Warmonger: "Trading" cities for a peace treaty

Need a fast advice as Pachacuti is waiting for my answer.

So I surrounded the Incan capital. I'm about one turn from capturing it, though I might loose a unit during this AI turn. Pachacuti has the capital plus one other city, and is now offering me his other city. I'm planning on taking that one later anyways, but now I got a dilemma.

Will I get warmonger if I make a peace treaty with him and then taking his city? I figure I could spare some city buildings and warmonger for taking this second city first through, and then in like 10 turns (when I can declare war again) I could take his capital.

Of course I will have to declare war on him again, giving me warmonger again. But isn't that less warmonger than taking both cities by force? It even makes it easier for me to take his capital as I can surround it without him coming from behind.

On the other hand, I don't plan on much love for me. I'm planning on going the whole way and keep conquering as I'm playing as Shaka on emporer. So I don't know how important warmonger will become to me anyways.

Sorry! Just changed the tag from Vanilla to BNW. My fault obviously

Sporally said:

Will I get warmonger if I make a peace treaty with him and then taking his city? I figure I could spare some city buildings and warmonger for taking this second city first through, and then in like 10 turns (when I can declare war again) I could take his capital.

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No warmonger penalty for cities acquired through trade (or peace deals).

Sporally said:

Of course I will have to declare war on him again, giving me warmonger again. But isn't that less warmonger than taking both cities by force? It even makes it easier for me to take his capital as I can surround it without him coming from behind.

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Yes, would be less than capturing both cities.

Sporally said:

On the other hand, I don't plan on much love for me. I'm planning on going the whole way and keep conquering as I'm playing as Shaka on emporer. So I don't know how important warmonger will become to me anyways.

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Depends on economic/happiness situation. If you're relying heavily on trade routes/luxuries to other civs, then hold off on being a warmonger. Once you achieve ideologies (especially if you choose Autocracy) then that's no longer an issue and you can let the world despise you and still have a solid empire.

Yes, taking his second city through a peace treaty and then taking his capital by force later will give you less of a diplo hit than otherwise. Taking cities through peace treaties doesn't give you any warmonger penalty at all actually.

There's also the fact that taking his city through a peace treaty will mean no population loss, which is awesome if you want that city to be productive later on.

The opportunity cost of this strategy is that you will get his capital later than you would otherwise. What you should do depends on your situation. If you're in a position to conquer the world, then you might just want to take it and mobilize your troops in a different front. Otherwise, I think BNW offers more benefits to accepting these peace treaties.

Unless the second city is really important, I would go ahead and take the capital and let the second city live so I wouldn't get a genocide penalty. I only take the city for peace deal if I'm not certain of taking the capital without heavy losses and I'm getting war weariness at home.

UTBear said:

Unless the second city is really important, I would go ahead and take the capital and let the second city live so I wouldn't get a genocide penalty. I only take the city for peace deal if I'm not certain of taking the capital without heavy losses and I'm getting war weariness at home.

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There isn't any "genocide" penalty anymore in BnW. That being said, you do get a consecutively larger warmonger penalty for taking cities the less cities the target has, so you are correct that taking the capital and leaving him with the lesser city will give you less of a penalty than taking the lesser city through peace deal and then later DoW him and capturing the capital.

kaspergm said:

There isn't any "genocide" penalty anymore in BnW. That being said, you do get a consecutively larger warmonger penalty for taking cities the less cities the target has, so you are correct that taking the capital and leaving him with the lesser city will give you less of a penalty than taking the lesser city through peace deal and then later DoW him and capturing the capital.

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Taking the last city is still worth as many war mongler points as it was before; but they've also added taking the second to last is 50% of that; taking the 3rd to last is 33% of taking the last, etc.

But in context of trade deals; there's no penalty.

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that rejecting a peace offer that's in your favour gets you a diplo hit.

Talcove said:

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that rejecting a peace offer that's in your favour gets you a diplo hit.

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I'm beginning to suspect this as well... sometimes I'll reject AI pleas for peace because I have other agendas (keeping their damned missionaries at bay or them from being able to forward settle me before my borders/settlers get in position being foremost) and taking no cities, declaring no more wars and sometimes not even killing units, I've seen my warmongering penalty worse on some civs.

If you plan to take his capital later, and that is his only city(you eliminate him) then you will begin on the road to permanent warmonger status. Eliminate %25 of the civs then you have permanent critical warmonger score, take out 40% then it's severe. I believe Cs are included and it's a percentage of the civs actually in the game at the time you eliminated a civ. With Venice puppetting CS, Austria Annexing CS, and Genghis capturing CS the number of actual civs in play can vary wildly, thus effecting this percentage. Emliminators can't be liberators.

I'd take his capital(then sign peace deal) and let any allies take his last city. You then will have the option of Liberating the Inca at a later date should this prove tactically sound.

Barghaest said:

Depends on economic/happiness situation. If you're relying heavily on trade routes/luxuries to other civs, then hold off on being a warmonger. Once you achieve ideologies (especially if you choose Autocracy) then that's no longer an issue and you can let the world despise you and still have a solid empire.

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Why doesn't it matter if I choose autocracy? Are their trading opportunities great even if they're hated throughout of the world?

Talcove said:

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that rejecting a peace offer that's in your favour gets you a diplo hit.

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Can anypne confirm or reject this?