Is the first DoW really free?

[snarzberry]

dowing more than once, each dow after the first adds a penalty

This is conventional wisdom now, but after noticing a few things in recent games I'm not sure it's correct. Actually I think it's wrong.

Have we arrived at this conclusion by simple play-testing or has someone actually taken a look at code to prove that this is what occurs? If it's the latter and someone can point me to a thread that I must have missed I'd appreciate it.

Here's a screenshot from a recent game. Turn 38, I have DoW'd once to steal a worker from a city state. As you can see the warmonger negative modifier is showing up on Rammy's diplo screen.





What I think may be happening is this;

As we know, the diplomatic stance of an AI civ is a value which is adjusted up and down by positive and negative modifiers.

Every time you declare war, including the first time, you receive diplomatic penalty points with all civs. The amount of points is adjusted by each civs warmonger hate flavour.

If that overall diplomatic stance value has not reached a certain level on the negative side then not all or none of the relevant negative modifiers will show up when you mouse over their name in the diplo screen. You may have seen this before when you have a number of negative modifiers with a civ and then, for whatever reason, they change to Friendly status. When you mouse over their name you get the message 'desires friendly relations with you'. None of the previous red negative modifiers are shown, but some of those are game long and do still apply.

At the beginning of the game you haven't had time to accumulate many negative modifiers so when you use your first DoW it is unlikely to take you above the threshold where that would actually be displayed as an active modifier when you check your diplomatic status with a civ. This gives the impression that the first DoW is 'free'.

Rammy is the civ with the highest flavour of hating warmongering behaviour. In my game he was also my nearest neighbour and so the negative modifier of coveting my lands applied, as you can see in the screenshot. My first DoW against the city state caused a large enough negative hit with Rammy, due to his flavour, to take me above what ever limit is needed for this to be a visible negative modifier when I mouse over his name in the diplo screen.

If this is right then no DoW is ever free of diplomatic repercussions, including the first.

So, are we making a mistake when we call the first DoW free or is there some error in my logic?

[apocalypse105]

Yep you simple doesn't allways see the war penalty because there are a lot of positif modifiers that negate it like they want friendly relationship or we have a DOF

I didn't see we believe you are a warmonger even if I dowed 2 times because I had a DOF and a other positif modfier

[vexing]

it's not free, all declarations impact relations. it's just not overly significant, especially compared to say the benefits of getting an extra worker early.

[FeiLing]

Whatever really happens with the modifiers, one dow can stil be called 'free' imho as it usually does not suffice to make every leader hate you. A second dow however will always make nearly all hate you.

Like (number just for example) a dow gives -50 points and -60 is where you get the warmonger penalty (not on a diplo scale but simply on a warmonger judgement only scale). Then the first dow is free. the 2nd one is always fatal. And attacking a city-state might be worth -60 right off the bat towards a specific leader trait combination like Ramy (Ramy has a 7/10 listed for "cs protectiveness" with a mere 3/10 of "ignoring CSs" which makes him likely to be very angry if you are unfriendly towards any CS.)

I believe if you never declare war you'll still become a warmonger if you kill a civ off the map completely which even gives a higher warmonger penalty than a dow. That however seems like the only further action that causes the warmonger hate, so the first dow is free like ~95% of the time and the 2nd is fatal in maybe ~90% of the cases (from my experience).

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by FeiLing

Whatever really happens with the modifiers, one dow can stil be called 'free' imho as it usually does not suffice to make every leader hate you. A second dow however will always make nearly all hate you.

Like (number just for example) a dow gives -50 points and -60 is where you get the warmonger penalty (not on a diplo scale but simply on a warmonger judgement only scale). Then the first dow is free. the 2nd one is always fatal. And attacking a city-state might be worth -60 right off the bat towards a specific leader trait combination like Ramy (Ramy has a 7/10 listed for "cs protectiveness" with a mere 3/10 of "ignoring CSs" which makes him likely to be very angry if you are unfriendly towards any CS.)

I believe if you never declare war you'll still become a warmonger if you kill a civ off the map completely which even gives a higher warmonger penalty than a dow. That however seems like the only further action that causes the warmonger hate, so the first dow is free like ~95% of the time and the 2nd is fatal in maybe ~90% of the cases (from my experience).

Looks kinda stupid that everyone starts hating you if you dowed 2 times

isn't it only the leaders with high warmonger hate who hates you for it if you dow twice? I've had other leaders not going hostile if I dowed twice

[joncnunn]

Originally Posted by apocalypse105

Looks kinda stupid that everyone starts hating you if you dowed 2 times

isn't it only the leaders with high warmonger hate who hates you for it if you dow twice? I've had other leaders not going hostile if I dowed twice

No, the high warmongler hates don't like you the first time.

