

I usually have the same reasons for declaring war

Yes. The majority of the time, I understand why the AI declares war on me or denounces me and I am not particularly surprised. Most of the time it's something that I would consider doing myself if I were in the same position as the computer.

You have a lot of tips regarding the probability of having been DoWed on:

Their attitude: if they are Guarded or Hostile there is a big chance they will dow. If they are Friendly they can be deceptive about it and they are not actually friendly. Try to sell something to them, if they give you a lower price than usual, then they are deceptive and probably will try to DoW

Their army size compared to yours: if you have a weaker army (you can check it in Demographics) they will dow, happens all of the time in higher difficulties.

Their social policies is also a tip: the once that choose Honor early will probably DoW somebody.

Their personality: some people will always DoW somebody, like Alex, Caesar, Napoleon etc.

There are more hints, and if you watch them carefully you can almost always know when you are being DoWed!

In my last game Monte was just across the water from me, and absolutely hated me, completely hostile, taunting me. Then all of the sudden he's my best friend. At that point I moved all my units to the area nearest his land and sure enough, a few turns later his armada arrived.

I usually understand why it's happened even if I don't predict it.

It's almost always one of three things for me:
*They are more powerful and want to early rush me
*They have a city near my territory and they want to grab some other cities around that one - even if I'm more powerful.
*They are more powerful than me later on and want to destroy me.

After the early game, if I'm stronger, they almost never attack me, except in the second situation I outline above. This is where they have a city detached from their main empire (often gained by conquest) that is almost an enclave of my empire. When this is the case, they will usually build up to attack me to expand their holdings around it. Interestingly, whenever this happens and I take that city away from them, if I don't capture more of their cities, they will then act like nothing ever happened and be my friend after the war.

I usually know why, but I sometimes disagree with the decision. For instance:

In a recent game, I was maybe 4th or 5th in terms of soldiers (playing on a small map, so only 6 civs in total). That made me weaker than most civs. Then Denmark, who was 1st in soldiers, declares war. Now, I know this happened because Denmark had more soldiers and I had fewer. But there was no "covets your land" in play, primarily because I was close to the opposite side of the pangea from him. And the declaration came without any Danish soldiers on my border, meaning he still had to move his army quite a ways. I had a small but growing lead in technology, so that was probably another reason. But ultimately, it was a stupid DoW, because the lead Denmark had in soldiers was more than offset by me having both a tech lead as well as plenty of time to build units because of the time it took him to move his army.

Ever since G&K, I see more of this "I'll declare war on you, but my army is no where near your borders" nonsense from the AI. Even had his army been near my borders, the distance to his own civ was pretty far if he had taken any of my cities, making the decision to attack me already a questionable one. But his army didn't show up until many turns later.

ahawk said:

I usually know why, but I sometimes disagree with the decision. For instance:

In a recent game, I was maybe 4th or 5th in terms of soldiers (playing on a small map, so only 6 civs in total). That made me weaker than most civs. Then Denmark, who was 1st in soldiers, declares war. Now, I know this happened because Denmark had more soldiers and I had fewer. But there was no "covets your land" in play, primarily because I was close to the opposite side of the pangea from him. And the declaration came without any Danish soldiers on my border, meaning he still had to move his army quite a ways. I had a small but growing lead in technology, so that was probably another reason. But ultimately, it was a stupid DoW, because the lead Denmark had in soldiers was more than offset by me having both a tech lead as well as plenty of time to build units because of the time it took him to move his army.

Ever since G&K, I see more of this "I'll declare war on you, but my army is no where near your borders" nonsense from the AI. Even had his army been near my borders, the distance to his own civ was pretty far if he had taken any of my cities, making the decision to attack me already a questionable one. But his army didn't show up until many turns later.

Click to expand...

Yeah that's pretty dumb on a pangea map where every route to you will take 10-20 turns of travel time. And if they do that traveling AFTER they DoW you, they are just asking to have their out-of-date units mopped up by the time they get to you.

Xiao Xiong said:

In my last game Monte was just across the water from me, and absolutely hated me, completely hostile, taunting me. Then all of the sudden he's my best friend. At that point I moved all my units to the area nearest his land and sure enough, a few turns later his armada arrived.

Click to expand...

Yeah, a lot of times, another civ will dependably hate on me for centuries, be standoffish and insult me up and down and threaten me... but as soon as they turn friendly and offer to swap embassies, I can very often expect a sneak attack from them within a couple turns.

They are nearby and I'm weak. No matter the civ, that's practically a guaranteed DOW.

ahawk said:

Ever since G&K, I see more of this "I'll declare war on you, but my army is no where near your borders" nonsense from the AI. Even had his army been near my borders, the distance to his own civ was pretty far if he had taken any of my cities, making the decision to attack me already a questionable one. But his army didn't show up until many turns later.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to determine when the AI is DoW'ing you for diplomatic reasons. Maybe it's because a third civ bribed him to attack you. Maybe it's mainly done to placate other AI's and improve his standing with them.

If they are close, always be prepared for a DOW...you may be able to buy a bit of time to build a few wonders, but try to keep some money aside so you can rush-build a few military units...

Sometimes I purposely try to stay a bit weak-looking to encourage such a DOW....and then I'll never let them have peace again unless, of course, they offer some "over-the-top" peace settlement that you really can't refuse...

But it's all situational and typically can't really be viewed as a "sneak attack"...you know it has to come.

A "sneak attack" is what happened in one of my recent games...the Mongols, who were a fair way off, suddenly came to my capital and DOW'd...I really thought it would be a long while before they came...but, no... I did have a couple of archers, but it wasn't enough...they captured my capital in about four turns ...and I retired...

[Edit: And in another game which is currently ongoing, though it's now in a bit of a tedious phase, so I've put the game in abeyance for a while Anyway, in this game with the Russians...I knew almost from turn one they would be a problem...but I had some militaristic CS allies and friends who kept sending me military units....the DOW took forever...I guess I just looked too strong....but eventually it came and I was prepared....

The strategy I used was to draw back a bit and then pick away at their onslaught....after many turns I was able to push them out of my territory, but they were still too tough to assault directly....though they were no longer a threat. I waited until I had Artillery and....well, that was it for Cathy...I had numerous Artillery...converted cannons and new units...and within a fairly short time ...15 turns???...can't really remember... I had St. Peterburg and Moscow...and even freed a CS they had captured...after letting the Iroquois weaken it...an easy capture for me.... ]

Yes, even when they are on another continent (a runaway there to boot).

It's because they see you as 1) easy pickings 2) you just completed a nice and easy to get wonder-capital 3) way low on tech

Yes, because I'm too weak or too strong or they covet my lands or I'm on a conquering spree. The other half is that if they didn't (declare war), there would be no game to play.