Perhaps this can shead some lights on all the anti-warmonger feelings out there

The relative factor is necessary when assessing how much of a military threat someone is. Taking one city in the ancient era is actually going to have huge impacts down the line, while taking one city in the modern, not so much.

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Huge impacts for who? It screws the target, but it's rarely an efficient way for one to become powerful, due to happiness and at least some diplo constraints, not to mention simply building extra military instead of wonders or improvements that boost your science rate. For taking a city so early to be worthwhile, you not only have to overcome warmonger hate, but also the simple cost + opportunity cost of preparing to take it. You sink into units and get a city that adds more than one of your own, and the earlier you take it, the less goodies the AI bonuses have allowed it to stuff in there.

IMO chain denouncements are as much a problem because of how the human can take advantage of them as they are an annoyance from the AI. Nothing like a little after lots of friendly diplo dogpiling!

TheMeInTeam said:

Huge impacts for who? It screws the target, but it's rarely an efficient way for one to become powerful, due to happiness and at least some diplo constraints, not to mention simply building extra military instead of wonders or improvements that boost your science rate. For taking a city so early to be worthwhile, you not only have to overcome warmonger hate, but also the simple cost + opportunity cost of preparing to take it. You sink into units and get a city that adds more than one of your own, and the earlier you take it, the less goodies the AI bonuses have allowed it to stuff in there.

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And what do you do when you spawn 8 tiles from Shaka or Attila?
Re-rolling has almost become a necessity when this happens because the only solution to either of these creeps when playing peaceful is to take them out early and hard. Turtling up will just make the mid and late game a mess.

The AI may differentiate between taking one two or three cities but does it differentiate between having one war where you annex/raze three cities or three spaced out wars in which you take/raze a city in each one.

One war is an occurrence whereas three wars is a pattern. In a real world setting you and I can see that difference and would treat each situation differently.

What I meant by "personalities" is that in a real world setting, over 6k years you'd have many different leaders and a leader today isn't necessarily held accountable for what a leader two thousand years ago did (situationally dependent). So if someone wants to play the realism card a civilization in 1961ad could be cometely different with a different leader then in 1961bc and we don't judge them on the 1961bc iteration.

Basically the warmonger hate (and yes it is the resulting denouncements which are the problem) are very much akin to the out of balance religious hate from civ4 which I found to be overly much as well.

Dgodus said:

What I meant by "personalities" is that in a real world setting, over 6k years you'd have many different leaders and a leader today isn't necessarily held accountable for what a leader two thousand years ago did (situationally dependent). So if someone wants to play the realism card a civilization in 1961ad could be cometely different with a different leader then in 1961bc and we don't judge them on the 1961bc iteration.

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Except the civilization still DOES have the same leader - YOU. While you might rationalize your Civ leader doesn't live for 6k years and instead has various descendants who take his place, the fact is the same guy - yep, still YOU - who sacked that city a few thousand years ago is still calling the shots and setting out the master plan.

So the idea that AI wouldn't judge you by actions you did earlier in the game because some figurehead leader you imagine was running your country at the time is now dead is nonsensical to me.

A human player will still hold a grudge with you not only for what you did to him earlier in this game... but what you've done to him in previous games. If anything they should go this way with the AI and have it track data like that.

Barghaest said:

Except the civilization still DOES have the same leader - YOU.

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Actually, this is true of the AIs as well.

This is one area where Civ intentionally broke the 4th wall. It was an overt design decision: "We're going to let the same ruler run the civ for the whole game." And the reason they did that was marketing... you can sell playing as Lincoln, Attila, or Queen Elizabeth. It's harder to sell no consistent strategy from age to age, just muddling through history like in real life. Plus, it would be inconsistent with the actuality of the game.

joshua43214 said:

And what do you do when you spawn 8 tiles from Shaka or Attila?
Re-rolling has almost become a necessity when this happens because the only solution to either of these creeps when playing peaceful is to take them out early and hard. Turtling up will just make the mid and late game a mess.

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I DENOUNCE you, sir! Re-rolling is NOT allowed; if you ever have an occasion to use it (other than in resourceless tundra or ice), then you must withdraw to a lower difficulty!

Hey, it's a personal house rule, and I've never had to go lower than Prince to abide by it.

