I swear, virtually every war I get into with an AI is due to them blockading a port of mine. The AI is never prepared for war, there are no big stacks ready to march into my territory, there is no array of fleets ready to cripple my economy via mass-blockades, heck, the AI almost always lifts the blockade the turn after starting war. It just seems so pointless.

If I wanted to be at constant war with all my neighbors all the time, I'd ask for a "eternal war against the human" option. But a rational-less start of interminable war with my neighbors, simply because one lone ship wanted to blockade my port, that just gets on my nerves.

CA, if you're reading this, *please* provide a "war must be declared before blockades are allowed" option. That way the AI at least has to talk to me, or attack me with ground-troops. But as it is, there's no point in diplomacy, maintaining good relations with your neighbors, or do anything other than assume you're at war already. The AI starting wars via blockades is just plain silly, and has really drained the fun out of the game for me.

Crushing the AI after the 50th time that they've done that gets really old. Trying to build an empire, and wait until you can get the cooler units is also pointless, as each neighbor will drag you into a time-consuming war every time, long before you get those cool Janissary units, or something else you really want to play with (I have yet to use muskets in-game because either I've conquered half the world trying to convince the AI to stop fighting me, or I've given up in frustration). Half the game is denied to me because I have to slog through 50-100 turns of AI's going to war via blockades. What happened to the idea of playing a game like *you* want to play?

Anyway, sorry about the rant. I really wanted to play with the late-period Turkish units, and watched as not only the Byzantines, but the Egyptians decide that one of my ports should be blockaded. And since you can't get peace after that w/o bending over backards to them, I'm pretty much committed to a 100-turn warfest, as I beat back the Byzantines, then the Egyptians, then have to deal with the 9-stack Mongols that will show up at about that time. It was entertaining the first time, but I'm tired of that perpetual war. I just wanted to build up my empire, get the neat Janissary units, and try them out on the battlefield. All ruined because the AI decides to blockade a single port. Frustrating to say the least.