Just another Surprise Attack thread.

[rah]

I was playing MP the other night and something happend that hasn't happened before.

At sea, I find another civ's ship who I had not met yet.
I figured it was a good chance to use the surprise bonus and try to make my ship a vet. I attacked and was not prompted to declare war, and obviously didn't receive the surprise bonus as my ship didn't even do any damage before sinking.

Now the question.
Did this happen, because I had not had contact with this civ yet, since sea contact doesn't count? I have received a surprise bonus before in a ship combat but I had previously had contact with that civ.

Or did I not receive a surprise bonus because I was in Republic. I am usually at war with everyone prior to getting Republic so I can't remember a previous instance.

Testing stuff in MP is harder to do since it requires another body that if one is there, I'm usually playing.

So I thought I'd ask here first.

Rich

[atawa]

Contact is only established through land units or Marco's.

[debeest]

My experience, from SP only, is that ship combat with civs I haven't yet met socially doesn't constitute war, or even a formal introduction. In fact, I often don't even know which civ I've just been sunk by. I suspect this is why you got no sneak attack bonus.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Agreed - a bonus appears to happen only when you are breaking a treaty. That's clearly why you didn't have to declare war, and I'd suspect the rest follows suit.

Odd, tho, how this game still pops up new situations after so many years of playing.

[rah]

Originally posted by atawa
Contact is only established through land units or Marco's.

Yes, I knew that

And for the other two answers, are the way I was leaning.
That seems to be the case from what I checked in SP, But I wanted to see if I could get verification from an MP game, since we have seen some differences.