It's the low warmongler hates that don't care if you DOW two times.

[vexing]

if you declare war on the same civ twice, there is a hard coded "never grant them anything in a peace deal" that happens with all leaders.

you can declare war multiple times (against different civs) and have most of your relationships remain fine. i've had a dow improve my overall relationship status by being against the map bully. since everyone hated him and most people were at war with him, they mostly flipped from guarded to friendly with me the next turn.

[The Pilgrim]

I don't think I've ever seen warmonger hate for stealing worker from anyone but Rammy. That might be his unhealthy love for CS talking.

[krc]

Originally Posted by FeiLing

Whatever really happens with the modifiers, one dow can stil be called 'free' imho as it usually does not suffice to make every leader hate you. A second dow however will always make nearly all hate you.

I believe if you never declare war you'll still become a warmonger if you kill a civ off the map completely which even gives a higher warmonger penalty than a dow. That however seems like the only further action that causes the warmonger hate, so the first dow is free like ~95% of the time and the 2nd is fatal in maybe ~90% of the cases (from my experience).

For an example of one of the rare cases where a second DoW is not fatal, you can take a look at the Happiness of the Lotus thread that I'm currently writing in Stories and Let's Plays. I started as China on a continent that also included England, Japan, Mongolia, and India. My first DoW was against England, and after that war my troops were on the Japanese border. At the time, Japan was already at war with everyone else (in conflicts that Oda had started). My second DoW was against Oda. And it was met with an offer of a Declaration of Friendship from Gandhi!

[LTJG Perry]

also was Ram protecting" that particular CS? That might be a multiplier too. And he probably was, since he was your neighbor and therefore not too far from the CS.

[DevilHell]

I assume you saw the other thread on general discussion and reproduced it
I thank you for this thread, because now I understand the mechanics
I only have a question, if you DoW a CS every AI will remember that DoW for the rest of the game or will it increase or decrease like City State status???

I think this can be helpful in a scenario where you are very close to Siam;
You DoW the CS, Siam hates you, he DoWs you, you beat the crap outta him everyone happy
In my latest games I've played with taking out an AI before meeting another :P it is really interesting..
Again, thank you

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by vexing

if you declare war on the same civ twice, there is a hard coded "never grant them anything in a peace deal" that happens with all leaders.

you can declare war multiple times (against different civs) and have most of your relationships remain fine. i've had a dow improve my overall relationship status by being against the map bully. since everyone hated him and most people were at war with him, they mostly flipped from guarded to friendly with me the next turn.

How does the player supposed to know that? Beeing lucky and reading this topic post? Where in the game does it give the player the info about this?


Seriosuly things that are allways the same when we do it why do you hide those things for us? I don't mind some unpredictable things in diplomacy but do it with things that aren't the same...


Thats the first thing I ever heard of it.

Seriously I hope they change this in gods and king that there is actualy some info about diplomatic modifiers

BTW why are there so many diplomatic penalties the AI doesn't fallow them either they just dow after a peace deal and they don't get the penalty i'm pretty sure they don't.

Why do they punish the human player with redicoulous penalties constantly

[smallfish]

Originally Posted by apocalypse105

Why do they punish the human player with redicoulous penalties constantly

Because you are human.

[snarzberry]

Originally Posted by DevilHell

I assume you saw the other thread on general discussion and reproduced it
I thank you for this thread, because now I understand the mechanics
I only have a question, if you DoW a CS every AI will remember that DoW for the rest of the game or will it increase or decrease like City State status???

I think this can be helpful in a scenario where you are very close to Siam;
You DoW the CS, Siam hates you, he DoWs you, you beat the crap outta him everyone happy
In my latest games I've played with taking out an AI before meeting another :P it is really interesting..
Again, thank you

Actually I just saw that thread earlier today and I was like wow this is identical to the thread I made in S&T! If I had seen clint0601's thread over in general I'd have just replied to that.

About the DoW on a CS, no it is just the same as any other DoW and the penalty for it doesn't degrade over time.

Siam wasn't protecting that city state so that modifier didn't come into play, if I had have defied their protection then it would show up in the diplo screen.

Diplomacy would benefit from a lot more transparancey I agree, it's taken a long time to work out the costs of certain actions. Now the game will change with the expansion, hopefully for the better.

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by smallfish

Because you are human.

Sure but its a little bit silly to see a AI dowing 2 times and wiping a civilization from the game and still have friends and don't beeing called a warmonger

Olso why do they hide those penalties how are we supposed to know them and make sure we don't get them?

