Ally declaring war on you?

[axisworks]

I was playing a game last night with 7 AIs, two of which I shared a continent with. One was Catherine, and the other was the Mongolian leader (not Khan) who's name escapes me...

I was going for a diplomatic win, even though Caesar had declared war on me twice, and I'd been dragged into declaring war on Hatshepsut halfway through the game. All that aside, I only had one -1 from each of my continent-sharing allies, and I even had a defensive pact with Catherine. The Mongol leader had massive culture, so one of my border cities was starting to become less and less my own, and I researched Rock and Roll and a couple other nice cultural treasures to resist the culture invasion.

The very next turn, the Mongol leader randomly declared war on me, even though a turn before I had only -2 for having close borders, and +10 positive. My military at the time was in poor shape, but I managed to mobilize after losing that first border city and eventually crushed the Mongols. Has this or anything similar happened to anyone else? I should mention that I was playing on Noble.

[Hauptman]

My military at the time was in poor shape

AND THERE SIR IS YOUR ANSWER... oops sorry caps, at work...

Was he pleased or friendly prior to invasion? If you let defenses go even your "friends" (ie pleased) will take advantage of that... friendly however I've never seen backstab. But I have seen them go anoyed real fast then attack... =P

[The keeper]

I had a game where my military numbers were pretty good - but I was (only slightly) behind in tech.

I had my continent to myself except for 2 russian cities on the very southern part. Catherine and I had a defensive pact and had been in a few wars as allies.


Suddenly - out of nowhere - Cathrine canceled our defensive pact, and declared war on me. The reason was this:

One of my culture cities was close to one of her cities on my continent. One of the squares that Cathrine was working changed hands - from her hands to mine. That square also happened to have OIL on it. Cathrine canceled a defensive pact and declared war on an ally all for some oil.

My infantry quickly took the offending city and called it my own. But my infantry could not take the other city, because she had planes (which I did not) and she was bombing my infantry as soon as they got remotely close to the city. She also had a tank roaming around.

This diplomatic folly was resolved because I told Cathrine she could have her city back for peace. She was delighted with this decision because she also got her oil back (somehow). The odd thing is this: the very next turn she was willing to resign the defensive pact. It was statigically smart for me to do so, so I did. (but still lost the game to a spaceship)

[Crossfire]

I have had Catherine declare war on me when she was pleased with me. Seems I was weak and she was strong and I lost. I liked that. I was thinking that we were buddies and I was safe on my own little island and BOOM! all of a sudden I was dead. That is why I like this game.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by The keeper
Cathrine canceled a defensive pact and declared war on an ally all for some oil.

Almost like the US and France over Iraq?

[dac]

Yeah, Catherine hates to lose resources culturally. Last night I was playing (on Prince), we had about a +8 relationship because we shared a religion (defensive pacts hadn't been invented yet). Her one source of iron flipped to me, and she declared war. Her chariot raced out and pillaged the iron mine, and a couple of roads before I got to it and killed it. My stack of 10 Axemen slaughtered her invasion of 2 axemen. Then, her city expanded it's borders, and the iron square flipped back to her! Useless of course, now, because she'd pillaged it. I took two cities from her as penalty, and we called it a war.

Now we're still at +8 and friends again. And she doesn't have any iron.

And, just to wander a bit OT, I had the most amazing string of luck taking her two cities, my axemen we're having to attack without catapult support, so I was attacking in the 20 - 30% range, and I didn't lose a battle. Ok, I lost one. I had an axeman going up against a warrior, had around an 80% chance and I lost.

So, you never know.

Culturally pressing on Catherine seems to be an invite to a war.

[axisworks]

The oil issue might've been part of what brought on the war I had, too. There was oil right in between his second-most powerful city and my border city, though it was 2 squares inside his territory. Who knows. I think the massive surge in culture I got from Hollywood and Rock and Roll, combined with my outdated military were the primary factors.