Attacks without war?

[76mm]

Some of my ships were recently attacked by another empire (not pirates, etc) even though no state of war exists between us. Is that normal? Seems like there should be a "war" if they're going to be shooting at me?

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, normal and intended. It will damage relations and can damage reputation, but it does not automatically lead to war. More serious acts, like invading or bombarding a colony, will almost certainly cause a war. It's up to you as the player to decide if you think those attacks warrant a big response.

[KaiserTom]

If you don't have a non-aggression treaty, your empires essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default. Whether you or the AI chooses to still attack in that stance is up to you/the AI and your relations. You can even do this while you have trade agreements, though they may not last very long.

This can be useful to clean out their mining bases or such out of your systems, or neutral systems, without inducing full war. You can even do it in their own systems to ruin their economy. It will certainly piss them off, but if you are strong enough, they rarely do anything except attack your ships/bases back. You can't invade colonies though in this stance, or at least the AI doesn't do it even if you queue an attack. It just prepares for it until you go to war.

Which can all escalate to a real war. This may be desirable if you want to induce a war without the negative reputation penalty of an "unjustified war". Their retaliation against your ships attacking seems to be justification enough to not take the reputation hit if you declare war on them.

[Hardradi]

This can be useful to clean out their mining bases or such out of your systems, or neutral systems, without inducing full war. You can even do it in their own systems to ruin their economy. It will certainly piss them off, but if you are strong enough, they rarely do anything except attack your ships/bases back. You can't invade colonies though in this stance, or at least the AI doesn't do it even if you queue an attack. It just prepares for it until you go to war.

Good to know, now I can get rid of those rats next door to my home world.

I noticed the AI taking two colonies from other AI's without wars.

[KaiserTom]

Good to know, now I can get rid of those rats next door to my home world.

I noticed the AI taking two colonies from other AI's without wars.

That can also happen from rebellions when the colony is unhappy enough. Or when you change governments. They'll either become independent or join a nearby empire.

[76mm]

OK, thanks, good to know!

[StormingKiwi]

If you don't have a non-aggression treaty, your empires essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default.

It's not a Cold War if weapons are hot. It's a Hot War in that case. As soon as one state attacks another, they are in a state of war.

[zgrssd]

If you don't have a non-aggression treaty, your empires essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default.

It's not a Cold War if weapons are hot. It's a Hot War in that case. As soon as one state attacks another, they are in a state of war.

So when the 1960 U2 incident happened, the USSR and US magically were at war that very second?

Because I could have sworn the cold war continued a whole while longer...

[Nightskies]

Considering that the terms "cold war" and "hot war" were created in the 1940's pretty much to refer to the political stance between the United States and the Soviet Union, both terms don't really apply to DW2. Its just an analogy to say that empires without a NAP 'essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default'. As an analogy, its more-or-less accurate. It doesn't follow that empires that engage in fighting without a war enter a state of Hot War.

[StormingKiwi]

If you don't have a non-aggression treaty, your empires essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default.

It's not a Cold War if weapons are hot. It's a Hot War in that case. As soon as one state attacks another, they are in a state of war.

So when the 1960 U2 incident happened, the USSR and US magically were at war that very second?

Because I could have sworn the cold war continued a whole while longer...

A cold war is commonly understood to be conflict without direct military action.

How are military aircraft, while acting on behalf of the government, repeatedly violating another nation's sovereign airspace to gather military intelligence and evading interception efforts NOT direct military action?

Yes, during that incident, the USSR and USA very clearly and obviously were not in a state of cold war.

Please pay attention to the post I replied to, which is not talking about one exploration ship failing to comply with an interception and being destroyed during defensive action, but about state-sanctioned offensive actions against civilian targets. There's also the implication that colonies would be invaded during the undeclared war as well, if only KaiserTom knew how.

If you don't have a non-aggression treaty, your empires essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default. Whether you or the AI chooses to still attack in that stance is up to you/the AI and your relations. You can even do this while you have trade agreements, though they may not last very long.

