Is there a way to prevent a civ from DoW?

[Janne]

I just had another of those situations where a civ that's friendly declared war on my out of the blue early in the game. What was really annoying this time was it was just one turn before a RA would have run it's course...

I loaded a save from several rounds before and experimented a little...mutual open boarders don't change anything, I tried deals (lux/lux, lux/gold, lux/pgt) in both directions but to no avail...

Has anyone ever found a way to prevent a DoW?

 

[joncnunn]

If anything, prior to the most recent patch having an open border with someone nearby made a war more likely, not less. (Something about the AI having more confidence that your army was indeed weak with open boarders back then)

If you need the war to be delayed only one turn to complete a RA then if the AI is waiting to hit your borders to declare see if you can place units in spot that will delay them reaching your borders by a full turn.

The thing is though it had already made the decision to DOW on or before it starting to move it's units your way.

And I guess if you really think the very next turn you will be declared upon (or know via the time machine) you can buy all the cash up front the AI has for gpt/resources/luxuries. It won't prevent the war, but you'll have their cash for free.

Several of the AIs in Civ 5 like to be pretend friendly. Sometimes if you look at the details about the relationship you'll spot how the reason they aren't really friendly.

I just had another of those situations where a civ that's friendly declared war on my out of the blue early in the game. What was really annoying this time was it was just one turn before a RA would have run it's course...

I loaded a save from several rounds before and experimented a little...mutual open boarders don't change anything, I tried deals (lux/lux, lux/gold, lux/pgt) in both directions but to no avail...

Has anyone ever found a way to prevent a DoW?

 

[rtfischbeck]

Getting to 3 warriors seems to keep the AI off til about T50 or so, after that it just depends on who your neighbors are and whether or not the RNG is kind. Bribing civs that you think might DOW you into wars helps, but the only thing that seems to be consistent id DoFs. On deity im generally at war from T50 till endgame, even if I do a OCC cultural. With the new patch, if you have less soldiers, there's always a chance you get DoW'ed...kinda annoying, but at least the AI is bad at combat. lol

 

[Janne]

well, I was DoWed at turn 54 after I already had two LS and the first catapult was nearly finished...the war itself was a piece of cake but it still pissed me off that damn Napoleon didn't wait this one turn...

I didn't offer DoF before and I had a DoF with Sully who declared war on me at turn 70...in the end I wiped both off the surface of the map but the whole thing made me think that you might only consider RAs with civs you have a DoF...

 

[gozpel]

at turn 50 you should have IW and you can upgrade stuff.

What I do on deity and Immortal, is to have two fortified units outside my borders, preferrably on hilltops. They will just sit there and slow movements down for the enemy, as they will NOT attack these units in neutral territory. They give you time.

At the homefront, just sit your best units on hills and see the AI go suicide.

IF you have swords and the AI doesn't, DO NOT try to kill the 1-hp warrior, if there are 3-5 healthy units around. They will kill that sword for no matter the cost, this is what I call the opportunist AI. They happily sacrifice 5 warriors, just to get rid of this swordsman.

Only kill units when their backups can't do 2-moves and at last: Patience is a virtue.

 

[vexing]

you can:
make a dof
bribe others into war with them
increase your military strength
increase your gold reserves

these all decrease the chance of being declared upon

 

[eric_]

There was a thread awhile back with a fair bit of circumstantial evidence that the AI will DoW to null an RA (i.e., a handful of people reporting DoWs one turn before RA maturity). So, in this case it could be that. Are you very far ahead in tech?

They may also have been bribed or asked to DoW you by someone with whom they have a DoF.

 

[Bibor]

Has anyone ever found a way to prevent a DoW?

Friendly doesn't mean friendly. It means "seems friendly". Unfair trade offers are the best indicator that something's going on, even if no other penalties are listed.

Preventing DoW is based on many things, but military might is almost a panacea.

 

[roguepro92]

if a friendly civ declares war on you
you probably missed the calling signs that, that civ was not ACTUAL friendly but just deceitful one.
dont sell open borders but see how much they'll offer, if its 50g its ussually good indicator, if they pay more or less then you probably dont want to make RAs with them.

 

[Deau]

I just had another of those situations where a civ that's friendly declared war on my out of the blue early in the game. What was really annoying this time was it was just one turn before a RA would have run it's course...

I loaded a save from several rounds before and experimented a little...mutual open boarders don't change anything, I tried deals (lux/lux, lux/gold, lux/pgt) in both directions but to no avail...

Has anyone ever found a way to prevent a DoW?

Sign a DoF

If it doesn't go through...bribe this civ into DoWing a couple others (hopefully it will delay DoW on you sightly). It is likely preferable to bribe another civ into DoWing this civ if it's affordable as giving more gold to an AI that will DoW you increases it's military strength from gold stack further increasing it's DoW odds.

Last, since lux for gold wasn't enough, you could try trading as many lux for gold as possible and then dumping all of your GPT (hell even after switching to gold focus in your cities) and then trading for a lump sum gold. You only get 75% of your gpt value into gold return with friendly but it might give you a few extra turns for the RA.

 

[Rittmeyer]

There was a thread awhile back with a fair bit of circumstantial evidence that the AI will DoW to null an RA (i.e., a handful of people reporting DoWs one turn before RA maturity).

This happens in my games a lot.

 

[Deau]

if a friendly civ declares war on you
you probably missed the calling signs that, that civ was not ACTUAL friendly but just deceitful one.
dont sell open borders but see how much they'll offer, if its 50g its ussually good indicator, if they pay more or less then you probably dont want to make RAs with them.

