Warmonger penalty for taking city-states

Just curious - is the warmonger penalty for taking city-states much higher than a usual city? In my current game as the Inca, I was friendly with everyone until I had the audacity to conquer a neighbouring city-state who was my ally.

Soon after, most of the civs denounced me, and eventually they ganged up to declare war on me. As I had a superior military, I managed to wipe out the closest enemy civ (who had only 3 cities), and then I sued for peace. By now my reputation for a warmonger has spread and even civs like Japan and Zulu were denouncing me even though they were not friends with the civ that I conquered (Zulu had even taken the capital of that civ).

All this started because I took a single city-state. This is the first time I have attacked a city-state so the AI's reaction is rather surprising. It seems like there is more warmonger hate for those who attack city-states as opposed to those who attack other civs?

DoWing City-States is, as you found out, extremely painful diplomatically. You can (sort of) get away with it if they're allied with a major Civ you're at war with, but otherwise don't do it unless you're prepared to have every other civ in the world hate you forever.

Why did you take the city state you were allied with anyway? You already had the ally bonuses did you just want the land?

Killing off a civ or city state has always earned a very harsh penatly AFAIR. It might be compounded by the change to warmonger penalty mechanics (so you may be doubly penalised for taking all of their cities and for wiping them out, perhaps?).

z284pwr said:

Why did you take the city state you were allied with anyway? You already had the ally bonuses did you just want the land?

Click to expand...

I needed a coastal city and the CS was in the perfect location.

Would the warmonger penalty have been less if I weren't allies with the CS and hadn't pledged to protect it?

Did you check to see if the other civs had pledged to protect it? You will get a more or les permanent hate for DoWing a civ that someone has pledged to protect.

I don't understand why you conquered it anyway. If you are its ally, you get all the stuff it has to offer and none of the down sides of having an extra city.

joshua43214 said:

Did you check to see if the other civs had pledged to protect it? You will get a more or les permanent hate for DoWing a civ that someone has pledged to protect.

Click to expand...

It was under one civ's protection, and it does show under the relationship modifiers for that civ that I had attacked a CS under their protection. But does this increase the warmonger hate of other civs as well?

joshua43214 said:

I don't understand why you conquered it anyway. If you are its ally, you get all the stuff it has to offer and none of the down sides of having an extra city.

Click to expand...

I wanted to build stuff that can only be build by a coastal city, like cargo ships, naval units, coastal wonders, etc. I did already have one coastal city, but I wanted another one on a different side of the continent (so as to access different trade routes) and all the good spots were taken.

Just think of City States like you would a Civ. When you capture a City State, it's generally regarded as wiping out a civ. I find you can usually get away with capturing one CS. Take out two of them however... and the major civs will tend to hate you. It's as if they think you are going for a domination victory or something and you must be stopped!

Capturing a city-state allied with an enemy causes all of his enemies to like you and his allies to slightly hate you more. Capturing a city-state that is neutral causes all other city-states to hate you, but seemingly has a minor effect on other nations. Capturing a city-state allied with an ally causes that ally to hate you and all of his enemies to like you.

No replies actually answering the question or providing factual information.

Rohili: Yes, you get 'more' warmonger hate for destroying a CS, but only because a CS consists of one city whereas a normal civ typically has more than one - there is no specific penalty because of it being a city-state. Warmonger hate is (in BNW) determined by how many cities the losing party owns - conquering a city from a civ that has 20 cities gets you a low penalty, conquering a single-city city-state gets you a gigantic penalty.

Also, there is no warmonger penalty associated with attacking a CS that is under the protection of another civ, as suggested above. You obviously get a relations hit with them for doing so, but this is entirely separate from the 'warmonger' penalty. So: no, it doesn't affect your warmonger score with other civs.

Strategist83 said:

No replies actually answering the question or providing factual information.

Rohili: Yes, you get 'more' warmonger hate for destroying a CS, but only because a CS consists of one city whereas a normal civ typically has more than one - there is no specific penalty because of it being a city-state. Warmonger hate is (in BNW) determined by how many cities the losing party owns - conquering a city from a civ that has 20 cities gets you a low penalty, conquering a single-city city-state gets you a gigantic penalty.

Also, there is no warmonger penalty associated with attacking a CS that is under the protection of another civ, as suggested above. You obviously get a relations hit with them for doing so, but this is entirely separate from the 'warmonger' penalty. So: no, it doesn't affect your warmonger score with other civs.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, Strategist!

Strategist83 said:

No replies actually answering the question or providing factual information.

Rohili: Yes, you get 'more' warmonger hate for destroying a CS, but only because a CS consists of one city whereas a normal civ typically has more than one - there is no specific penalty because of it being a city-state. Warmonger hate is (in BNW) determined by how many cities the losing party owns - conquering a city from a civ that has 20 cities gets you a low penalty, conquering a single-city city-state gets you a gigantic penalty.

Also, there is no warmonger penalty associated with attacking a CS that is under the protection of another civ, as suggested above. You obviously get a relations hit with them for doing so, but this is entirely separate from the 'warmonger' penalty. So: no, it doesn't affect your warmonger score with other civs.

Click to expand...

Can City States acquire more than one city in BNW? I thought in GNK on rare occasion they would capture one and keep it. If they can I would assume its similar to another Civ, if you take one city but leave the other the hit isn't as big.

Rohili said:

I needed a coastal city and the CS was in the perfect location.

Would the warmonger penalty have been less if I weren't allies with the CS and hadn't pledged to protect it?

Click to expand...

You -
Me -

I can't stop laughing. Too funny and so innocently asked.
Oh and I totally get your reason for needing that real estate, I have done the same thing from time to time as well against CS's and other Civs. The game is all about the real estate anyway.

Stupid warmonger penalty totally negates the point of Genghis Khans Bonus. This is worse then nuking everyone's best friend in civ 4! Literally the entire game was at war with me after only taking 3 CS's way early on. 4000 years later they are still denouncing and declaring on me like I did this crap yesterday. I don't get it. If they don't want people taking City states then don't make them so easy to take? /rant sorry for the necro.