Declarations of War

[munari]

In playing my games, it seems like I always end up having 2 nations attack me early on in the game while they bypass nations right "next door" to them... It may be an issue with my strategy, please let me know what you all think. And these are cives that are "Polite" and I have often given small monetary gifts to to keep them happy.

Playing on Regent difficulty, when it comes to tech advances, I usually get Bronze Working and Warrior Code and I send out about 5 warriors to search out the country side for the small huts, I usually get a few techs that way... After I get these, I then move on to getting Alphabet, Writing, and then Literature to get The Great Library so I can pick up on all of the lower leveled techs that I skipped plus pick up future techs...

Does this cause other civs to gang up on me? What have you all noticed are things that cause enemy civs to attack?

 

[Trev]

The 2 main reasons for attacks by ai civs are

Weakness - They tend to gang up on their weakest neighbour, so if this is the reason, you need to maintain a larger army

Resources - You have next to a city a resource which they want, sometimes this will be a resource not yet visible on your map because you do not have the required technology, but the ai civs have advance knowledge of resource locations

 

[munari]

Advanced knowledge? That hardly seems fair...

Thanks a lot. I guess I'll try keeping a larger army then. That could be the problem.

Have you noticed wars being declared due to reception of a good Wonder (ie, The Great Library)?

 

[wilbill]

Originally posted by munari
Have you noticed wars being declared due to reception of a good Wonder (ie, The Great Library)?

Other than as it would add to the overall strength/status of your civ, no.
A third reason to add to Trev's list - AI's are prone to attack if they need space to grow early in the game - i.e. if you're sharing a continent with another civ and you're blocking his expansion you can just about count on a war.

 

[Shillen]

Yep, it's most likely your army is weak. Make sure all your cities have at least one unit in them too. There have been times I remove a unit from a city just temporarily for one turn, and since I have one undefended city a civ declares war on me, even though they couldn't even get to that undefended city!

Also when a civ demands tribute in the ancient age and you're not ready for war then give in. You're better off paying them than letting them beat you up. Even if you do manage to fend off their attacks, unless you capture some of their cities, you're still going to have to pay them for peace. And usually it's more than they demanded in the first place.

 

[munari]

Thanks for the tips guys. I've been keeping at least one army in each city as quickly as I can get one for the new cities, and keeping two in each preferably. I always used to get two units for each city when I used to play Civ and Civ II... some reason I moved away from that... Anyways, since keeping those armies in the cities, I've had no problems. The map is a bit crowded... there are four civs on a relatively small island...

 

[alpha one]

When I played as the Vikings yesterday, I was first attacked by the americans, who signed an alliance with England, who signed an alliance with the Russians and the Celts. And on top of that I told some Roman troops to back of, and they declared war. Nonecities was captured on either sides, but after the slaughtering of the attacking units I got peace, they even paid me some gold. When this happened I had ca one unit in each city + some wandering around. I think they attacked me because I had a small army.

 

[farting bob]

i got atacked randomly when i had the largest nation, and an average of 3 units per toen, at least 2garrisoned in each, and some wonderers. i aasily defended against there small army of wariors and then counter stiked and took 4 of here 7 cties. then sued for peace. they never attacked me again............

 

[Alvin]

Originally posted by Shillen
Yep, it's most likely your army is weak. Make sure all your cities have at least one unit in them too. There have been times I remove a unit from a city just temporarily for one turn, and since I have one undefended city a civ declares war on me, even though they couldn't even get to that undefended city!

Also when a civ demands tribute in the ancient age and you're not ready for war then give in. You're better off paying them than letting them beat you up. Even if you do manage to fend off their attacks, unless you capture some of their cities, you're still going to have to pay them for peace. And usually it's more than they demanded in the first place.

Well, yea but if you are on an island with railroads all around, wouldn't you be guarding your coast cities?