"I have never use CA. I have been used CA command three times. It brought some difficulty to me once."
"I have never even seen the command used."
"I almost never use it as it is considered rude by most allies to force them into a war at the expense of a penalty. People who do use it are not taking their ally's situation fully into consideration, so I think it's selfish to force someone against their will to do something they don't want to do."
"I've suffered very little for it, though I have seen a number of people suffer the backlash of it when their ally ignores it and instead declares war on THEM. :-)) "
"I have never suffered from it. However, I have used it as a nasty measure against an ally who upset me when I had no chance of winning, sort of a spoiler move - a rather childish play, but it gave me satisfaction."
"I used once by request of the destinatary. And I suffered it twice. Once, I answered the CA. The another one, I suffered the penalty."
"I've used it a few times to piss someone off or to get a little edge at the end of the game to make the difference between 1st and 2nd. It's been used ineffectively on me about 10 times."
"Never used but have a 4th place thanks to it."
"creates a strong incentive not to antagonise or betray an ally as the punishment might mean the difference in winning or not."
"It makes alliance more realistic. There is a risk and price to pay for forming an alliance. It adds a dimension to the game - that is, can you trust your allies; Don't ally with everyone. One must pick allies carefully."
"Rather surprising, "it is at its best when it is not used", ie.only as a threat"
"The strong part of the CA command is that it makes your ally live up to the alliance."
"It adds extra pressure on enemies/power blocks to DN and stop cooperating in mutual supports."
"It is generally not used effectively to bring allies against your enemies. So its real purpose is not really fulfilled."
"The penalty is very small, and if it's issued in the first 6 turns or so the penalty will have no effect at all. That's because the penalty will be gone by Turn 12, and 90% of all games go more than 12 turns. In almost all cases I would ignore it and attack my ally instead if possible. This usually gets a message across quite effectively and they'll think twice about doing it in a future game. :-)"
"While the penalty is small however, I wouldn't want to see it increased. I've seen players issue a CA against an ally who is in first place, hoping they will ignore it and take the penalty, or they can get a war with them without having to be the person who declares it (in other words, they want to stab, but don't want it to look like THEY were the stabber). That to me is a dirty move since I don't think it's right for allies to be trying to ruin each other's victories. For this reason I think the penalty should not be increased."
"very unpopular command, and creates an incentive *not* to ally."
"It has more effect at the end of the game, than at the beginning. It should have more influence on the power of units than on Victory Points."
"The odd thing is that this order rarely does what it was intended to. If you have good dependable allies you don't need to issue a Call to Arms. If you've got shifty allies, it may not work, because a lot of people get upset when they're CAd, and often break alliance with the person who asked for their help."
"My ally got pissed instead of helping."
"it should have more negative power to became more used. Maybe 40%. It would make someone think twice before allying with someone."
The Call to Arms is the second less used command of all GD commands. The reason is quite obvious. In using it in one of your allies you are upsetting him for sure ( as it seems that he does not wish to DW your enemy). Yet most of the times he has no need to DW your enemy as it has very little power.