How does one declare war??

If you bought either expansion (not sure if it was implemented in ToA or DA) it should give you the option "Declare War" in the diplomatic relations screen with any given nation's representative. If not, build a ship, attack them. Or preferably, build LOTS of troop transports and park them on your rim worlds. THEN declare war.

You can simply attack something of theirs, and they will declare war on you. If you want to be formal about it, open the forign relations tab, select your victim, the pick "declare war" from the drop down menu in the middle of the left side.

If you mean actual government type (imperial -> republic), you must research the appropriate tech. Look for yellow techs on the research screen. You will be prompted to change when research is finished, or you can change at any time after by using the civ manager screen.

If you mean political party, you pick it during game set up, on the screen after you pick which race you're playing. You cannot change during a game.

Try checking out the wiki, or just continue asking questions.

WWW Link

And to change your government type you first have to research a higher government type.

Thanks - I actually discovered this shortly after posting my question. I've played a lot of Civ IV and I'm used to switching my government and issuing declarations of war. I'm having to change my mindset a bit.

"If you want to be formal about it, open the forign relations tab, select your victim, the pick "declare war" from the drop down menu in the middle of the left side."

I'm playing the Dread Lords version of the game, and I don't see the option to formally declare war.  I can only do the following:

1 - click the 4th tab on the bottom "foreign stats" - this opens the 'foreign policy' window on the various races.

2 - click the far left tab under this new "foreign policy" window, which is called "relations".

3 - I click on the empire I wish to declare war upon...

4 - I see no drop down menu at all.  I can only speak to the race in question, change to new races (litte <   and   > buttons to do so), increase my espionage level in terms of bc per week, or place a trade embargo upon the race...

5 - I figure that *maybe* I can declare war by speaking to the race.  I open direct communication with them, they insult me, I look down the options on the left had side of the screen, and see nothing about declaring war.  Under treaties, I would have thought there might be an option, but no... not there.

Yes, I could attack them with one of my ships, however, they're stronger than me so I want to lure them away from their planet and into attacking me.  Thus my desire to formally declare war instead of making a sneak attack that is sure to lose against their superior spaceships.

anyone have any suggestions?

J

I haven't played Dread Lords in a really long time, I mainly play Twilight, but it may be that it's not implemented in that game.  There's lots of changes in DA that aren't in DL and there's lots of changes in TA that aren't in DA.  A few changes they backported, but they tend not to do that for most stuff.  Also, if you are not playing the latest patch, there's huge differences from older CD releases to what's available through Impulse.

As far as a suggestion, build a cheap ship with a couple engines and a weapon.  Send it over to destory something of theirs, doesn't matter if the pawn ship gets destoryed.  Otherwise, I don't see any advantage myself in declaring war with a race over starting a war the old fashioned way.

DL doesn't have an option to declare war.  No niecties.  My suggestion is to not declare/start a war until you are able to finish it.  In DL, fast superior ships are devasting to the AI.

jmf1403

If I were you I would not let the other races get more advanced tech in the first place. What I do is in the beggining focus all work on social, Then after everything is built I focus it all on tech to get ahead.