Civ is my personal sandbox ... and I'm only 62.

Barghaest said:

Except the civilization still DOES have the same leader - YOU. While you might rationalize your Civ leader doesn't live for 6k years and instead has various descendants who take his place, the fact is the same guy - yep, still YOU - who sacked that city a few thousand years ago is still calling the shots and setting out the master plan.

So the idea that AI wouldn't judge you by actions you did earlier in the game because some figurehead leader you imagine was running your country at the time is now dead is nonsensical to me.

A human player will still hold a grudge with you not only for what you did to him earlier in this game... but what you've done to him in previous games. If anything they should go this way with the AI and have it track data like that.

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This is kind of the reason I made this point. It's against anyone who wants to cry for "realism". As soon as you have one leader who lives for thousands of years reality goes out the window (personally this would be my preference, I have real life for reality, I want a video game for fantasy).

Yes a human player will still hold grudges (and yes hold them over many games), but a human player will also recognize a beneficial trade and accept (unless he's so ticked off that he'd bite his nose off to spite his face), which is something the AI doesn't do unless the trade is severly lopsided.

Also comparing multiplayer games to single player ones is a little off. In a multiplayer game everyone is trying to win, whereas I don't get that sense at all from the AI during a single player game (admittingly I don't play multiplayer civ, I prefer marathon games, too hard to organize, best I can do is a succession game with a buddy of mine). So if I were trying out a multiplayer game I'm going in with the mindset that everyone will eventually backstab me, whereas the predictable AI I know who will and who wont.

There are many people you've probably met in your life who've made a bad or even just less than stellar first impression. Some continue to behave in the manner that made the bad impression and our opinions of them never change. However there are those who we either just caught on a bad day (ours or theirs) and we realize over time that it was more of an occurance and not their normal behavior so our opinions of these people change (the opposite is also true, meaning going from good to bad).

My contention is that the AI is placing too much emphasis for too long on an "occurance" that was outside of the normal behavior of a given player during a game, and one that wasn't repeated.

I, on the whole, like the warmonger mechanic. I just believe it should be tweaked to have more complex applications of it. If given the choice of having it in it's current form, or not having it at all - I would actually rather have it as is. However it is a negative impact on a player who during most games usually only has one early war (when empires are small, 1 or 2 cities) and maybe 1 late one out of boredom while I wait for a victory condition to finish (if I even finish a game at all, usually I deem the game "won" and begin a new one, much like 2 foot "gimme" putts in golf - again I prefer marathon, finishing off a game that is, in the bag so to speak can really test the patience of hitting "next turn")

Sure, track game data for AI's, but then you do have to realize that the player's data should be tracked for each civ he plays as strats are going to vary (ie, probably not going domination with Pedro, but Genghis is going to go scorched earth)

Dgodus said:

I, on the whole, like the warmonger mechanic. I just believe it should be tweaked to have more complex applications of it. If given the choice of having it in it's current form, or not having it at all - I would actually rather have it as is. However it is a negative impact on a player who during most games usually only has one early war (when empires are small, 1 or 2 cities) and maybe 1 late one out of boredom while I wait for a victory condition to finish (if I even finish a game at all, usually I deem the game "won" and begin a new one, much like 2 foot "gimme" putts in golf - again I prefer marathon, finishing off a game that is, in the bag so to speak can really test the patience of hitting "next turn")

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This is exactly what I'm not seeing in my games... I frequently have early wars (mostly defensive) and have occasionally burned a city down to the ground as a response. In a game I played just last week after the third time Siam attacked me because they got a tech or two ahead, I destroyed them utterly.

I also have wars later in the game when things get a little too quiet. Same game I joined in several Medieval/Renaissance wars when allies of mine requested joining them in a war against someone - I assisted the Inca in conquering a CS ally of Persia then eliminated Persia myself. I ravaged England down to about four cities and continually joined in wars against them until they were finally conquered by the Inca in early Industrial.

