Accidental declaration of war

[beorn]

I'm curious if anyone has seen this before, or whether it is a known bug.

Turn 130 as Poundmaker, I had a friendship with neighbor Korea and as the turn processed to 131, I found myself at war with Korea.

* I got no screen with Seondeok declaring war on me.
* Unlike any situation I have ever seen with a single opponent declaring war on me, there is no buildup of forces on my border.
* I am still at peace with everyone else, so this is not a joint war.
* Also interesting, during the turn processing, Robert the Bruce, who I recently met, gave me the usual bit about blood feuds being expensive... then immediately afterwards, gave me the statement about keeping wars away from him.
* I am pretty sure I did not accidentally declare war, and I notice that my scout, within easy range of Korean attack, still has perfect health.

I've played this game dozens of times and have never seen anything like this. Anyone have any insights?

 

[XplosiveLun]

Robert hates anyone who has an ongoing war, including defensive war. The Civilization Wiki states "[Robert] Likes civilizations not at war with his neighbors" which indicates that.

 

[Mahi]

Had this happen to me before. I think I had military alliance with someone who was declared war upon. Don't know if that is the civ 6's interpretation of a defensive pact?

 

[Disgustipated]

Happened in my last game as Georgia. I was in alliance with America and Spain declared war on America. I got no notification with the diplomatic screen pop up, but I did hear the war declaration sound in between turns.

It happens. It's something to be aware of when entering into alliances.

 

[Slip de Garcon]

Had this happen to me before. I think I had military alliance with someone who was declared war upon. Don't know if that is the civ 6's interpretation of a defensive pact?

That's the most likely thing - you've declared war on them in fact. Alliances seem a bit risky for this reason.

 

[beorn]

Yup, that turned out to be the answer. Went back to an autosave and looked at it more carefully. Korea declared on my ally Macedon, so I automatically declared on Korea. I just missed it the first time.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yup, that turned out to be the answer. Went back to an autosave and looked at it more carefully. Korea declared on my ally Macedon, so I automatically declared on Korea. I just missed it the first time.

Your sources need to report on important things like Seondeok building a Power Plant or Macedonians finding the weather nice at a new seaside resort. Sometimes they forget to mark "urgent" on things like "oh, and by the way, we're now at war".

 

[Disgustipated]

The other thing to watch out for is they don't sneak in a joint war under a long list of amenities they want to trade with you for. I've been burned by that once. It taught me to scroll down.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In a game with a passable UI, the game would inform you that your nation honored its alliance. It's one of the more significant things in the game that can happen, so it shouldn't be buried or have cause in doubt.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yea, it'd be nice if we had a usable notification system, but apparently you don't need to know about stuff like your city states under attack or you're even at war.

Plus that war sound goes off so much....

I really preferred Civ 5's flashing lights thing. Like it'd warn you the city is starving very clearly. In Civ 6, I have to constantly see if the idiot governor isn't stagnating their cities for no reason.

 

[Aristos]

In a game with a passable UI, the game would inform you that your nation honored its alliance. It's one of the more significant things in the game that can happen, so it shouldn't be buried or have cause in doubt.

In a game with a passable design, the system would let you decide if you want to honor the alliance or betray it, with diplomatic consequences either way...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yea, it'd be nice if we had a usable notification system, but apparently you don't need to know about stuff like your city states under attack or you're even at war.

Plus that war sound goes off so much....

I really preferred Civ 5's flashing lights thing. Like it'd warn you the city is starving very clearly. In Civ 6, I have to constantly see if the idiot governor isn't stagnating their cities for no reason.

Interestingly, they got it right with Loyalty … very clear, visible system, shows if a city is going to rebel, shows if its leaning to joining someone else.

Housing's okayish. Would be better if you got different colour houses to show each of the various housing states (full growth, partially reduced growth, etc.)

Amenities' is okayish, too. There's nothing to show if a city is Ecstatic, for example, even though that's a really useful state and I like to know if I need to round up an amenity or two to restore it when lost. And there's a big difference between being at -1 Amenities versus -5 Amenities, but you get the same red circus tent for both. Why not different colour circus tents for each of the various amenity states?

Population starving is absolutely horrible. Growth and starving look pretty much the same when you're glancing at the map. Only stagnation is clearly different, when the number disappears.

re the war sound, I play with the sound off, so any sort of audible indicator is lost on me. As it would be on deaf people. The game should not rely on audible indicators as the sole indicator of an event.

 

[Hactar]

I play with the sound off, so any sort of audible indicator is lost on me. As it would be on deaf people. The game should not rely on audible indicators as the sole indicator of an event.

Such as barb camp spawning. It's literally the only indicator. Playing without sound would be a significant handicap for civs like Sumeria where you really want to hit those barb camps.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Such as barb camp spawning. It's literally the only indicator. Playing without sound would be a significant handicap for civs like Sumeria where you really want to hit those barb camps.

I had honestly forgotten there was any indicator of a new Barbarian Camp appearing.

 

[Lord Lakely]

In a game with a passable design, the system would let you decide if you want to honor the alliance or betray it, with diplomatic consequences either way...

Absolutely! The only current way to avoid accidental wars is to ally both parties, which is ludicrous.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Absolutely! The only current way to avoid accidental wars is to ally both parties, which is ludicrous.

If you're allied with both, you should get the option to honour your alliance with one and take the penalty for breaking your alliance with the other, or take a smaller hit to your relationship with both of them for "fence sitting".

 

[SirWill90]

Found I was suddenly at war with Alexander with no notification whatever. Figured out it must have been due to my having an alliance with Korea. Thing is I did not have a military alliance, it was economic. Is that working as intended? Sure seems wrong to me.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Found I was suddenly at war with Alexander with no notification whatever. Figured out it must have been due to my having an alliance with Korea. Thing is I did not have a military alliance, it was economic. Is that working as intended? Sure seems wrong to me.

The type of alliance is irrelevant to whether you have to go to war to defend your ally. It's not immediately obvious why that should be for a science alliance, etc., but that's how it's set up.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

In a game with a passable design, the system would let you decide if you want to honor the alliance or betray it, with diplomatic consequences either way...

Civ 5 at least let you do that. Someone would come to you with an offer of a joint war and you could say ”give me 10 turns to prepare” The 10 turns happen and the civ comes back to you and says "Ready for war?” At that point you could honor your promise, or go back on it with a diplomatic hit with the other civ.

Why this isn't a similar case is a glaring oversight.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The current design is fine in the current context, since "diplomatic consequences" = not really a thing. It makes very little sense to offer no risk to something that offers a good deal of benefits. If you could arbitrarily violate an alliance, it would be readily abusable and carry zero meaning.

It's the same reason why you can't violate a peace treaty even though there's no physical reason this is the case.