This can be useful to clean out their mining bases or such out of your systems, or neutral systems, without inducing full war. You can even do it in their own systems to ruin their economy. It will certainly piss them off, but if you are strong enough, they rarely do anything except attack your ships/bases back. You can't invade colonies though in this stance, or at least the AI doesn't do it even if you queue an attack. It just prepares for it until you go to war.

Which can all escalate to a real war. This may be desirable if you want to induce a war without the negative reputation penalty of an "unjustified war". Their retaliation against your ships attacking seems to be justification enough to not take the reputation hit if you declare war on them.

Considering that the terms "cold war" and "hot war" were created in the 1940's pretty much to refer to the political stance between the United States and the Soviet Union, both terms don't really apply to DW2. Its just an analogy to say that empires without a NAP 'essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default'. As an analogy, its more-or-less accurate. It doesn't follow that empires that engage in fighting without a war enter a state of Hot War.

Describing a situation where fleets are engaging in direct military action to destroy the economic base of another empire as a cold war is inaccurate. Its not a cold war - because there is direct military action. Next you'll be saying the present war in Ukraine is a cold war between Russia and Ukraine.

[Nightskies]

No, but as a default state between empires, BEFORE anything starts shooting, 'essentially exist in a state of Cold War by default' is accurate.

*Empires without a NAP or war declared that are actively fighting each other is something, but calling it a 'hot war' isn't quite right, since that is a coined term to contradict the Cold War term. I think just calling it "fighting between empires" suffices. If you want to call it a hot war, I think that's just going to confuse people.

[76mm]

If you want to call it a hot war, I think that's just going to confuse people.

Personally I find it confusing to call a situation where enemy fleets are actively engaging my fleets on a large scale (not just an odd incident or "accidents") a "cold war". Having lived through the cold war here on Planet Earth, one if its defining characteristics was that there was nothing like this going on. So its fine if empires can attack enemies like this without a DoA, but IMHO calling it a "cold war" is quite confusing.

[Ingor]

The AI is doing this to me for the very first time, and it's not getting any reputation impact. Is it intended ?

[Nightskies]

Reputation takes time to change. Unless there are frequent repeated attacks or if the target is a colony, the reputation impact is usually small for attacking outside of war anyway. So reputation won't noticeably change for a few isolated attacks.

[TGK72]

All declaring war does is make it official on the political stage; you are declaring openly that you are in a state of war.

If you have already been shooting at each other and targeting strategic assets long before the war declaration was made, then the war started the moment the first shot was fired, not when it written down on paper and signed

[giltirn]

I also find this pretty annoying. In my last game the boskarans kept attacking my fleets and planets, and even managed to wipe out my best fleet (the AI seem remarkably capable at keeping up with my military strength, quite scary actually!), all without declaring war. Now my reputation is in the toilet with them because of "attacks on my ships", which is absurd given that I was simply defending myself against their aggression. What then is the point of "war" in the game?

[AKicebear]

I also find this pretty annoying. In my last game the boskarans kept attacking my fleets and planets, and even managed to wipe out my best fleet (the AI seem remarkably capable at keeping up with my military strength, quite scary actually!), all without declaring war. Now my reputation is in the toilet with them because of "attacks on my ships", which is absurd given that I was simply defending myself against their aggression. What then is the point of "war" in the game?

Why don't you declare war on them?

[Nightskies]

As AK says. As long as they aren't so much stronger, their hatred isn't too much AND you aren't too small an empire, it is preferable to simply lose a rapid war and give concessions, even if its a colony. That'll give you a grace period of no conflict that even the Boskarans will honor.

And your reputation doesn't get dropped nearly as much. And the other empires will like that you declared war on the Boskarans, assuming they also don't like them.

[giltirn]

My economy was better than theirs so I quickly replaced my fleet and beelined some tech improvements, after which they stopped pestering me. I didn't really want to war with them because I didn't have any invasion fleets with which to recapture any colonies they managed to snipe, which in my experience is never a good thing. In the early-mid game, the default or even high colony defense settings will not maintain enough troops to fend off an invasion on my lesser colonies, so I only tend to go to war when I have at least 2 fleets of transport ships loaded with troops.