Declaring War vs Surprise Attacks

Not unless you have right of way with the AI.

What happens if you have right-of-way with the AI when you attack?

Not that I do this, but a good friend does.

You lose right of way at the first battle.

A surprise attack will cause the AI to trust you less, leading to a reduction in your popularity among all the AI countries.

In a regular game such a reduced popularity score will not matter much, except for the AI will be slower to grand you right of way when you give them Right of Way.

In an Elite AI game the lower your popularity or higher you score on the most dangerous list, the more likely the AI will be to declare war on you as a pre-emptive measure

I never do a surprise attack intentionally on either players or AI countries.

I want to be able to secure Right of Way with the AI countries as it makes it easier to move through them or to take them over .

Even when I get a Right of Way *RoW with an AI country I always go through the process of going to peace first, counting to 10 and then declaring war.

I almost never surprise attack now and as a result I seem to get quicker peace with AIs, now in hours instead of taking days.

I never surprise attack AI, and barely people, just because I don't wanna be "that guy." Nice to know the AI will return RoW to you faster.

I'm confused though. I haven't surprise attacked AI this whole game, or anybody for that matter. It's been four (in game) days since I've given them RoW, and none have returned it.

I have attacked two AI countries, however I declared War on them. Does that have anything to do with it, or is it just slow AI.

Generally in the larger games 22+ it take about a week to get your first RoW and by day 20 you should have most.

Not sure about the elite AI though.

VorlonFCW wrote:

In a regular game such a reduced popularity score will not matter much, except for the AI will be slower to grand you right of way when you give them Right of Way.

It's a ten player map tho.

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I seriously doubt this. I'm an enthousiast capital farmer (attack an AI, take capital but nothing else, offer RoW, wait till he rebuilds capital, repeat) and often do this 3 or 4 times to the same country. I never noticed any delay in them accepting the RoW.

T-3PO wrote:

It's a ten player map tho.

VorlonFCW wrote:

K.Rokossovski wrote:

I seriously doubt this. I'm an enthousiast capital farmer (attack an AI, take capital but nothing else, offer RoW, wait till he rebuilds capital, repeat) and often do this 3 or 4 times to the same country. I never noticed any delay in them accepting the RoW.

Do you declare war or make surprise attacks?

I like the system. It's more realistic. Irl, if you invade without declaring war, not only (if you lose) will you be fined a ton, you will also be looked down upon by other nations and not trusted. I like that the AI won't trust you, if that's a feature.

It could be that the differences have been streamlined in the past, or the difference may be minor enough that it doesn't matter in your case. It also could be that reputation has absolutely no bearing on the granting of peace or ROW outside of Elite AI games.

In either case, you get the warning that "declaring war can harm your reputation"

However when you do a surprise attack the newspaper report is:

10:19 pm War! Without warning, User1's troops opened fire on the unsuspecting soldiers of User2. Leaders in the whole world are appalled by this ruthless action.

This indicates to me that such an attack is more damaging to your reputation than declaring war. Your reputation is a measure which the AI looks at to determine if you are a threat or a potential friend.

There also may be a factor of returning to peace after taking only a province or two which improves your reputation. This would require some experimentation in an elite AI game. This would not be the first time or place where the written words in the game did not align with the actual mechanics, such as the "distance to capital" being expressed in days.

I feel that you should not be able to attack without a declaration in some cases. I have always preferred more structure. It is irritating when you have cease fire and someone can still attack you as well. Cease fires do not stop ongoing fights either, which is really dumb.

You can still declare war, just before you surprise attack, it wouldn't change much.