We all know we get pretty scared when we see masses of units near our borders when we could only develop about 1/4 of their army. Is it frustrating when it is the other way around & you prepare for war, but you aren't fully ready to attack? Then that civilization pops up to move your units having those two options:
- You either say your passing through when you are clearly not
-Or fully declare war having them strike at your units first
The AI definitely has the advantage by choosing the second option, but if you lie and declare war every other civilization would know of this, and have a penalty that would last the whole game.
Do you think it's unfair? Would you like to have an advantage at something in your time of need? Would you like to get the first attack & or have every other civilization denounce that player for good? At least know they're on your side, or favour you?
Should FIRAXIS allow more diplomacy in a new update?
The human gets a diplo perks of its own: the AI never gets to know if you're planning a war nor which city you plan to sneak attack. Meanwhile, with a spy and a few friends, the AI's plotting, and often its exact target, are often known to the human in time to prepare.
The AI having the the perk to force you to remove your units from its border or being forced to DoW, after which it gets a turn to attack you first, is one of the things that are there to balance the advantage the human has. It's not as bad as it sounds, most AI give you a forewarning (they tell you during trade deals that they find you have a lot of units near them quite before they will come and entrap you to DoW or promise you have no such intention) and you know then you have to retreat one tile away from the border if you want to be free to declare War without a promise standing in the way. The lesson: never keep military units on the border if DoWing a neighbor is in your plans - put a civilian to watch movements on the other side and that's all. It's not a good tactic to let the AI see your military build-up anyway, it's gonna build an army too.
I tend to agree the effects of that promise are too long lasting. It should be more like a peace treaty in length, with a message telling you the promise is over. As it is it's too restricting, amounting to a non-aggression pact. It limits your options when you don't intend to declare war in visible future but might later. The only reason it's not uber annoying is that it can be prevented by keeping the borders unit-free.
OTOH I don't agree the human should have this diplomatic option too. We don't need it, for one thing, because if we find the AI has too many units and letting it DOW on its turn would be too dangerous, we can already DoW by surprise and get a first round of attack.
The second reason is that it would be exploited all the time. The human player would avidly watch the borders for the first opportunity to force its neighbors to make that promise, greatly decreasing the odds of being attacked (while the AI does it when you are multiple units parked right on the border and it doesn't like you - declared friends will often only give you the advance warning) . Paradoxically, if the program the AI to avoid the borders to make the situation less likely to be exploited by the human, its potential for sneak attacks with units you haven't seen would be increased, making it more difficult to prepare for an imminent war.
