Re: diplomacy
 

There's also an event where a ninja attacks one of your commanders.

The AI usually (always?) sends an declaration of war, unless you attack it. Sometimes, if we don't share a border, I'll forget about it after awhile.

Re: diplomacy
 

Ahh.. the old diplomacy discussion. Let the war begin!

... nah

Re: diplomacy
 

In the beginning of the game, the AI sends lots of declarations of war. But I'm really sure that later on some AIs have attacked me without ever declaring war, and without me attacking it first.

Re: diplomacy
 

I don't know what all counts as a declaration of war for the AI, but the AI will always send a message if it didn't consider being attacked by / at war with the player already.

The AI does consider income of the nations and the border provinces of the player for attacks to seize land, there are some other cases where it does ponder about it as well. If it actually does attack upon the thought of doing so is based on the type of AI.

Starting from turn 40, all AIs will declare war in case the possibility comes up. Before that, a defensive AI is highly unlikely to start war itself, the aggressive one always will. The normal one has a chance in % equal to the turn number.

Re: diplomacy
 

Borders yes.
I do believe that the AI has to "find" you before declaring war. That is most obvious if playing really large maps or even more extreme a tower or pipe map.

What is misleading is that "finding" can be by scout, spy, assassin, seducer. Or later on by spells. So it might seem that the AI is declaring war on you before they could possibly know where you are.

This is verifiable in logs.

Re: diplomacy
 

Ah, I've never experienced this before. I assumed AI Jomon sent one after me, but it's almost certainly just an event.

Re: diplomacy
 

It is an event actually, since it comes up as "an unexpected event happened" message, followed by an assassination attempt.

You get some weird events happening when Jomon is in the game. Instead of barbarian invasions...rhonin/samurai!

Re: diplomacy
 

I don't think Jomon even has to be in the game (it is just a LA alternative to barbarians)

Re: diplomacy
 

Really? Must just be my luck then.