I'm pretty sure a lot of you have experienced this already, but the AI civs seem to have very... odd criteria for considering the player a warmonger. For instance, defending yourself from four other civs that attacked you with no obvious provocation makes you a warmonger if you capture their cities, and it's early enough in the game that those cities happen to be the only cities they have.

Basically what we have here is the equivalent of the USA's leaders being tried at Nuremburg right along with those of the Third Reich for starting WWII (yes, I know Germany didn't make the first attack on the US, but they did declare war).

So I did a little searching in the AI xml files, and in GlobalDiplomacyAIDefines.xml, it turns out that there are two criteria for being a warmonger: 1) that you attacked another civ, and 2) that you conquered another civ. I'm not sure whether "attacked" means you entered combat with them or you actually declared war, but the conquering event is weighted twice as much.

Well, yeah I conquered them. They had only one city each. I certainly wasn't going to just leave them sitting there to attack me again. After all, I didn't give them any obvious reason to attack me in the first place (turns out the proximity and expansion penalties to diplomacy are a LOT bigger than you'd think, considering they were like -1 in CivIV). I thought what I did was kinda similar to what happens in real wars: you have to capture the seat of power and most or all of the rest of the country. You just give it back with a lot of strings attached afterwards, (and usually new, friendlier leaders) which you can't really do in this game.

You know, in the real world this kind of thing ought to be celebrated; one country attacked by four others and successfully defending itself. I mean, yeah I won only because the AI is incapable of successfully waging war against anything but an AI, but still.

Anyway, it seems like a huge oversight to ignore or nerf the diplomatic consequences of waging aggressive wars and treat the defender the same. Should be a big penalty for waging aggressive wars, and a bonus for defending oneself.

Gonna try nerfing the conquer penalty and beefing up the attacker penalty and see if that's better.

I'm pretty sure a lot of you have experienced this already, but the AI civs seem to have very... odd criteria for considering the player a warmonger. For instance, defending yourself from four other civs that attacked you with no obvious provocation makes you a warmonger if you capture their cities, and it's early enough in the game that those cities happen to be the only cities they have.

Basically what we have here is the equivalent of the USA's leaders being tried at Nuremburg right along with those of the Third Reich for starting WWII (yes, I know Germany didn't make the first attack on the US, but they did declare war).

So I did a little searching in the AI xml files, and in GlobalDiplomacyAIDefines.xml, it turns out that there are two criteria for being a warmonger: 1) that you attacked another civ, and 2) that you conquered another civ. I'm not sure whether "attacked" means you entered combat with them or you actually declared war, but the conquering event is weighted twice as much.

Well, yeah I conquered them. They had only one city each. I certainly wasn't going to just leave them sitting there to attack me again. After all, I didn't give them any obvious reason to attack me in the first place (turns out the proximity and expansion penalties to diplomacy are a LOT bigger than you'd think, considering they were like -1 in CivIV). I thought what I did was kinda similar to what happens in real wars: you have to capture the seat of power and most or all of the rest of the country. You just give it back with a lot of strings attached afterwards, (and usually new, friendlier leaders) which you can't really do in this game.

You know, in the real world this kind of thing ought to be celebrated; one country attacked by four others and successfully defending itself. I mean, yeah I won only because the AI is incapable of successfully waging war against anything but an AI, but still.

Anyway, it seems like a huge oversight to ignore or nerf the diplomatic consequences of waging aggressive wars and treat the defender the same. Should be a big penalty for waging aggressive wars, and a bonus for defending oneself.

Gonna try nerfing the conquer penalty and beefing up the attacker penalty and see if that's better.

Have you heard of this country called Israel? I believe they would agree with you, but it does not necessarily make it so.

I think the Warmonger aspect is not to say you are aggressive (civs don't care if you declared or not... why should they)... it is to say that you have been profiting from the suffering of other empires.

Therefore, you are
1. more powerful because of the conquests and therefore a threat
2. have shown yourself capable in combat and therefore a threat

The civs don't care how nice you are, they care how dangerous you are.

If you were declared on by 4 other civs and you beat them, what is going to stop You from declaing on another 4 civs and beating them.... nothing except your "kind heart". The AIs don't trust you to be nice anymore.

True enough. But still, I just wish I could let the AI know there's a very easy way not to get conquered by me when I'm going for tech or culture victory: Don't invade me. It seems to be a very difficult rule for them to follow.

Is it even possible to play this game peacefully?

True enough. But still, I just wish I could let the AI know there's a very easy way not to get conquered by me when I'm going for tech or culture victory: Don't invade me. It seems to be a very difficult rule for them to follow.

Is it even possible to play this game peacefully?

I would say "no".

I dunno bout the exact XML files thhat dictate each of the AI leader's behaviour, but atm it feels that there is some sort of bugg which sets them all to the "Montezuma" (civ 4) type of personality.

No kidding. I start my games now thinking "Hi Bismarck, hi Darius. Yeah, sure, I'll sign pacts of cooperation with you. Alright now, see you in a few turns when you declare war on me. Dickheads."

This game makes you hate the other leaders over time. Pretty soon I won't even want to play peacefully.

that's interesting, I'm playing a game right now with 11 other civs, I killed off 3 of them early on, before I met any but 1 other civ. Despite this, I've had successfully peaceful relations with everyone else ever since I met them. Even after taking half of Elizabeth's empire after being declared on by her, I've had no trouble even doing 1-1 resource trades with them.

Just wait until one of them comes out on top on whatever continent they inhabit. If they run out of stuff to break they attack the player regardless of previous dealings. There is no discernible logic to the AI behaviour at all.
Worse still is the removal of leader traits, you are just as likely to be attacked by Indian elephants as you are German panzers .. AI is cartoonish at best in my opinion, has no "soul".