It's rather impossible to tell if there's a shot at all at turn 10 with a lone warrior. Even if there's no visible warrior in cap, it's a pure gamble, for it could appear the very next turn. There's no "planning a war" with one or two warriors, that's russian roulette in leader-playing sense. With espionage or open borders war can get at least a bit predictable. And this rule states clearly "with no follow-up plan". One could notice choking IS a follow-up plan. At least compared to quitting. Or dying to a backstabbing neighbour.
That last one will (quite often) result in screaming "FFA! that's FFA you ****!", which is rather hilarious considering FFA means " I don't care if you are at war, I play for my own success". But that last one is also rare, so, sadly, there's no need to involve it. The most common failure of such "war" is the defender being unable to negotiate anything. That's the problem. The gamblers with one warrior are just a minor annoyance. With everyone ignoring 1000-years war following failed warrior rush it's (just) another RTS skirmish, which some players may simply like (for unknown reason
). But with the attacker unable to admit this 1000 years brought next to nothing, it's just a waste of time unless defender enjoys occasional mass production of archers and other no-resource units (in worst case scenario). Catapults will eventually end such choke, but it's hard to see a winner catching up with the others in techs and GPT after prolonged "mostly-units-building" period. War is won, game is lost, congratulations.
But that's the "analysis" of pretty uncommon cases, involving determined defender and determined attacker. With everyone already dead or left, as you wrote, I admit it's a moot point. One could wonder how many left because of similar reasons. Because in practice one side throws a towel within few turns and leaves war-of-gamble to AI. If initial rush is lost, it's the attacker that leaves and looks for another game. If initial rush is a success, defender dies or leaves - it does not matter much with one-two cities. But if the
main (or the only) part of a plan is to force bored (try not to be, while having to build endless stream of garrison units and hit Enter) defender out of a game with no other actions but mass choking and no tangible prospects of winning, then it's not exactly a "war plan". It's a distant cousin of spamming the chat, maxing every turn and stalling on every possible occasion. Yep, in such cases people will leave too and it will have a little in common with gameplay as well. But then again, it's just an "if someone's intent is winning purely through boring the hell out of an opponent" case. Not exacly possible to prove unless someone states so
That bigger war you wrote about involved way more than initial units. And there's hardly an excuse not to determine own chances before attacking, when at least a power graph can give a hint. Spies? I never heard of them
While I won't share so detailed story, I can only say it's been a major disappointment for me so many times. Neighbour gathers attack forces => attacks VERY soon => 1. SOD dies attacking/defending; 2. SOD withdraws and peace negotiations start (yeah, in a what, 5% cases?); 3. I die unprepared (well, more than 5% cases
); 4. We both enjoy stone age while rest of the world is polishing their knights (most of the time if I feel like whipping some units while not facing overwhelming odds and/or early catapults). The point is, how many of such useless wars are started because someone feels bored? No strategy, no some detailed analysis of choking efficiency (unless ex post of course, everyone can play a wiser man then), just a pure boredom. Not exactly different than DoW on everyone before quitting. Simply quitting a bit later in most cases of failure. That's why I agree with TeraHammer - rather than start a war without a single piece of information - retire. And in case of boredom - retire, period.
Espionage won't solve that last issue as it can't fix someone's character or boredom. But it is the best way to prevent senseless suicide. I have a feeling we're talking about different games though. I'm not a fan of "always war" setting or 1vs1/2vs2/3vs3etc. scenarios and in such cases early, half-blind rush is sometimes essential.
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, let's just say I learned a thing or two (thousands) thanks to this forum 