I ended up winning a cultural victory in this game and for the most part had everyone on Friendly or better status (except while my denouncements of Gandhi was in effect and he would be Guarded, but as soon as it expired he'd be all chummy again - mainly turned against him because he eliminated Japan from the game and was my closest rival in technology and score). Despite the negative modifiers for obliterating a civilization - two actually. I was never cut off from diplomatic trades (except eventually by England but they had nothing I desired anymore - I'd already taken what I wanted from them) and maintained TRs and Open Borders with little to no interruption... the only hiccup I had in my little alliance between myself, Inca and Morocco was after England was eliminated, Morocco became the weakest civ in the game - and everyone's target. Despite my attempts to redirect the Incans hostility towards India or Brazil on the other continent, they kept plotting against Morocco until Morocco denounced them... mid DoF, making them backstabbers so I had to distance myself from them and allow the wolves to have their feast.

I've never had problems with one or two wars making diplomacy impossible for the rest of the game (the AI does... if they DoW me once too many times, I'm not going to trade them luxuries or send them TRs... I'll trade my spares to those who haven't annoyed me and send my caravans/cargo ships along safer routes but I will not give any beneficial trades to those who have proven themselves my enemies... even if they seem all Friendly now). Maybe it's the fact I can reel in my bloodlust and allow an AI to live after merely decimating their ability to annoy me for a while... or perhaps because I always attempt to cultivate at least one friend before I begin aggressive expansion...

When I get around to playing the Mongols (next Civ I'll be after I finish this Ottoman game) I plan on complete bloodlust... I'll probably have no external TRs after a while since I'm going to be slaughtering CS and seizing land by force from Civs around me. I plan to be at war with someone at almost all times and if the AI has something I want, I'll demand it or take it by force. We'll see what I think of the warmongering mechanic then...

joshua43214 said:

And what do you do when you spawn 8 tiles from Shaka or Attila?
Re-rolling has almost become a necessity when this happens because the only solution to either of these creeps when playing peaceful is to take them out early and hard. Turtling up will just make the mid and late game a mess.

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I think you misunderstood my point; I was advocating for a smaller early warmonger penalty, because there are already considerable costs in trying to capture cities early.

Since the Honor policy tree is frequently, and probably legitimately criticised as being sub-standard compared to others trees, even for warmongers, then having the policies include a reduction in the warmongering penalty would seem an obvious and easy way to ease both complaints: The excessive warmongering penalties on the higher levels and the need for a boost to the honor tree.

CultureManiac said:

Since the Honor policy tree is frequently, and probably legitimately criticised as being sub-standard compared to others trees, even for warmongers, then having the policies include a reduction in the warmongering penalty would seem an obvious and easy way to ease both complaints: The excessive warmongering penalties on the higher levels and the need for a boost to the honor tree.

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I think an utterly bad tree wouldn't get any better just because ou get less penalties from your conquests. You still have big penalties in the form of production of grwoth that won't let you catch up.

TheMeInTeam said:

Huge impacts for who? It screws the target, but it's rarely an efficient way for one to become powerful, due to happiness and at least some diplo constraints, not to mention simply building extra military instead of wonders or improvements that boost your science rate. For taking a city so early to be worthwhile, you not only have to overcome warmonger hate, but also the simple cost + opportunity cost of preparing to take it. You sink into units and get a city that adds more than one of your own, and the earlier you take it, the less goodies the AI bonuses have allowed it to stuff in there.

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Yes, it hurts the victim more than it helps the aggressor, but I'd be willing to bet that even with the diplo penalty and even with the extra from puppeted/annexed cities (until Mathematics), all else being equal, a civ that takes one Classical city from a rival instead of settling one is far better off in the late game, even moreso if it's a capital, due to the bias toward starting in resource-rich locations. Getting everything the rival has built and the tiles they've improved will save close to the amount of you spent on units (unless that civ was mainly building units too, granted), and you'll still have some of the units (with experience). Plus, you now have a crippled rival to one side, unlike every other civ on the board.

The diplo penalty brings that closer to balance, but it still doesn't even things out. One also has to bear in mind that the (much larger) penalty for warmongering when there are relatively few cities built still only applies to civs you've met.

TheMeInTeam said:

IMO chain denouncements are as much a problem because of how the human can take advantage of them as they are an annoyance from the AI. Nothing like a little after lots of friendly diplo dogpiling!

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...yeah, I've done this on more than one occasion, I don't mind saying.

