Why you attack...

[Barker]

Hmm.. let me list the reasons:

1- You moved into my teritory
2- You built a city too close to me
3- You have *insert resource I am lacking *
4- You have *insert resource I want to prevent you from having*
5- You're getting too powerful for my liking
6- Time to trigger a Golden Age
7- I want *Insert your favourite wonder *
8- I'm getting bored
9- I'm getting bored
10-See above

 

[Finvola]

Sometimes I try to restrain myself from attacking, but I have a hard time fighting the urge and I give in

 

[Furry Spatula]

I top your Because i feel like it.

I say because it makes me feel like a big man!

But i also do it just because they have asked me for tribute. Or because i simply dont want another civ on my continent. If a civ from another continent attempts to colonize a desert spot on my continent. I send them home. In little crates. With blood leaking out of it. I usualy am peaceful to the peacful nations. But if someone is annoyed with me for no reason, and im boared, and they are on the same continent as me. Good bye

 

[dannyevilcat]

Originally posted by Finvola
Sometimes I try to restrain myself from attacking, but I have a hard time fighting the urge and I give in

Ah, yes: failed benevolence. Add that to my list, too

 

[Finvola]

Hehehe
I'm like that as well. I don't usually like anyone else on my continent, so I take them for what they've got and crush them. It depends on the kind of day I'm having I guess, lol. What pushes me over the edge is when they keep crossing my borders and won't leave when they say they will. If they don't leave within a few turns then I make mincemeat out of 'em.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Zachriel
You have to have a reason?!?

HmmHurmph. What I meant to say was that I attack to make the world safe for democracy -- oh yes, and peace, justice and so on and so forth.

 

[VanillaCube]

To get more than my share of land so I can compete with the other civs.

 

[Furry Spatula]

If i wish to rationalize my actions, sometimes i will say that if i didn't take them out, they'd try to do it to me.

 

[Pembroke]

Exactly. It's just self defense but with the counter-attack going in in a different location in the time axis than where they hit me *first*.

Consider, for example, the case where Old Alexander attacks me across our border and then I retaliate by counter-attacking him with a naval excursion unloading a few transportloads of tanks on his weak hinterlands. In this case the rightful counter-attack has a different position in the space axis from the Greek aggression.

So, analoguous to this, if the Greeks attack me *first* in the position "year = AD 1750" then it is only good strategy to launch my rightful counter to this unprovoked attack at the position "year = AD 1730" where they have a weaker defense.

Temporally shifted self defense. Pure and simple.

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

Manifest Destiny

 

[JonFitt]

Definately worth doing to secure an entire continent.
Or to test out a shiny new unit!

 

[bobgote]

Originally posted by Zachriel


HmmHurmph. What I meant to say was that I attack to make the world safe for democracy -- oh yes, and peace, justice and so on and so forth.

lolol! You're very funny.

 

[KDan]

Many reasons... possibly most of the above.

Practical reasons:
1) To get tech early on in the game
2) To weaken my neighbours so I have an easier time (who doesn't like a neighbour with no iron or horses or anything?)
3) Because I need space to expand
4) Because they're getting way too cocky and I've decided not to pay the tribute this time
5) Capture a luxury resource
Usually I have plenty of every strat resource within my empire so I don't need to attack for that
6) Because they pissed me off one too many times and I decided, a long time ago, that my next war's object would be to wipe them out

Having the AI's respawn makes it much less worth it to actually wipe people out though... cause they just respawn somewhere else. Can be a ***** in the early bits. I wiped the chinese out from far away to the west and they respawned really close to me and somehow pulled 3 braves out of thin air and drove towards my capital. Didn't get far, of course... they met a bunch of wild beast... my pretty little jaguar warriors... hehehehe

Daniel

 

[kb2tvl]

My first war will be to take out a civ and their capitol/surrounding cities. The egyptians and culature culature building civs will tend to build their cities further apart. Where the militaristic will build them closer. If I had a choice of targets, I would go for a target where I can set up a FP and get lots of placement.

The next war is to expand my borders and secure key resoursces and luxes. I would fight my first war for key resources as well.

 

[Zachriel]

Click here:
http://www.zachriel.com/Justification.htm

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

I really don't like to attack. I will sometimes do so to trigger a golden age (although I usually try to use wonders) or get a key resource, but I always feel bad afterwards and back off before I should. My pity really cripples my ability. To correct this, I'm trying to see the game in the light of economic, rather than historic, analysis. That is, the challenge is to calculate when my comparative advantage is/will be greatest so that I can force a conflict. Economics sees a hero where History sees a villian.

It's really one of the reasons that I had trouble switching from Civ2. I could get by as an affirmed non-aggressor because there was always room to build (always used big worlds) and idioticly weak civs trying to sneak-attack me. The fervor with which the AI conducts the landgrab in Civ3 left me with the choice to either be aggressive or mediocre, and I was uninterested in either of those.

 

[BCLG100]

because im bored