Your head would look good on the end of a pole (WAR)

[br_casino]

Has anyone ever declared war on a civilization you have just meet? What would be the benefit? Why is it even an option?

 

[Psyringe]

Well, sometimes "Your head would look good on the end of a pole" sounds like a perfectly reasonable answer to whatever silly line the other leader greets you with ... everytime I meet Julius, I have to fight a strong urge to kill him right away in order to save the rest of the world from this godawful salad joke.

I've also used this "war" option accidentally ... twice.

Aside from that, I really don't know why the option is there.

Perhaps it's a subtle hint that there will be Poles in the game eventually.

 

[Idiodyssey]

I declared war on Tokugawa once when I first met him. I discovered his territory with my first warrior and he had a worker building an improvement on a border tile. I was going to be playing a warmongering game anyway and it was Tokugawa, so I declared war when the screen popped up and took his worker.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Aside from that, I really don't know why the option is there.

Perhaps it's a subtle hint that there will be Poles in the game eventually.

It's there so you have an illusion of having diplomatic options before you have researched any techs giving you real diplomatic options, i guess.

 

[Sisiutil]

As idiodyssey pointed out, it is conceivable that you might want to declare war as soon as you meet a civ, so therefore the option is available from the get-go.

 

[MoonBase]

I've actually thought, once or twice, that it'd be kind of interesting if, by default, you were at war with any and all newcomers for the first bunch of terms.

The Civ1 model, as I recall: unidentified units were fair game up until either you or they got close to a city.

After all, meetings in the ancient world were often nasty and violent.

 

[ollj]

Yes I have declared war on sight, good if you dont profit as much from trading and have no war weariness, but its uncommon.

 

[GoodGame]

It's a reasonable tactic for the purpose of getting the other civ to focus on attacking you. Even if you can't fight them directly for quite a while, it'll drain their resources to come after you, so it'd be a good diversion for settling on their flanks, or building a wonder.

I don't use it very often myself, since there's a good chance it will affect the attitude of other neighbors.

Has anyone ever declared war on a civilization you have just meet? What would be the benefit? Why is it even an option?

 

[drkodos]

As idiodyssey pointed out, it is conceivable that you might want to declare war as soon as you meet a civ, so therefore the option is available from the get-go.

It can be a viable strategy. When nations are at war they behave differently; for instance, they use their workers less and often keep them holed up in a city.

For the human, a DOW does not neccessarilly makes us play any more "conservative, unless we choose to do so electively.