Why can't I attack a civ (English)

[Dis]

Installed the game again. Haven't played in over a year. So there might be some new things in the most recent patch I haven't seen. One is destroyers don't upgrade anymore? And missile cruisers are an upgrade for battleship- and same power as well.

Anyways the English have a vassal state (Americans). I'm not sure what happened, but it looks like the empire split. What is that? Is that something new? But I can't attack them. . The option doesn't appear in- let's discuss something else. If I go to cancel deals I can cancel open borders, but I can't cancel peace deal (10 turns). I've never been at war with either one. I also can't "move" a unit into their territory to start war.

Anyways I want to attack them for their gems. I got a quest, and I want to complete it. . I don't really need to do it to win the game, but it gives me a reason to wage modern war. Instead of riding the space ship race out to victory. So I'd like to get those gems. The English appear to be the only one with gems, but I can't attack them. Sucks I can't complete that quest.

[slnz]

Striking a deal with a civilization forces a 10 turn peace period. Examples of such deals are signing a peace treaty or trading techs and resources. You can see the remaining time of this forced peace in the "Active" tab of the Foreign Advisor (F4)

There is a high mainteinance penalty for cities on overseas islands that have 2 or more cities on them; it is called colony mainteinance. A Civilization can make a "colony" for himself by forming a completely new Civ from these overseas cities, the newly formed Civ will be a vassal of the mother country. This is probably what happened.

[Dis]

thanks. I think maybe I did have a deal with the English- not sure what though. Only thing I saw was open borders. But I may have still had to wait 10 turns even though I cancelled the deal? That must have been it. I also reloaded the game, and after a few turns I was able to attack. They are going down now.

[Theben]

You can't declare war on a vassal, you have to declare war on the master civ.

[slnz]

Sure you can. You just implicitly end up declaring war on the master Civ also.

This is especially fun because the AI can ask you to DoW a vassal; it has happened to me that I didn't realize the target was a vassal of a much stronger Civ and I therefore ended up at the wrong end of the stick.

[JEELEN]

Silly you! BTW, the same thing can happen if some civ really wants to be your vassal: always check their current relations!

[Dis]

Sure you can. You just implicitly end up declaring war on the master Civ also.

This is especially fun because the AI can ask you to DoW a vassal; it has happened to me that I didn't realize the target was a vassal of a much stronger Civ and I therefore ended up at the wrong end of the stick.

I did that once (or twice), made me learn to check the F4 screen before declaring war on someone.