Trying to declare an air war

[Madeofmeat]

I'm playing versus a few AIs on hard. I grabbed a few cities, made peace with my 2 friendly major neighbors, and paused my expansion to consolidate and develop my economy for a while. My plan is to trade and share tech with the two friendlies, so that the three of us out-develop the rest of the map for the first stage of the game.

Problem is, there is one big bad AI gobbling up the map with light tank armies, and he's started taking out one of my friends. I need to prevent this, but I don't have a land border with Big Bad.

I don't want to declare war on my friend to carve a path through him. I also don't want to wait until my friend's last city is annexed before I can even start fighting. You can't move ground forces through a friendly, but air units can fly over. So I've designed a really great tank killer aircraft with enough range to fly across my friend's border and shred Big Bad's tank armies, spoiling his offensive. This is the perfect setup: I can keep my friend alive and keep the trade and research going while saving all my manpower and just letting the two of them bleed each other out.

The problem is, I don't have a way to "declare war". The game manual says you move a unit into the enemy border and follow the prompt... not a helpful method when there isn't a border. Air attacks simply don't work. In the Stratagem Encyclopedia in game it says there is a "Declare War" stratagem card, generated by Foreign Affairs. It's mouseover description is "PLAY ON ANOTHER REGIME Go to war! allows your units to conquer their zones." So it isn't clear whether this is a minor regime or major regime card, but if I get one I will find out.

I have had a Foreign Affairs Council for the entire game, but it's never made this card. Looking at the Stratagem Generation, this card is consistently not showing up in the list of cards with chances to be generated. I am getting worried that maybe there is actually no card and no way in the game to start an air war.

[Akrakorn]

Select some of your aircraft and use the "airbridge" order on one of the enemy's hexes, that should do the trick.

[zgrssd]

The problem is, I don't have a way to "declare war".

As long as you know there is a unit in the hex, even a Recon Flight requires a declaration of war.

I am not 100% sure about general recon flights over their territory, but I think it counted too.

[Madeofmeat]

I found that airbridging worked as an attack, but it's only possible against enemy airbase hexes. In my situation, there weren't any enemy airbase hexes in range until it was too late.

[Madeofmeat]

As long as you know there is a unit in the hex, even a Recon Flight requires a declaration of war.

I might be misunderstanding you, but the issue I'm having is the game doesn't give you a "do you want to declare war" prompt if you try to either air recon or air attack... It won't highlight any hexes in that regime's territory to let you target them for those actions. (Unless you are already in a state of war). If you pick airbridge, the game will highlight enemy airbases, and if you click on one of them you can get the declare war popup. In my case though, there weren't any airbases in range.

[Akrakorn]

ORIGINAL: Madeofmeat

I found that airbridging worked as an attack, but it's only possible against enemy airbase hexes. In my situation, there weren't any enemy airbase hexes in range until it was too late.

I've been exclusively using thopters as of late and completely forgot regular aircraft need airbases at the end point to perform airbridges. I recommend you post this as a bug in the tech forum, as it seems like an oversight; recon missions and airstrikes should declare war if not at war.

[zgrssd]

Ah, I checked. It seems like the filter for "Valid Air Targets" does not include people you have a peace deal with.

I would say it is definitely a oversight.

[BlueTemplar]

Interesting, are there any other stratagems listed in the Stratagem Encyclopedia that cannot be currently generated ?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Interesting, are there any other stratagems listed in the Stratagem Encyclopedia that cannot be currently generated ?

I think you posted that in the wrong discussion.

[BlueTemplar]

In the Stratagem Encyclopedia in game it says there is a "Declare War" stratagem card, generated by Foreign Affairs. It's mouseover description is "PLAY ON ANOTHER REGIME Go to war! allows your units to conquer their zones." So it isn't clear whether this is a minor regime or major regime card, but if I get one I will find out.

I have had a Foreign Affairs Council for the entire game, but it's never made this card. Looking at the Stratagem Generation, this card is consistently not showing up in the list of cards with chances to be generated. I am getting worried that maybe there is actually no card and no way in the game to start an air war.

(But fair point, this *is* pretty offtopic...)

[Madeofmeat]

I recommend you post this as a bug in the tech forum, as it seems like an oversight; recon missions and airstrikes should declare war if not at war.

OK, done.

Should there also be a way to declare war on someone out of air range, such as a stratagem card? If allowed against Minors it would become too easy to sabotage other players' Minor diplomacy. But for Majors, would that work as a way to "draw aggro" from across the map? Would that be useful, or a cheesy exploit, or neither?

[Fritz1776]

I'm not sure about recon. But airstrikes? Certainly. While you can try to pass off your recon flights as being without hostile intent, bombing enemy troops is definitely a declaration of war.