DOW Before Peace Treaty Ends!!??

I don't know if this is a bug or not, but the following is a true story. On Saturday night
I was playing a game as the Celts. (I always play @ King level) My 2 closest neighbors were Germany & Sweden. I decided to wipe out Germany because I figured if I didn't,
they would be a thorn in my side for the rest of the game. While this was going on,
Sweden started expanding into my territory, so I went to war with them also.
At this point I met America, who was on the same continent, but further away.
I became friends with America. I conquered a couple of Swedish cities, leaving them only
with their capital, plus one other city. At this point we made peace. When the peace treaty ended, America asks me DOW Sweden. I wanted to wipe them out so I told Washington "give me 10 turns to prepare". However instead of waiting 10 turns, I DOW'd
Sweden on the very next turn, and quickly started killing more of his units.
Sweden eventually sued for peace, offering me his only other city. I accepted.
It was either on the same turn, or one turn after,(I can't recall for sure) Washington contacts me saying the time for war on Sweden has come. I say let's get this thing started, and suddenly I am at war again with Sweden, and conquer their Capital.

Should this be allowed??? I didn't mean to cheat. I just didn't want to take a diplo
hit with America. I thought that even if I agreed the game would over ride and say no.

My apologies for such a long post, and I hope I posted this in the appropriate part of the forum.

Has any one else seen this happen?

Jacques Lamerde said:

Has any one else seen this happen?

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I haven't, but that is quite weird.

Interesting scenario, never been in a similar position.

I recall an earlier post with the same fact pattern. I think the logic is that your preexisting treaty (agreement to DOW in 10 turns) took precedence over your later peace treaty, although you could have chosen to breach the "DOW in 10 turns" treaty. Fair question ask is why the game would allow you to commit to inconsistent treaties....should peace have been blocked, as is the case for (I think) 10 turns after you DOW pursuant to your "give me 10 turns" treaty?

Browd said:

Fair question ask is why the game would allow you to commit to inconsistent treaties....should peace have been blocked, as is the case for (I think) 10 turns after you DOW pursuant to your "give me 10 turns" treaty?

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That is exactly what I was thinking. A) Should I not have been allowed to make peace.
or B) Should I have not been allowed to DOW, and therefore, take the diplo hit with Washington.

Seems like this could be used as an exploit. I remember in Vanilla Civ that if I agreed
to DOW someone in 10 turns, and then DOW'd on my own before the 10 turns where up
I would get denounced by the person I made the original DOW agreement with, even if
we had a previous DOF.

Notwithstanding my (somewhat rhetorical) question, a better qestion is should a player be held responsible for treaties he/she agreed to and be held accountable for those choices? Here, you chose to agree to the 10-turn DOW treaty, then chose to DOW early, then chose to make a peace treaty, and then chose to honor your earlier 10-turn DOW treaty (rather than choosing to breach that treaty). All logical choices, but choices nonetheless. Shouldn't be surprising that the game isn't designed to protect us from ourselves.

I was thinking that if a player agrees to DOW someone in 10 turns, that they should not
be allowed to do it sooner.

That's one alternative. I guess a related concern is that this might be yet another area where the human player can abuse the AI. Agree to DOW in 10 turns, but then DOW immediately. Agree a favorable peace treaty on turn 9 that includes (let's say) all of the AI's gold on hand, plus the ordinary turn-based stuff (luxuries, strategics, gpt, etc.). Ordinarily you couldn't DOW again until turn 19, but the auto-DOW kicks in on turn 10, cancelling the turn-based peace treaty terms, but you get to keep the upfront gold. Can't make peace for 10 turns, but you then do another favorable peace treaty on turn 20, with more upfront gold and turn-based goodies. (All of this assumes that you can get those terms from the AI, of course.)

Seems a bit exploit-y. Maybe not as easily exploited as the "gpt-and-everything-else-for-gold-then-instaDOW" tactic, but still....

Jacques Lamerde said:

Has any one else seen this happen?

Click to expand...

no. but really interesting.

Browd said:

Notwithstanding my (somewhat rhetorical) question, a better qestion is should a player be held responsible for treaties he/she agreed to and be held accountable for those choices? Here, you chose to agree to the 10-turn DOW treaty, then chose to DOW early, then chose to make a peace treaty, and then chose to honor your earlier 10-turn DOW treaty (rather than choosing to breach that treaty). All logical choices, but choices nonetheless. Shouldn't be surprising that the game isn't designed to protect us from ourselves.

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I'll start by saying I don't think it should be a high priority given the rarity of occurrence.

But if it were a high priority and we had to sort it, I'd go with negative diplo hits from all Civs if you break the peace treaty. Which means that you should have the option of declaring war at all times, regardless of existing peace treaties. To make it easier on the player, give them a notification when they are presented with conflicting deals.

Jacques Lamerde said:

I was thinking that if a player agrees to DOW someone in 10 turns, that they should not
be allowed to do it sooner.

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Quite on the contrary, if someone promises to DoW in 10 turns and you DoW sooner, the promise should be considered fulfilled already and should not pop up after 10 turns.

In regard to OP, I think I once experienced the same. I guess you can call it a minor inconsistency in game design rather than a bug. Either way I agree it's something that should have a smal fix, cf. my suggestion above.

kaspergm said:

Quite on the contrary, if someone promises to DoW in 10 turns and you DoW sooner, the promise should be considered fulfilled already and should not pop up after 10 turns..

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That makes sense to me.

I do agree with this.

This has actually happened to me twice in my last game. I was able to DOW somebody very shortly after peace because of another nation asking me to join against them. There should be a penalty for that.

I HAVE seen wars started by AI civs against each other...only to have them make peace with each other after only a few turns. Something I cannot do.