Harbors and Trade

[Aabraxan]

After spending ~1000 years trying to repair my rep in that game, . . .

You can not repair your reputation.

I know that . . . now.

 

[Delphi456]

Here's an interesting trade factoid I just experienced a few hours ago: I had a coastal trade with spain for ivory and a coastal trade with america for furs (both thru tech trades). After learning astro, I made a sea trade (with another tech) with spain for horses. A few turns later, my two coastal trades got severed by barb galleys, but my sea trade for horses remained. I thought my two coastal trades would have been protected/elevated because of astro. Guess not. I'm just thankful these weren't gpt trades.

 

[Desertsnow]

You can trade by coastal waters before Astronomy; the risk is that the route is easily interrupted, eg. by barbarian galleys.

Mhm, and if the route is interrupted, then I take the rep hit, right?

 

[Bartleby]

Yes; that's why it's so dodgy.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

it can also be interrupted by being at war with other civilizations... in fact, I think if you are trading with rome, and carthage is between you and rome and your trade route has to go through carthaginian water, and rome declares on carthage... YOU take the rep hit. which is completely unfair, of course.

 

[bryanwallace]

yes this happened to me as well and its very annoying....

i posted similar thing somewhere else ,but if I have a mil alliance with ally against someone else,can I not make peace with the enemy without ruining my rep?
can you also attack the person you are allied with??

also,in general is it ok just to attack someone without declaring war first??

 

[gmaharriet]

i posted similar thing somewhere else ,but if I have a mil alliance with ally against someone else,can I not make peace with the enemy without ruining my rep?

No, you can't make peace until the 20-turn alliance is up UNLESS your ally makes peace with the enemy first. Not only can you not make peace, you cannot destroy the last city of the enemy until the 20 turns are up without breaking the alliance. Yeah, the AI ally does that, but you can't. The AIs never seem to take much of a hit for broken agreements.

can you also attack the person you are allied with??

No, not until the alliance is terminated...either after 20 turns, after your ally makes an early peace, or the enemy is destroyed.

also,in general is it ok just to attack someone without declaring war first??

I'll let someone else answer this. I've heard it said both ways, so I'm not sure. I never do it. One thing I do know for certain...you can't do it if you have an ROP agreement with the civ you are attacking or you will get a serious rep hit.

 

[psweetman1590]

also,in general is it ok just to attack someone without declaring war first??

Tricky question to answer that....

Basic rule of thumb - you can't have any unit (workers, explorers, etc. included) on any patch of the enemies turf when war is formally declared. Essentially, this means that you cannot attack your enemy's cities without first declaring war. However, you can attack a unit of theirs that is outside their borders without first declaring war with no penalty - unless you already had a ROP, as gmaharriet said.

You know, you might as well just play it safe and formally declare war every time. It only takes a few seconds, so why take the risk if you're not sure?

 

[Bartleby]

I have experimented and found that you can declare war by entering a civ's territory and attacking a city, and still be able to sign RoP with other civs who have contact with the enemy. Having a settler inside the enemy's border did not have any effect.
I did not test declaration of war at the "leave or declare" dialogue, and I also did not test whether the initial victim would give RoP if peace was declared.

Having said that, 99% of the time I will declare formally for exactly this reason:

...You know, you might as well just play it safe and formally declare war every time. It only takes a few seconds, so why take the risk if you're not sure?

 

[Desertsnow]

I always formally declare war, if I intend to attack.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

it can also be interrupted by being at war with other civilizations... in fact, I think if you are trading with rome, and carthage is between you and rome and your trade route has to go through carthaginian water, and rome declares on carthage... YOU take the rep hit. which is completely unfair, of course.

This may not, actually, be true.

I'm currently playing a succession game (deity warmongers) where we captured a carthaginian city with a harbor (we had built none) which was completely surrounded by carthaginian culture - an indian galley wandered by and all of a sudden, we could trade luxes with them!

we could not, however, trade luxes with aztecs, who are also at war with carthage.

So, my current theory around water culture and trade routes is that you can trade through culture boundaries is at least one civ in the trade is at peace with the other.

 

[Desertsnow]

I've had deals ended by wars with other civilizations, if only available trade route is through their territory.

 

[TimBentley]

So, my current theory around water culture and trade routes is that you can trade through culture boundaries is at least one civ in the trade is at peace with the other.

From my experience that seems to be correct. The most common offenders, barbarians, are at war with both of course.

 

[seanos08]

You need navigation to trade via ocean and the cities with harbours must be conected to the resource.