Sneak attacks - is it all over?

[civfromthestart]

Hi all

Are sneak attacks dead and buried in Civ4?

I took my 12 archers and 4 swordmen right across neighbouring (and in their eyes friendly) France's lands, encamped the units in the hills along side Lyon, couldn't just attack the city without declaring war first which i did and next minute, my units are 5 spaces away on the border.

Unless they've created some awesome transportation weapon, or I stepped into a wormhole, is this a major change to how war is declared and fought in the game?

If so, it's a shame.

 

[Yuri2356]

It's the way to kill off ROP-Rape. You can no longer flood your neighbor's lands with your armies and then declare war and conquer the whole lot of it. Your people are pulled out the second war is declared.

 

[automator]

It's a good thing. More realistic (historically) too.

 

[Krupo]

If anything, it's like what happened when an alliance was broken in Civ 2; units were teleported back out of your former's ally's territory to prevent Pearl Harborr-style abuse.

Having said that, even at Pearl Harbor the Japanese had to sail from quite a distance before launching their sneak attack. Won't be any easier for you.

 

[BCLG100]

I find it annoying as with the increases in AI intelligence they could have simply worked out never to sign an open borders again with you, i find it unrealistic too. having said that though i never used the RoP rape due to the damage it did to my reputation.

 

[potatokiosk]

It's easier than making the AI smart enough to cancel open borders when things turn ominous.

But ROP rape would be interesting in multiplayer.

 

[Dearmad]

Yeah it's totally "realistic" to have vast armies INSIDE of a nation and THEN declare war and swoop on them- happens all the time!

LOL

 

[potatokiosk]

Think of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. The Conquistadors were already inside the capital when hostilities began.

 

[Tharak]

That's right - but I believe there were about 40 conquistadores to the (roughly) 50,000 Aztec warriors...so if you wnat to try to make that possible in the game, let me know how!

 

[goraemon]

Just another way to minimize the pesky humans exploiting the innocent AIs. It's fairer this way, at least until the the designers manage to program the AI to be much smarter.

 

[shadow2k]

I find it annoying as with the increases in AI intelligence they could have simply worked out never to sign an open borders again with you, i find it unrealistic too. having said that though i never used the RoP rape due to the damage it did to my reputation.

The AI wouldn't sign ROP with you in Civ3 if you had already abused it like that. Same way they wouldn't do gpt/resources for techs after you'd broken a deal once before. The AI was very aware of the type of crap players pulled, and acted accordingly. But they started out each game assuming that the player would have a bit more self-restraint than that, and I guess Firaxis did as well at that time.

You see, it's not that the AI needed to be more intelligent. It's that the human players were too stupid to realize how much of an exploit each was and abused it to no end.

 

[Artanis]

I'd rather have ROP-rape dead and gone the way it is than to have my allies close their borders and get pissed at me anytime I'm forced to go through them to get to an enemy on the other side of their turf.

 

[Kilroy]

Think of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. The Conquistadors were already inside the capital when hostilities began.

Let's model warfare and diplomacy for much of human history after one atypical event.

 

[EDaddy]

In order to do a sneak attack in this civ game, the enemy city has to be one space away from your borders. I did do this to the Spanish. I put my units one space away from Coroba (note that I am still in my territory and then declared war right on the city!

Other than that I'm glad that there is what you guys called no RoP Rape!!! When a stack of units were travelling in my borders, I get too nervous!!!

 

[MattJek]

This is just another example where something totaly unrealistic in real life makes total sense in game terms.

 

[Rain]

The sneak attack with all your troops inside the civ was ultra lame in old civ, unrealistic and its great to see thats its gone from the this version.

 

[White Elk]

Properly executed Amphibious Assaults make great surprise attacks.

 

[Wolfwood]

Having said that, even at Pearl Harbor the Japanese had to sail from quite a distance before launching their sneak attack. Won't be any easier for you.

So-called sneak attack. Wasn't there a newspaper report recently that said that Americans had incited that attack by shooting at some Japanese vessel?

But, on the point: Good riddance to sneak attacks. And, yes, amphibious attacks rule on island maps!

 

[White Elk]

Actually it can be said that the United States embargo of oil and other resources is what caused the Japanese to attack the Pacific Fleet in the first place. The U.S. prevented other countries from shipping critical resources to the Japanese while they were engaged in War. To me that sounds like a very compelling reason to launch a surprise attack to cripple the Fleet that would enforce those embargos. And I can understand how the trade embargo could be considered as an act of war.

 

[Carewolf]

Yeah it's totally "realistic" to have vast armies INSIDE of a nation and THEN declare war and swoop on them- happens all the time!

LOL

Happens all the time. Germany in Belgium in both World Wars. Germany with Poland WW2. US with Vichy France also WW2.

Declaration of war is not compatible with modern fast/blitz wars.