How do I declare war?

[John D Ward]

Apologies if this sounds like an idiotic question, but I'm playing the tutorial, and can't declare war against the Mamelukes.

I've installed the 1.09 patch.

My relations with the Mamelukes are at -200, and I'm allied with Catalunya, who are at war with the Mamelukes. The "Declare War" option is always grayed out in the Diplomacy menu.

What should I be doing?

[Kyle]

Are you sure you're not already at war with them? Maybe your ally did it.?

[Ilkuul]

That's not an idiotic question! It's fascinating that you've had exactly the same problem as I did (I've never yet managed to finish the tutorial -- I tried twice).

I came to the conclusion that the first time it happened, it was because I'd messed about with my diplomatic relations with Catalunya (seeing what would happen if I claimed their throne by ancestry!) -- so naturally they weren't on speaking terms with me any more.

The second time I was careful not to do that, but I think I'd let the alliance with them lapse -- it has to be renewed every 5 years, and with the default message settings, news that the alliance has expired may only appear in the history window down below, or in a TINY window towards the right top of the screen. Since then I've been into Options (F10), Message settings, and made sure that all such announcements appear in a large window so they can't be missed.

The other possibility is that you WERE asked to support Catalunya against the Mamlukes, but it appeared in that tiny window I mentioned, so you just didn't see it. Again, the solution is to alter the message settings.

I wish you success replaying the tutorial! Maybe one day I'll try it again too...

[John D Ward]

Kyle - I'm not at war with the Mamelukes. I can't send troops into Mameluke territory.

Ilkuul - Thanks for your advice. I'll try resetting the messages as you suggest.

However, I'm now beginning to suspect a bug in the program.

When I click the mouse on the grayed-out "Declare War " option, I get the message "You cannot declare war on the Mamelukes again until August 1671" .

The current date is February 1687!!

[Ilkuul]

Originally posted by John D Ward
However, I'm now beginning to suspect a bug in the program...

Could well be a bug! That's why so many people seem to have a love/hate relationship with Europa. Fantastic strategy gaming, frequently interrupted by idiotic crashes or messups like the one you and I both had. Hope you managed to get around it, tho'...

[rockville]

Why you can't win the tutorial

Yup, this happened to me too:

At one point I was given the option to change to Protestantism, and I chose to. At that point the Catalynians cancelled their alliance with me.

The Mameluks didn't do anything bad to me, and the Catalynians were pretty marginalized, so I pulled a "George Bush in Desert Storm": I declared victory and went to bed

But seriously, I think doing the tutorial this way made me learn a really important lesson about EU: it ain't Civ. You can't just barge in somewhere without a diplomatic procedure. It made me want to play more...