Barghaest said:

This is exactly what I'm not seeing in my games... I frequently have early wars (mostly defensive) and have occasionally burned a city down to the ground as a response. In a game I played just last week after the third time Siam attacked me because they got a tech or two ahead, I destroyed them utterly.

I also have wars later in the game when things get a little too quiet. Same game I joined in several Medieval/Renaissance wars when allies of mine requested joining them in a war against someone - I assisted the Inca in conquering a CS ally of Persia then eliminated Persia myself. I ravaged England down to about four cities and continually joined in wars against them until they were finally conquered by the Inca in early Industrial.

I ended up winning a cultural victory in this game and for the most part had everyone on Friendly or better status (except while my denouncements of Gandhi was in effect and he would be Guarded, but as soon as it expired he'd be all chummy again - mainly turned against him because he eliminated Japan from the game and was my closest rival in technology and score). Despite the negative modifiers for obliterating a civilization - two actually. I was never cut off from diplomatic trades (except eventually by England but they had nothing I desired anymore - I'd already taken what I wanted from them) and maintained TRs and Open Borders with little to no interruption... the only hiccup I had in my little alliance between myself, Inca and Morocco was after England was eliminated, Morocco became the weakest civ in the game - and everyone's target. Despite my attempts to redirect the Incans hostility towards India or Brazil on the other continent, they kept plotting against Morocco until Morocco denounced them... mid DoF, making them backstabbers so I had to distance myself from them and allow the wolves to have their feast.

I've never had problems with one or two wars making diplomacy impossible for the rest of the game (the AI does... if they DoW me once too many times, I'm not going to trade them luxuries or send them TRs... I'll trade my spares to those who haven't annoyed me and send my caravans/cargo ships along safer routes but I will not give any beneficial trades to those who have proven themselves my enemies... even if they seem all Friendly now). Maybe it's the fact I can reel in my bloodlust and allow an AI to live after merely decimating their ability to annoy me for a while... or perhaps because I always attempt to cultivate at least one friend before I begin aggressive expansion...

When I get around to playing the Mongols (next Civ I'll be after I finish this Ottoman game) I plan on complete bloodlust... I'll probably have no external TRs after a while since I'm going to be slaughtering CS and seizing land by force from Civs around me. I plan to be at war with someone at almost all times and if the AI has something I want, I'll demand it or take it by force. We'll see what I think of the warmongering mechanic then...

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Heh, actually with all this warmonger talk I'm doing that right now aka Shaka is salting the earth, only taking a small break after capturing 2 capitals and crippling a third Civ to give my spears a "vacation" before they turn into impis. Also I'm hoping the AI will build more of an army so it'll be more amusing. Right now the penalty is just a joke as my forces are to great to even get attacked, and anything I want I can just take. This is on emp difficulty and playin as an actual warmonger the penalty has no effect on my game. This is the big reason I see the penalty as needing tweaking

*full disclosur*. I gave myself 2 scouts through advanced setup (and removed my warrior) which when you look at the huts I popped probably got me an extra tech and pop, as well as some chaff. Also used unlimited barb xp which netted my upgraded scout logistics and one spear march (was a pre ikhandi spear though). Ultimately the result would be the same it would have just taken a little longer (not long, playing on Mara) and cost me some gold via rushbuying (I have a surplus from raging barbs plus a really nice 2 salt plus a silver and marble start - which wasn't advanced setup'd); and my first two conquests were Theodora (full desert start, no production and no army, when I get my religion to my now secondary Capitol with DF and holy warriors I'm going to crush) and Isabella who spent way too long building Stonehenge without having any workers to improve anything. This map begged to be dominated.

There were probably mitigating circumstances to my other problem games - such as only having met morocco before destroying Shoshone and that led to his denouncements which being friends with everyone else I met it led to the chain/loop and ruined my game (it was a peaceful game up to the point I grew bored). But that original denouncements was triggered by a warmonger penalty from a war which should have been deemed "understandable" or at least a "wait and see what he does after while preparing my own defenses" as up to that point nothing but friendly dealings (he went straight to "you're a warmonger" instead of a more appropriate "I have concerns you're a warmonger")

Funny thing ad Shaka I'm seen as a "warmonger we have fears you'll return the world into the dark ages" which is funny.... Cause it's true!

