No peace, infinite waves of enemies...

I started on an island with Brussels and some warmongering nation. They declared war to me on turn 60 or so and I killed them on turn ~90 (not my fault...). Then I took Brussels as well because it was annoying me sooo much (right between my cities and taking all good tiles). Then I went with a wide empire.

Since turn ~120 everyone (I play with the max. amount of AI) except Dido and Morocco denounces me and declares war. Now, nearing turn 300, I'm still at war... Non-stop war. Only Attila made peace for like 12 turns once. It crippled my science and trade-routes really bad for quiet some time. I now trade with morocco and only have 2 RA's at a time. Because the other 10 nations or so all want me dead.

What do I need to do to make peace? Other than conquering half their empire, which I can't. I'm too busy defending.

And every turn I kill so many units and I have super promoted units but yet they just keep and keep coming. They are like zergs and even their 1-2 pop cities in the dessert out-produce my capital... Imagine ~10 enemy nations attacking you for 200 turns non-stop. Wave after wave.

Note that Me, Dido and morocco are invading the others with tourism and they are all unhappy. Could that be another reason for them to attack me? Reasons that I know:

• wide empire
• killed Brussels early game
• killed a nation early game (after they wanted to kill me so come on screw that)
• tourism

But there are nations out there that have done worse things than me. And they are not non-stop at war with the entire world.

You committed genocide but as Petyr Baelish says "when you find your self in bed with an ugly woman, just close your eyes and get it over with. Go for a hybrid CV/DOM game, kill off everyone you can't influence and you'll win a CV. Keep Dido as a friend and DOW Civs she DOWs and use cult of personality to become influential with her.

The AI in the game is functionally just various forms of warmongering. If it perceives weakness (even if not actually true) it will begin to hate you for various reasons it makes up. A few examples:

1.) It covets your lands
2.) It thinks you're a warmonger
3.) It's mad you wiped out another civ (they hate that)
4.) It doesn't like that you're friendly to CS it likes
5.) It doesn't like your troops being somewhere within sight of some piece of land it might once have ran across.
6.) Any religion other than theirs is an anathma and deserves a crusade
7.) etc.

The AI just manufacturers reasons to go to war with you. The only way to make it stop is to either pay it off, or have a large enough military that it suddenly feel it behooves it to give up on the war.

Basically, if the AI is war deccing you, the answer is you don't have a large enough military. How you deal with that is up to you, but my guess would be you should look into bartering luxury and strategic resources earlier on to increase happiness or get money out of the AI. This is especially important on the higher difficulties, as within 50 turns the AI will BELIEVE it has a large army and will start charging you. They will probably get murdered by a single archer, but it doesn't stop the AI from hating you for most of the rest of the game. It's better to just stop it from doing it.

Edit: Like Resipsa mentions, wiping out another civ tags you as "Genocidal" with the other civs. It's best when planning to go full-monty on another civ to try to pick a city of theirs that's the least useful to you, and make sure their capitol ends up there, then make peace. The other civs like when you make peace. They feel it shows moral character.

I've done things before like setup a city on some island in the middle of the ocean, and then gifted it to the civ I'm about to war dec, so that they can get their capitol stranded out there.

Did you raze any cities? The AI hates it when you raze cities.

But yeah, the basic problem is that the program calculates military power entirely based on the number and combat strength of units. It has no way of knowing that your Crossbow with Logistics and Range, garrisoned on a hill city with walls and behind a river, will happily destroy dozens of Pikemen. It says "herp derp I have 10 knights and 30 Pikeman, puny human has 8 XB, I am strong I will win I no make peace because I stroooong!" The AI only realizes that you're militarily superior when you are absolutely militarily DOMINANT. . . and once you got that shiny new army, seems a shame not to use it.

project_mercy said:

I've done things before like setup a city on some island in the middle of the ocean, and then gifted it to the civ I'm about to war dec, so that they can get their capitol stranded out there.

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That's pretty cruel and funny at the same time.

Also important thing is ai wont hate you if you eliminate others ais hes at war. So find reliable warmongers(napoleon is awesome guy) and bribe them to attack someone first and turn after join the fun. Also designate some weak civ to give her useless cities instead of burn them. And when time comes just pit your hound warmonger against your pet civ and finish both. But you probably end it with culture win, with all those stolen art.