This isn't so true since .275

A civ that is fully friendly and not in anyway deceitful can DoW out of nowhere based on the operationnal AI and tactical AI changes in the latest patch.

legit friendly -> DoW coming from
operational AI : Increased chance to DoW whenever total military strength is higher
tactial AI : increased chance to DoW whenever there is a tactical opening to a weakly defended city

Not the exact wording of the patch notes but it's what it meant and it has clearly changed the early warmongering, esp for the human player in the higher difficulties where AI bonuses are ******ed.


What I have to partially agree on though is the RA statement. I have had to do an overhaul of my RA signing on deity when .275 landed to try and sign as many DoFs as I would need to secure enough RAs. I try as much as possible to sign any non-DoFed RA since then

 

[Deau]

There was a thread awhile back with a fair bit of circumstantial evidence that the AI will DoW to null an RA (i.e., a handful of people reporting DoWs one turn before RA maturity). So, in this case it could be that. Are you very far ahead in tech?

As much as I would kind of like to believe/know that the AI is bright enough to null RAs through DoW, I firmly don't believe it is. RAs are used more than enough for every player to have coïncidental RA breaking at worse moments and since it is much easier to remember the frustration from a broken RA than the normal event of a RA going through, I am more keen to thinking it was purely a coïncidence. The AI feels far too poorly developped on various other much more obvious strategic decision to intentionally break RAs.

 

[Rittmeyer]

As much as I would kind of like to believe/know that the AI is bright enough to null RAs through DoW, I firmly don't believe it is. RAs are used more than enough for every player to have coïncidental RA breaking at worse moments and since it is much easier to remember the frustration from a broken RA than the normal event of a RA going through, I am more keen to thinking it was purely a coïncidence. The AI feels far too poorly developped on various other much more obvious strategic decision to intentionally break RAs.

I don't see how this would be "bright". Signing RAs to break them? It would at most be a poor design choice to try to hurt the human in any stupid and frustrating way instead of working the AIs to be more efficient.

 

[Deau]

I don't see how this would be "bright". Signing RAs to break them? It would at most be a poor design choice to try to hurt the human in any stupid and frustrating way instead of working the AIs to be more efficient.

Well anytime you jump an era before the AI you have a RA with, it would be "bright" for them to break it since they then expect you will get more free beakers than them out of it. It could also be an AI that's at war with you wanting to prevent you to jump ahead in tech and then bribing/asking for wars to RA break etc. There are quite a few strategic reasons in a global scheme for an AI to break a RA. I still don't believe it's implemented but that the thread mentionned by Eric_ was made from coincidences

 

[Rittmeyer]

Well anytime you jump an era before the AI you have a RA with, it would be "bright" for them to break it since they then expect you will get more free beakers than them out of it. It could also be an AI that's at war with you wanting to prevent you to jump ahead in tech and then bribing/asking for wars to RA break etc. There are quite a few strategic reasons in a global scheme for an AI to break a RA. I still don't believe it's implemented but that the thread mentionned by Eric_ was made from coincidences

First, they should not sign the RA in the first place if they are able to determine if you will get more beakers then they will, or if your tech advantage will threaten then (even tough 'someone getting more beakers then you' is far from enough reason to wanting to break an RA you paid for).

Second, this is far from being always the case. I see it happens just so many times for me to think it is a coincidence, and it does not follow any pattern such as 'you would get more beakers'. It seens they just really want to screw you. As if having an active RA with the human is one more reason to DoW.

People say gold reserves count for a DoW. In my games I see no evidence of that. In my games, it doesn't matter if I have early on the money for walls+archer+horseman rush buy or zero gold, if they want to warrior rush, they just will. On the other hand, as mentioned, I see a lot of DoW's that seen to take the active RA in account, at least to determine the exact moment in which you will get the DoW.

 

[Airey]

Things I use in my game (only lowers the chance of Early DOWs) on higher level with close aggressive neighbour
- 2 early warrior builds (on top of the initial warrior, then gives you 3 warriors total)
- try to keep all Warrior health above 7 (don't take out barb camp too early) as it affects your power rating on the Demographic screen
- save money to upgrade to SMen as soon as IW is discovered
- beeline to Steel to upgrade to LSMen, 3 early LSM would usually up you above average on power rating, thus detouring AI from cancelling RAs

- also Luxury Sale, don't squeeze every penny out of your closest neighbour. Check relation modifier. AI DOWs to cancel Luxury sale as well if they cannot expand. They'll come at you with lone archer. Sometimes it's better to sell 300G lux to others.

 

[Deau]

- also Luxury Sale, don't squeeze every penny out of your closest neighbour. Check relation modifier. AI DOWs to cancel Luxury sale as well if they cannot expand. They'll come at you with lone archer. Sometimes it's better to sell 300G lux to others.

No that's the whole point of selling luxuries to immediate neighbors. Due to shared borders, they are more likely to DoW you and less likely to accept DoFs coming from you, thus by selling them the luxuries, if they ever DoW you get your luxuries back for instant lump sum i.e. your trade has gained in relative value. Ultimately, squeezing every penny out of close neighbor also reduces his calculated military strength thus reducing the DoW likeliness.

 

[Airey]

Ultimately, squeezing every penny out of close neighbor also reduces his calculated military strength thus reducing the DoW likeliness.

That's the normal logic thinking. But test it in games putting yourself next to an aggressive civ. You can test it on GOTM 14. The only benefit is we can resell those lux for more money. But it would change RA timing.

I am not sure the money thing correlates to military strength as well as people think. I can't read the codes, but in experience, they mean squat.
This is what happened when trying to milk AI dry...not sure how it's related though
"The odds are clearly not with me, but I see no alternative"

Spoiler :

Player's Military Rating #1, Above Average