Some kind of weighting based on familiarity (though I don't know how that would work in practice) would be good, so your whole relationship isn't based on the first thing they know about you.

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There could be a "period of grace" during which the "passive" modifiers (warmongering and foreign denouncements, coveting land just discovered, anger over building Wonders) would gradually increase to the full level, but active modifiers (embassies, OB, trading) would have full effect from the start. E.g: upon meeting, passive modifiers are reduced to 1/20th their usual level, increasing by 1/20th over the next 20 turns. It would simulate getting intelligence, confirming rumors etc. and meanwhile leaving both sides the opportunity to start the relationship on a good footing and gain positive modifiers for being proactive to develop it. It would be like, say, a Venetian traders arriving to a potentate in Asia Minor and negotiating trade deals. The ruler would be more interested by their offers and how they act toward him than by hearsay that Venice has sacked Zara and razed it to the ground or that half the Wonders in their city are spoils or stolen from allies. As he gets to know the Venetians better, though...

Not sure the impact this would have though, but you definitely have a point that early negative modifiers can ruin any chance to even build a relationship.

I like Culturemaniac's idea. Bulk up Honor, and maybe some of the others (Order maybe), to cut into the penalties to put him on a similar footing. If someone wants to go the route of conquest, he now has a legitimate option.

The same way a country preparing its military has to spend resources (inlcuding intellectual) doing so, a "warmonger" might have to skip rationalism, or another policy he might prefer.

That is the closest thing I have seen on this thread that would address everyone's concerns. Those playing peaceful have the same paths to victory. Those who want to play conquest can do so without getting killed in diplomacy. Also historically accurate.

EK834 said:

There could be a "period of grace" during which the "passive" modifiers (warmongering and foreign denouncements, coveting land just discovered, anger over building Wonders) would gradually increase to the full level, but active modifiers (embassies, OB, trading) would have full effect from the start.

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That's more or less what I was thinking...or if, instead of "fading in" every diplo adjustment, just have a general sliding scale that starts when you meet a civ in which the impact of everything in total has a diminished, but steadily increasing, effect.

Another symptom of this problem: you can generally trade a luxury to an AI from your first meeting screen for 7 GPT, which is the highest you're ever going to get without special circumstances. I'd generally think they should be a little more cautious of this dude they just met and know nothing about.

Bulldog Bats said:

I like Culturemaniac's idea. Bulk up Honor, and maybe some of the others (Order maybe), to cut into the penalties to put him on a similar footing. If someone wants to go the route of conquest, he now has a legitimate option.

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I'd like to see some social policies, ideology tenets or religious beliefs have some effect on warmonger penalties. Crusades, which would diminish your warmonger penalty among civs that share your religion (could be a Founder belief or a Piety policy). Autocracy is ripe for a tenet that makes civs that share your ideology give you less of a penalty...some others.

Hell, every other rule in the game is subject to some tweaking by choices you make, so tweaking the WM penalty would be cool.

Yes, it hurts the victim more than it helps the aggressor, but I'd be willing to bet that even with the diplo penalty and even with the extra from puppeted/annexed cities (until Mathematics), all else being equal, a civ that takes one Classical city from a rival instead of settling one is far better off in the late game, even moreso if it's a capital, due to the bias toward starting in resource-rich locations. Getting everything the rival has built and the tiles they've improved will save close to the amount of you spent on units (unless that civ was mainly building units too, granted), and you'll still have some of the units (with experience). Plus, you now have a crippled rival to one side, unlike every other civ on the board.

The diplo penalty brings that closer to balance, but it still doesn't even things out.

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It shouldn't even out. There is another factor to consider: invading a rival has risk. If you attempt it and fail, you're in awful shape; out of contention if against experienced players and far behind even vs the AI. For a risk to be worthwhile, it has to come with a reasonable reward should it pay off. I don't have enough recent experience (Linux issues) to comment on the exact balance of the moment, but there needs to be at least some conquest incentive for human players early on, because balancing military and economy/diplo is part of the basic strategy of the game. Removing too much of that incentive is just as much of a mistake as giving too much incentive to war with minimal/no penalty.

The problem with SPs having an impact on diplo is that it further alienates SP and MP, where players wouldn't care about them the way policies and MP diplo currently functions.