Lol stolen art. I guess that Germany during WWII would have won then with a cultural victory. So much stolen art. Now I understand.

Anyway, the gifting of some useless city is probably a very good idea. Living near a warmonger = trouble but eliminating is too. Next time when my army marches west a dumb settler will march north or south to the artic . Near the end of the game you will see 10 civs living 4 tiles from each other all on the artic or in a dessert. ooh... all those warmongers on 1 artic island... One hell of a party .

And that military power calculating algorithm, it's horrible...

SilverDash said:

Living near a warmonger = trouble but eliminating is too.

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If I start right near a known warmonger but I don't want diplo hits from elimination or city razing, I DoW super early early (like spearmen and archers, I'll frequently use the warriors and scouts that got upgraded from goody huts) and just harass them so they can never develop. Send a raiding party to just steal workers and settlers, pillage improvements, pillage trade routes, block food squares from being worked, etc., and retreat to heal whenever I need to. I consider the eventual inevitable destruction of the raiding party an acceptable loss, because typically said warmonger has been totally stunted and will now be coming after my capital with an army of warriors and spearmen while I've got a CB or two behind walls. They'll die, the warmonger will spend more turns building melee units and march them slow over to my capital, and they'll die too. Eventually the warmonger begs for peace, but they're never a serious threat again and I didn't incur a serious diplo hit with anybody else because I didn't take a city.

SilverDash said:

And that military power calculating algorithm, it's horrible...

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Indeed, a squad of super leveled units can level a whole army but nope it only counts for 20k military points, OKAY CIV 5, OKAY.

I am not sure if this is already implemented, but are promotions taken into account when calculating military strenght? Can some of the code experts give us some light here?

If they aren't they should be. And if they already are, they should weigh more. At least for the AI calculations on Wars. It just doesn't make sense that 4 Xbow with logistics and range in garrison count the same as 4 fresh Xbow with 0xp in plains

I've had your experience before too. All the civs in the world ganged up and DOWed me. They simply refused to make peace even though I was trouncing them very badly. I don't think my wars went on for 100+ turns though - that must be some new record.

All you can really do is to deal as much damage as you can to them - take lots of cities if possible (it's too late now to refrain from taking cities in hopes that the warmonger hate will subside) - and wait for them to come to their senses. Eventually, they will. As long as you have the upper hand, civs will come begging for peace and offering you gold for it, even if your troops are nowhere near them.

To reinforce and emphasize what others have said, the two big sources of AI warmonger hatred are 1. capturing cities (not just razing them!), and 2. wiping out civs. This is crucial to understand in order to wage war without turning the world against you. You can annihilate as many units as you'd like, and you can pillage tiles to your heart's content, and no one will care. (Except the civ you're fighting and their allies, of course.) But as soon as you start capturing/razing cities or wiping out entire civs, the other leaders start to take note.

For this reason, if you care about maintaining good relations with other civs, don't go capturing/razing cities just because you can, all willy-nilly. I don't know offhand how many cities can be captured before you start to suffer diplomatically; the calculations involve the number of total cities vs. the number of cities you've taken already, something like that. To be safe, focus on capturing only strategic objective city(ies), and merely pillage the improvements around other cities. (Note that cities that are given to you as part of a peace deal do not count as "captured" in this way. If at all possible, arrange to obtain new cities via peace deals, to avoid the diplo hit and for all the other benefits (no destroyed buildings, no reduced population, etc.).)

And, as has been advised by others, never ever wipe a civ out completely. If a civ simply must go, bribe another civ to deal the death blow.

What if I take his capital, make peace and get 3 cities through the deal and then donate the captured city back/to another civ. Will this void my warmonger penalty?


I started a new game. I built only 4 cities on my own island and I have 4 allied city states. I only took 1 single capital (from Kamehameha, who was denounced by practically everybody and who was dow-ing me so much for no reason). Apparently he thinks he has a stronger military than me with 6 galleass and like 2 special units vs my 4 longbowmen, city and navy + some random melee units... really? Yes he has more raw firepower if the city is left out of the calculation. Also range doesn't seem to be added to any calculation either.
But aside from Kamehameha I had almost non-stop peace for the first 250 turns.

