Surprise war?

[Widdershins]

like I said before, provoke em by stealing settlers and workers. settle close, let your units hang around close to their cities. that will provoke them, does for me.

and it always helps to have a sh*tty army. less units means they attack quicker.. I think..

How...do you steal a civ's settlers and builders without being already at war? The only way I know of is to capture one of these units after they've been captured by barbarians.

 

[MartinMcMartin]

sorry, I thought it was clear that I am at war already, if I am not, I declare surprise war as soon as I can capture a builder and/or settler.

 

[Abaxial]

sorry, I thought it was clear that I am at war already, if I am not, I declare surprise war as soon as I can capture a builder and/or settler.

The problem is to provoke THEM into declaring war (without just being feeble).

 

[newtociv6]

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever been subject to a declaration of war by an AI civ other than surprise war? I don't recall it myself.

It seems to be the intention of the game design that if you want to attack someone else, you denounce, wait ten turns, and then declare whatever casus belli you have, It seems that this almost never happens. The AI either denounces and then doesn't attack, or attacks without denouncing. While the player most likely doesn't need to denounce because the AI civ has already done the denouncing. Or the player declares surprise war to take advantage of some passing opportunity.

I hope some better system will be in place for Civ 7.

Cyrus was next to my Byzantine and he launched surprise attack 2-3 turns after denouncing me for having low loyalty in a new city. That's in ancient era, 10-20 turns.
He did the same previously around 50 turns without denouncing, when both nations were quite well, for no reason at all.

 

[martindo]

When you declare war on someone you are automatically kicked out of their territory and so there is no disadvantage to giving open borders aside from scouting information, which I doubt the AI really uses. When the AI does that its actually a really good tell that they are going to attack you.


Doesn't happen to me and I play on Emperor. The pretty sure the AI only declares surprise wars from what I've seen.

I almost never give open borders. First, it lets the AI scout deeper into your territory. Second, it lets them jam some of your roads, a hassle even if they don't want to attack. Third, if you're concerned about culture, you're giving their Archeologists permission to steal your artefacts.