[Grendeldef]

Originally Posted by apocalypse105

Sure but its a little bit silly to see a AI dowing 2 times and wiping a civilization from the game and still have friends and don't beeing called a warmonger

Olso why do they hide those penalties how are we supposed to know them and make sure we don't get them?

As annoying as this is while playing it's essentially what makes the game so fun and unpredictability is part of it. If everything would be shown in numbers this wouldn't feel an interactive game but a complex sudoku. As much as I hate the AI doing things I can't I accept that without those annoyances I wouldn't prolly be playing as the challenge part would be seriously diminished.
In general, as Vexing pointed out every action has a reaction even if it's not visible anywhere in UI and binary mechanisms are avoided in relations between civs.

G

[DevilHell]

Originally Posted by snarzberry

Actually I just saw that thread earlier today and I was like wow this is identical to the thread I made in S&T! If I had seen clint0601's thread over in general I'd have just replied to that.

About the DoW on a CS, no it is just the same as any other DoW and the penalty for it doesn't degrade over time.

Siam wasn't protecting that city state so that modifier didn't come into play, if I had have defied their protection then it would show up in the diplo screen.

Diplomacy would benefit from a lot more transparancey I agree, it's taken a long time to work out the costs of certain actions. Now the game will change with the expansion, hopefully for the better.

This here should change

Diplomatic hits or penalties should decrease over time

Is like Europe hating Italy because Ceasar Augustus was an expanding whore
Or Germany hating France because Napoleon took out their beautiful Berlin
I mean, not even yet, in 70 years, do the people hate germany for the world war

This here is not either a good game mechanic or a reality like mechanic

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by Grendeldef

As annoying as this is while playing it's essentially what makes the game so fun and unpredictability is part of it. If everything would be shown in numbers this wouldn't feel an interactive game but a complex sudoku. As much as I hate the AI doing things I can't I accept that without those annoyances I wouldn't prolly be playing as the challenge part would be seriously diminished.
In general, as Vexing pointed out every action has a reaction even if it's not visible anywhere in UI and binary mechanisms are avoided in relations between civs.

G

Things that are allways the same shouldn't be hidden like warmonger penalties

things that are allways different like a AI that is deceptive and plotting against you(is not happiing allways) should be hidden.

[Grendeldef]

Originally Posted by apocalypse105

Things that are allways the same shouldn't be hidden like warmonger penalties

I know this is provocative and it's not intended as a start of a flame war but why ?
Declaring war or wars should be living on the edge what it comes to international relationships - in general peeps don't like wars they don't start themselves and current model in Civ 5 respects that, a bit at least. Everyone has a different point where they will snap so to speak.

Also it could be argued that warmonger penalty isn't a constant but a function of each leaders base tendency towards warmongers slightly altered by each game's modifier by RNG. Therefore it would be inaccurate to have only one scale of one's 'warmongerism' but there should be a level meter towards every other civilization. While technically easily presentable it would be impractical and it would in theory give away the RNG part which would defeat the purpose of having such.

On point of warmongering penalties etc reputation likes I do agree that those should decrease over time.

G

[apocalypse105]

Originally Posted by Grendeldef

I know this is provocative and it's not intended as a start of a flame war but why ?
Declaring war or wars should be living on the edge what it comes to international relationships - in general peeps don't like wars they don't start themselves and current model in Civ 5 respects that, a bit at least. Everyone has a different point where they will snap so to speak.

Also it could be argued that warmonger penalty isn't a constant but a function of each leaders base tendency towards warmongers slightly altered by each game's modifier by RNG. Therefore it would be inaccurate to have only one scale of one's 'warmongerism' but there should be a level meter towards every other civilization. While technically easily presentable it would be impractical and it would in theory give away the RNG part which would defeat the purpose of having such.

On point of warmongering penalties etc reputation likes I do agree that those should decrease over time.

G

It shouldn't be warmonger hate but conquer hate.

Wars will happen in real life countries can become angry at eachother and start wars ..

Same goes with civ 5 even ghandi dows more then once in a game.

What other leaders don't like is when some country conquers a lot of territory... Napoleon any one? or germany atacking poland...

The same goes with civ 5 I don't care about if someone dows but if someone conquers a lot of territory I could be the next one SO its normal I will become more suspicious.

Basicly the penalty should be based on the number of cities you take not DOWS

This is why you see a lot of AI denouncing eachother constantly and signing A DOF is suicide. THey are all mad ad eachother for DOWs and wars happens because of wars..

Instead of alexander conquered a large number of cities and some leaders are denouncing him for it