Why can't I declare a war on a rival?

[ez1]

Or any neighbor, for that matter? They have poor to middling diplomatic relations.

[Kimlin]

Do you have a truce?

[ez1]

No.

I'm playing the Sikh Empire and I've rivaled the East India Company, They hate me, as I do them. I want to attack them but can't. Why??

[Kimlin]

I’m not sure, I just started and declared an interest and I am able to declare war against them.

Are you able to post a screenshot of what you see in their diplomacy screen and the interaction screen?

[kgkong]

Open up the Diplomacy Lens, go to the Diplomatic Play tab and pick Conquer State or Return State. Now hover over the state in the main map view and see what the tooltip says.

[ez1]

I have the choice of expelling diplomats, improving or further damaging relations. No diplo plays are available. Anywhere, frankly. Our relations are antagonistic -288. Seems a viable target, no?

I can always continue to watch my build queue for another hour but that gets old after a while.

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Open up the Diplomacy Lens, go to the Diplomatic Play tab and pick Conquer State or Return State. Now hover over the state in the main map view and see what the tooltip says.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Open up the Diplomacy Lens, go to the Diplomatic Play tab and pick Conquer State or Return State. Now hover over the state in the main map view and see what the tooltip says.

Like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892855819&fileuploadsuccess=1

[kgkong]

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Originally posted by KingGorillaKong:

Open up the Diplomacy Lens, go to the Diplomatic Play tab and pick Conquer State or Return State. Now hover over the state in the main map view and see what the tooltip says.

Like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892855819&fileuploadsuccess=1

USE. THE. DIPLOMACY. LENS.
The LENS!
It's on the bottom of the screen.

Play the tutorial. There's an entire pop up set of windows that tells you about this and how you can make use of the options down there. It's after the pop up bit on how tooltips work.

[ez1]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892857480

Well I've had quite a number of wars already without this problem; Russia and Persia paid my war reps and recognized me as a power and I have Afghanistan puppeted. I'm not a total noob, I know how to use the (unduly overcomplicated) UI.

[Zortex]

There are two diplomatic 'status' which are different and maybe a little confusing. One is their attitude to you (the antagonistic one you refer to), the other is relations (this is what is possibly too high).

If you select the country it will show the relations, it must be below cordial (neutral or worse). Harm relations will lower this value, also expel diplomats drops it for an infamy hit (by 30 I think).

[Kimlin]

I think you have a truce. Did they participate in a diplomatic play against you previously?

[ez1]

Originally posted by Kimlin:

I think you have a truce. Did they participate in a diplomatic play against you previously?

Not unless rivaling them counts as one, which frankly would be stupid.

[ez1]

Originally posted by Zortex:

There are two diplomatic 'status' which are different and maybe a little confusing. One is their attitude to you (the antagonistic one you refer to), the other is relations (this is what is possibly too high).

If you select the country it will show the relations, it must be below cordial (neutral or worse). Harm relations will lower this value, also expel diplomats drops it for an infamy hit (by 30 I think).

Our relations are -388, I think that's enough to do something more than nothing.

[Zortex]

Based on your Rwanda screenshot it's saying relations are the problem. I've never seen relations at -388 (or even close) are you sure that's not attitude?

As a test, start harm relations, what does it say the relations are at top right?

[kgkong]

Originally posted by ez1:

Originally posted by Zortex:

There are two diplomatic 'status' which are different and maybe a little confusing. One is their attitude to you (the antagonistic one you refer to), the other is relations (this is what is possibly too high).

If you select the country it will show the relations, it must be below cordial (neutral or worse). Harm relations will lower this value, also expel diplomats drops it for an infamy hit (by 30 I think).

Our relations are -388, I think that's enough to do something more than nothing.

That's attitude score. Relationship score is the middle one.

But if you use the Diplomatic Lens button at the bottom of your screen, go to the Diplomatic Play tab on that and click on Conquer or Return State, you can hover over the individual state to see why you are blocked from declaring war against someone.

[kgkong]

Originally posted by Zortex:

Based on your Rwanda screenshot it's saying relations are the problem. I've never seen relations at -388 (or even close) are you sure that's not attitude?

As a test, start harm relations, what does it say the relations are at top right?

That's my screenshot I used as an example.