How to Declare War?

Don't declare war. Doing so will alert your enemy to your intentions, and allow them time to prepare. Move your forces into position, and strike without warning. Remember Pearl Harbor? It worked. Just make sure that you can finish what you have started. You don't have to do anything special. Simply attack a ship, or a planet, or starbase, or whatever, and you will then be at war with that race. Good luck.

All you have to do to declare war is send a troop transport to any planet of the civ you want to declare war on.

It is automatic. Once the transport reaches the planet to invade it, war will be declared. Of course, you will have to remove any defending ships in orbit around that planet before the transport can invade the planet.

Blowing ships up is a declaration of war too

your such a newb.... and why didnt you just attack anyways i mean thats what i did when when i got the game.


spartan 2209 at your service to blow all hell and crap up

nice name by the way

As everybody else said, you're better off just attacking instead of declaring war.

No idea how to specifically declare war, though.

In Dark Avatar, declaring war is a diplomatic option. However, why you'd ever want to use it is beyond me. There's no penalty for declaring war with weapons barrage, and you can often cripple or destroy your opponent within a few turns when you use a surprise attack.

Just be aware: the AI may declare war preemptively if it sees your transports hanging around. Be sure that you have you aren't caught off guard by that. Of course, you may WANT to bait them into war as such, if you don't want to deal with their allies (or the Altarian super ability in Dark Avatar). As an added bonus, they're the ones who get the reputation as warmongers, not you!

Declaring a war as a diplomatic option does not make any sense. But to tell the truth, I use this option in Civilisation IV anyway. I consider it to be a better option than just make a snake attack.

There's really no reason to declare war via the diplomacy screen in GC2. A sneak attack doesn't suffer any penalties, and you gain a substantial strategic advantage, allowing you to take down substantially more powerful opponents.

Why the AI never bothers to declare war with a bullet instead of a message is beyond me.

Don't forget about the UP vote in DA.
If you havent heard of it...
There is a UP vote giving 1 turn cool off upon declaring war (does not effect minor races since they have no "territory" in the game, at least I did not notice it).
If this has been approved...
It removes all hostile ships from enemy territory and drops them at the closest neutral ground. None of your ships are in it's territory and none of it's ships are in yours. You can start to attack a ship or planet, but if it a "law" no actual combat takes place, you only declare war. This is about the only reason to use the diplo screen for war. Prepositon your ships where you want them outside enemy ground and declare war. Next turn go in and blow em up.

Yeah, there are two of those. One enforces a one turn waiting period before hostilities start, and another forces your ships out of their influence.

The former makes sneak attacks less effective, but in no way diminishes the advantages gained by having your forces deployed before the war begins. The second changes things up a bit more, since your forces can only be deployed outside their territory, but it doesn't have the waiting period! You can still attack on the first turn though, which can mean that hitting enemy assets outside their territory can work!

In both cases, though, you can still declare war by "attacking" an enemy asset. The terms of the UP ruling will be enforced before any shots are fired, though.

Yea, attacking with wild animals has never worked out very well for me either.   

Whoever said it had to be wild?

How about starting a war by building an influence starbase right in a flipping position to agitate the enemy? They tell you to remove it, you don't comply, their planets/asteroid miners flip, they get angry, THEY declare war, your forces are ready, you deliver the shots.

Just to mention it since no one has, I have often times found an ai at war with another ai that i would like to go to war with, and i can usually get money from the ai to go to war with the guy i want to war with. Dang, that sounds complicated.

Find two ai's at war. Decide who you want to attack. Go to diplomacy of the other faction. Offer "attack" and choose the ai you want to attack and then see what the ai will offer to have you go to war too. Not always, but sometimes I can get money or a tech and join in a war.

Just another idea.

I always declare war rather than sneak attack when I'm playing a good race, or a neutral with a sense of honor (like the Arceans). It's strictly a role playing thing, of course, but it's nice to have the option.

i just surround the planets i want most and them bum rush em...works usually

I do too. Especially when I haven't officially declared war. I'm not sure how to, but doing that seems too suspicious. But the thing is, if you get that random event in which one of your disgruntled workers shoots the leader of another race, and that starts war, and you want to end it quickly, destroy one of their planets and then talk to them, they'll end it.

If you're in a good enough position, you can use the Declare War diplomatic option as a bluff with the intent of getting a favorable Peace Treaty later on instead of actually destroying the civ right away.

I rarely Declare War on the AI they Declare war on me since I'm usually the most powerful race out there with a well balanced Military....They hate that idea and declare war on me and i already have ships all over my Empire and so i just move the ones closes to the enemy and attack them and in about 3 months i have already taken over 5 planets to 8 planets and then talk peace....Which i usually get money or tech from the peace. The AI is so blind when they attack since i just give them a taste of what to come and stuff and they lose a lot of ships to my 3-4 main battle fleets.

hmmmm....are you sure? Someone else told me something different!