Shall we declare war on the Barbarians?

[Winston]

A strange thing happened in the OCC game I'm playing now. After having kept a Barbarian chief in check with one of my Diplomats on an isthmus for 3-4 turns (waiting for an AI unit to come along for me to bribe and collect the 150 gold ransom for the chief) my ship finally came in (!) in the form of an American Trireme. I promptly bribed it for 88 gold, the Diplomat went on board, and I attacked the Barbarian chief to get me some pocket money.

What nearly tipped me off my chair was the pop up asking me if I wanted to declare war on the Barbarians! I'm currently operating under a Republic, and the Barbs have recently taken over the Spanish city of Barcelona, but even then there seems to be no good reason for this message to pop up. Never seen it before.

I had two options: Cancel action or declare war. After some hesitation, I chose the latter. The Hawk Party derailed Senate interference and I was able to collect the 150 gold.

I guess I'm now officially at war with the Barbarians after what was basically a sneak attack by me...

[DrFell]

I've seen this happen a few times before. Of course, the barbs still attack you regardless of what you do, but did you take a reputation hit from the 'sneak attack'?

[Winston]

No reputation hit, I'm still on a spotless record. If anyone is interested, I have the save before and after this occurance. Post here and I'll mail it to you.

[DrFell]

Can I have a copy of the save?
mail it to... drfellx@yahoo.com

In my game, I remember that it occured straight after I'd established an embassy with a Barbarian city. In the embassy screen, it said they'd made 'Contact' with me. Turn after I sent some units to take the city, and got the option to declare war.

One other odd thing I noticed from the embassy... Emperor Attila of the Barbarians is a civilized expansionist??

[Winston]

Sure, it's already in the mail, DrFell.

In this game I didn't have any embassies - with the Barbs or anyone else. And I swear I've never been given the option to "declare war" on Barbs before. Hmm...

[DrFell]

Ta

[Adam Smith]

I seem to remember that barbarians are essentially a civ once they have a city, which can allow designers to shoehorn an eighth civ into some scenarios.

[finbar]

I've received the "Do You Want To Declare War On The Barbs?" message a couple of times over the years. Once, as I recall, was when they had taken a city from me, and it was quite a few turns before I had the resources to buy it back. The message appeared when I tried to knock out a barb unit before I'd bought back the city. That would fit with the theory that their occupation of a city gives them (as it were) civ status.

Another occasion, as I recall, was when there had been barb units in my territory for a few years. There was no leader, they weren't bothering me, so I basically ignored them. Ultimately, when I did move against them, I received the message. Now, they hadn't taken one of my cities. It's possible, of course, that they'd taken another civ's city elsewhere on the map. On the other hand, there have been many occasions when I know they've taken other civs' cities, and I haven't received the message as I've moved to attack.

All of which means, I guess, like so many other things in this great game, that sometimes there's a pattern, sometimes there isn't.

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[Winston]

It just occured to me that this may require two prerequisites:

1) The Barbarians must, for all we know, have established themselves with at least one city

and

2) The human player will have to make the "first strike" against the Barbs, i.e. the Barbs haven't previously attacked your civilization, hence there hasn't technically been a state of war between you and the Barbs. Since you're the "agressor" operating under a representative government, you get the option to cancel the action - as you would if making a first strike against an AI civilization.

So, Barb city, first strike, representative government... three prerequisites.

Make sense?

[DrFell]

Maybe two...
When it happened to me I was in a Monarchy IIRC...

I didn't know you could declare war on the barbarians.

[DrFell]

I had a look at the save last night. This was an interesting one, because I dont think I've ever has this happen in a representative government. Anyway, the first try I loaded up the save and the Hawk Party derailed senate interferance and i got the barb king. Established an embassy and saw I was at war with the barbs. Second try though, the senate stopped me! I established an embassy with the barb city, and found I had made 'Contact' with them. I've never had the senate stop me from declaring war on the barbs before...

In my recent OCC game barbs made 'sneak attack' at me (the popup window told that)! They had captured an AI capitol before and destroyed that civ as well.

[DrFell]

That's something I've never seen before... I wonder if this means you could really be at peace with the barbs.

[Henrik]

If you play as barbarians it is possible to have treaties whit all civs (but you need to use your diplomats to make embasies before you can contact them).

[DrFell]

I played as the barbs a couple times, and it was interesting, although what spoiled it was that you have to watch every AI move (even when that part of the maps covered), and you don't 'remember' techs you research...

[Henrik]

Still, it is kind of cool to get units out in the forests wich you use to ambush ai units, it gives you a guerilla warfare feeling kind of thing.
But the AI seems to be getting bonuses when fighting barbarians, he could never lose a unit when it was defending his capital for example. It's not even hurt.