I was an advocate for improving peacemongering play pre-BNW (even being a notorious warmonger in most of my games). And though I'm glad it happened, I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far in that direction.

There are a couple of small problems, I think, that if solved could help alleviate the problems:

1. There's NO incentive to give back cities. If I have to take a couple of cities for strategy reasons (i.e., clusters of crap cities so they're not pummelling my troops as I take the city I really need), I'd love to give back the territory I don't need for peacetimes. But the game gives me no incentive to do that. It won't improve my relationship with any other civ, not even the one who I took the city from. And the AI doesn't properly value cities in a trade (especially with someone they hate), so you won't even get a valuable "traded recently" modifier.

In particular, there should be some kind of large positive incentive to give back someone's capital, but that feature is entirely lacking.

2. Early wars, which should be quickly forgotten, instead snowball. Once you're seen as a warmonger to any degree, you can never live it down. In part, this is because early warmongering penalties are too severe and don't leave quickly enough. In part, this is because those penalties are allowed to snowball into additional penalties that will SURELY NEVER LEAVE. Chain denouncements should NOT be as common as they are in the game, and are surely part of the problem.

It seems to me that modern or mid-game wars should be less forgivable. They are less necessary when not on the domination path, and tend to go quicker in any event. But early wars should be quickly forgiven by most Civs. Even capturing a city-state early in the game isn't as troublesome to most Civs in the early game as it would be when you capture one of their allies in the mid game.

3. The big one: there's no causus belli system. This is really the main problem with the current system. If Shaka keeps DoWing me, even after I've been kind enough to leave him with one city and not wipe him off the face of the earth, why do I take a massive diplo. penalty for getting rid of someone incapable of learning a lesson? The AI should be able to put two and two together for why I wouldn't be able to put up with that, and give me a warmongering discount.

And, in conjunction with the snowballing effect, the lack of causus belli can have ridiculous consequences. In my latest game, I was attacked by two Civs who had legitimate gripes with me. When I gained the upper hand and took some cities to force a peace, my ally and neighbor, Ethiopia, backstab denounced me. The next turn he went hostile. The following turn, he destroyed all our trade routes, broke our deals where I was supplying him with strategic resources, and declared war. In literally two turns, we went from friends to war for no true reason other than he suddenly decided I was a warmonger for taking two cities.

There are reasons for the warmonger penalty to be in place. And warmongering was too easy (with few incentives to peacemonger) in earlier versions of Civ5. But the current system deserves constructive criticism for its heavy handed approach to any substantial and warranted warmongering at all.

I think some of you are looking at this the wrong way. What we want is an AI that (at least on higher difficulties) is challenging and behaves in ways that are beneficial to its goal which should be: winning.
(Sadly in many areas it falls quite far short of that ideal. Here however I think it behaves very rationally.)
Imagine how human player A would react to the news that fellow human player B has just conquered Vienna. He wouldn't hate player B for moralistic reasons, he also wouldn't try to placate him by paying tribute to him (because there is no 2nd place in civ). He would not worry about a behavioral pattern or that player's motivation. What would make him uneasy is that player's ability to take a city by force - whatever his reasons for doing so. That ability (along with other things like settling too many cities) would mark that player out as a major competitor for victory (and more so if he takes more cities).
And his reaction would be to try and slow that player down: Only trade with him if that transaction's benefit for himself greatly outweighs the benefit for player B. And maybe even go to war with him. And of course to try and get friendly civs to do the same by denouncing him.
So warmonger hate should not really be labeled as "hate" but as "motivation" to work specifically against this player. As such it makes much more sense imo.
Of course it doesn't make complete sense but it seems like reasonably reasonable behavior.

TheMeInTeam said:

It shouldn't even out. There is another factor to consider: invading a rival has risk.

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Agree entirely. As it stands right now, you're better off having taken that city than not having taken the city, as it should be. The risk is what evens it out.

However, that's how the game is right now. As bad as the diplo penalty might be in some cases, you're still better off taking it and dealing.

TheMeInTeam said:

The problem with SPs having an impact on diplo is that it further alienates SP and MP, where players wouldn't care about them the way policies and MP diplo currently functions.

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Yeah, and that's probably the big reason why nothing acts on the WM penalty as-is.