How do defensive pacts work?

jerVL/kg

Sheep Nuker
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Dec 30, 2005
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I formed a defensive pact with Mansa Musa, and it's my understanding that he would come to my defense if I got attacked or attacked anyone else...but, instead, when I attacked another nation, not only did he cancel the pact, but he cancelled ALL the trade I had with him, INCLUDING Open Borders! What's the deal here? Does that mean if I have a defensive pact with anyone, I'll lose them as an ally if I attack anyone else??
 
Defensive pacts are good for peaceful games. If I'm playing for a SS/Diplo/cultural win, signing a defensive pact means I can focus on obtaining victory without paying as much attention to my military. This is especially useful if you're going for a cultural win and your army is backwards compared to everyone else.

Another useful fact about defensive pacts is that if you can bribe a nation into declaring war on another, all of the attacking nation's defensive pacts will get cancelled. It might allow you to then attack that nation without bringing it's allies into the war.
 
Corlindale said:
The only way to use your Defensive Pact agressively is to provoke the nation you want to attack into declaring war on you first.
Ok, how do I do that? I wanna take out FDR...everyone hates him for some reason. :lol:
 
The best way is to make outrageous demands of him. You might also try trading with his enemies, adopting a different religion than him, and in general refuse all his requests.
However, the A.I. are not stupid, so it will be nearly impossible to make him declare war if you have a vastly superior military force.
 
Alternatively you can try getting him to like you enough that you can bribe him into attacking one of the civs who hates him. This will terminate all his defensive pacts immediately and leave you free to stab him in the back. You'll even have some assistance from whichever civ you bribed him to attack.
 
Mmhmm.. the definition of a defensive pact is complicated, but that popular saying (It's a defensive, not an offensive, pact) is good.

Let's say there are 3 Civilizations: A, B, Z

A signs pact with B

Case I: If Z attacks A, then B must join in war against Z.
If Z attacks B, then A must join in war against Z.
Case III: If A attacks Z, then B does not have to join in war.
If B attacks Z, then A does not have to join in war.
Case V: If A attacks B, then the pact is cancelled, and Z does not need to join against either side.
If B attacks A, then the pact is cancelled, and Z does not need to join against either side.

-------------------

Now, Let's say there are 3 Civilizations: A, B, Z

A signs pact with B
B signs pact with Z
Z signs pact with A

If anyone declares war on anyone else {A,B,Z}, then the other two will automatically be at war with the aggressor.

So if A declared war on Z, then A's pact with Z is voided, and A's pact with B is voided. Now B's only association is with Z, and because Z is being attacked, B must join in war against A. :D
 
Corlindale said:
The best way is to make outrageous demands of him.
I'm a little concerned about this. Sometimes while trading the other civ will refuse my proposal several times, before we finally reach a bargain or I just give up. For example, in my current game, Catherine built Broadway before I did :mad: and she won't trade the Hit Musicals for anything less than 50gp/turn!! She's my closest ally, but is that going to ruin our relationship? (I love it when she slaps me, though!)

You might also try trading with his enemies, adopting a different religion than him, and in general refuse all his requests.
However, the A.I. are not stupid, so it will be nearly impossible to make him declare war if you have a vastly superior military force.
So far no civ has ever declared war on me yet. Of course, I'm playing on Chieftan level at the moment. :lol:
 
It never works for me to try to provoke them, maybe because thats when i have my army massed on their borders, or because my navy is right on the ocean line, or because my air force is in the nearest city i have to them. Whatever im doing wrong, they just never let themselves be provoked, i had an enemy have -30 from catching my spies, and they still didnt declare war, whats that about!
 
I've been attacked on Prince. It was the early game, declared war on England to get a stone resource, they were on an island and that was their only city on my mainland. I took the city they founded a 2nd one on the mainland I took that one but my army was sort of lost and since I didnt plan for a long war i didnt make reinforcements. The english took back their original city and i lost the stone. Signed peace. Developed founded christianty, converted a lot. Englant was Cautios due to the religious bonus. I declared war on Spain. The enlish declared war on me 2 turns later even if they had like 2 axes in the stone city and were still catious to me, obviously bribed by Spain. I wrestled marble out of spain, they paid for peace and now am moving towards the stone city.

As for defencive pacts, they were wildly used in the last century as a form of protection. If Germany declares war on France, Russia will declare war on Germany. But if France strikes first, Russia will have no obligations.
When you attacked first, Mansa Munsa had no obligations to come in your aid. Hence pact was void.

The AI is very catious when it comes to war. In another game on an Earth map I played with China, the mongols were right above me I declared war on them destroyed them, they had one city. Army of warriors depleted and it was time to build an economy. Persia which is rather far from China moved its troops through india and declared war. Totally unprovoked we just had met and by the fact they had they troops at my borders at three different invasion points suggested this was planned. The pillaged everything and left me hanging. This was prince too.

On Monarch, I was russia, earth map again in industrial era, I ushed the mongols back in a long destructive war that pushed me from 1st on the score sheet to 3rd. Peace with Mongolia. My eastern border fairly unsecure with the new cities i added to my dominion. I started rebuilding and China invades and razes my new conquests to the dust. They were 1st on the score sheet and wanted to stay there.

A defencive pact is a great way to make sure you will never be attacked by the AI to be honest. Since there is no offencive pact in the game the AI weights its chances of success against 2 enemies rather than one. Instead of figuring what a 2vs2 outcome will be it always looks at it from a 1vs2 view as it doesn't know who will join him in the war.
 
Ok, here's the situation. I finally did sign a pact with Catherine, who also has a pact with Egypt and China. I'm also planning to go to war with Mansa Musa, and I have the option of bribing every other civ -- except Egypt, who is Mansa's friend -- to go to war with Mansa in exchange for Communism. (Note: This is a different game from the one where I had a pact with Mansa.)

Now, if I understand correctly, bribing China to attack Mansa will break his pact with Catherine, and bribing Catherine to attack Mansa will break her pact with all three of us. But...if I can somehow bribe Mansa to attack Catherine, it will bring Egypt into the war, along with China and myself, and all I take is the diplomatic hit on Catherine's relationship, right? The only problems are (1) Catherine's my best buddy, and this could permanently sour our relationship; and (2) I'm not quite prepared for war yet, since I've been devoting all my resources into colonizing the New World and rushing production of the Internet so I can get all those techs the other civs share (esp. Rocketry -- there's a MASSIVE arms race going on between Mansa, Catherine, Louis XIV and China!)

Or would it break the pact if I paid Mansa to attack Catherine?
 
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