Are we paying more for less?

[Daynarr]

PDF said:
It's a pointless debate : in fact the message "we declare war" makes no sense from a gaming standpoint ! In Dom everyone is *always* at war with everyone else.

That’s not true actually. You are not in automatic war with everyone from turn 1. Also, there is small and subtle 'diplomatic system' (it's a bit of stretch). And those 2 messages that AI can send you have important meaning.

Let me elaborate. When you start game you are in neutral relations with everyone. If you come in contact with another empire, they will not attack you unless you attack them (you declare war that way) or they send you a message that they are declaring war with you (they can attack on the same turn they send message). Assassinations count as attack and declaration of war btw. and so do offensive spells directed at them specifically. When they go to war with you, and there hasn't been any fighting between your 2 nations for a while, an uneasy peace will kick in. How long it takes for it to happen is hard to tell. After that AI may declare war on you again (that is why you may receive multiple war messages from same nation).
If, however, you actually kill enemy pretender a total war comes in place and there will never be peace until one of your nations is completely destroyed. That is why you receive that message when you kill enemy pretender - it means exactly what it says, permanent war.

So, as you can see, there is some simple 'diplomacy system' in game after all. It was the same in Dom2 as well. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell at what diplomatic state you are with another nation other than those messages.

As far as declaring war over the whole map is concerned, AI DOES know whole map. However, AI will build scouts and spies, cast scrying spells or Eyes of the God, and do whatever player is doing in order to get information about the playworld around him. That way AI SIMULATES the need to have scouts and spies although he doesn't really need to. That way you are on more/less even terms with AI regarding scouting. You will spend resources for it and AI will spend resources for it. Because of the fact that AI knows whole map it may happen that you get war declaration from across the map early but it really isn't that much of the problem as AI can't do anything about it that early in game over such distance (it still needs to research offensive spells to cast that far and it still needs gems like you do). After a while such war will turn back into uneasy peace anyway.

Note that amount of PD you have in provinces has effect on how much AI will declare war on you. More PD means more troops and AI does take that into account.

I hope this will make it more clear for you guys.

[DominionsFan]

I don't understand that why should we care that which AI is declaring war and when.
There is no diplomacy in the game, so this is a pointless discussion.

[Frostmourne27]

DominionsFan said:
I don't understand that why should we care that which AI is declaring war and when.
There is no diplomacy in the game, so this is a pointless discussion.

Not that we should continue this disscusion much longer - we're REALLY OT - but its not so much that there is no diplomacy (there's a really simple system) but its not really relavant since you can attack anyone, some spells effect everyone, not shared LOS, etc etc and most of all, there is no mutual victory, so you can't do a team game very well, except in MP. But hey, you can't exploit the AI diplomacy like in some games.