But... Now there is a runaway civ and all other civs want me to denounce him, I don't want to because he can 'instant-kill-me' + he is my buddy and I pay him to dow annoying civs around me . My military score is like a few thousand, his is in the tens of thousands and his fleet sizes are insane. But if I do not denounce him they will all denounce me instead..
After 200 or 300 turns, it seems that the AI wants you dead anyway. And the ONLY thing that I know to prevent that is to stock lots of nukes or have an insane army (not possible for a player due to high army upkeep) or constantly pay other civs to dow each other (which is often but not always possible).

SilverDash,
To answer your first question, I think your warmonger penalty would be relatively small, assuming that you ONLY took the capital. The warmonger penalty seems to be related to the percentage of the enemy cities that you capture. So if you wipe them out, that's 100% of their cities, and it's a huge warmonger penalty. In your scenario, the enemy had at least 5 cities (original capital, 3 that he offered you, and his new capital), so if you only captured the capital that'd be 20% of their cities. You might get some warmonger penalty but it'll probably fade away eventually. If he has other cities that you didn't explicitly mention the warmonger penalty will be even less.

Regarding your new game, if he's the runaway, you don't win by being the friend of the winner. You want to BE the winner. So I would wait for your declaration of friendship to expire, then denounce him and try to build a coalition against him. The other civs will like you better once you've denounced him. Meanwhile build up your army. If you can get several other civs to declare war on him, do it. If there are other civs in the war, he'll have to split his fleet, so you hopefully won't bear the brunt of the attack. Jump into the fray when it seems appropriate, maybe after he's sent his forces to invade some distant other nation.

Hopefully he's not a science runaway, or else even this may not work. Then nukes might be the only way to slow him down. If he's already way ahead in tech, the only suggestion I would have would be to start looking out for a runaway earlier next time, and try to build your coalition against him before he gets ahead in tech, rather than befriending him and having him conquer weaker enemies.

Yes I only took his capital but because it's legendary start + domination + right next to my empire I kept his capital (still have it). ~20% is doable and I hope that if he is denounced that it will be even less for those civs.

He is a science runaway (I estimate about 0-2 techs ahead of me) + it's Hiawatha... so every single useless city tile has a city labeled Hiawatha.. We are about 0.5 to 1 era ahead of the other civs (after like erm like 200 turns a civ stole masonry from me...). And my army is the only one with subs and such. I might get nukes before Hiawatha but I have to be lucky enough to get 1 or 2 uranium patches. I had to build a city on the artic to get any oil at all . And coal is imported. So unlucky . But yay I have horses and 4 iron...

My strategy goes like this:
Hiawatha shares my ideology and he protects me (not really necessary). So I was planning on taking over the other civs first and then quickly sneak attack Hiawatha's capital and then win the game without having to conquer his huge empire.
He only asks like 5-15gpt to declare war. Sometimes he even does it for 30 gold .
I win right if I every civ except me loses his capital even if Hiawatha has those other capitals?

If Hiawatha would declare war to me at this point in the game I would die really really fast.

SilverDash said:

I win right if I every civ except me loses his capital even if Hiawatha has those other capitals?

If Hiawatha would declare war to me at this point in the game I would die really really fast.

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That got changed in BNW. For Dom victory you need to control all original capitals. You don't need to be the first one to take them, but you do need to hold them.

I remember way back when Jannisaries still fully healed on a kill, Catherine kept sending waves upon waves of troops to the slaughter, but would never make peace. I couldn't really counter because she had some ludicrous amount of troops on her homeland. I just kept defend staughtering and eventually won some other way. There should be a negative modifier, "You keep sending your troops to certain death!"

Lochlann said:

And, as has been advised by others, never ever wipe a civ out completely. If a civ simply must go, bribe another civ to deal the death blow.

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With trade working how it does, it's better to keep them alive for that too. Nice to have a small, harmless, enemy city inside your borders to which you can direct trade caravans if you're running out of safe places to send them.

If your opponent only has one city, and can't get a settler out (because you won't grant him open borders), his tech is going to stagnate. He'll be defending himself with pikemen while you're building tanks.

Keirador said:

That got changed in BNW. For Dom victory you need to control all original capitals. You don't need to be the first one to take them, but you do need to hold them.

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Crap... There goes plan A .
Got 3 capitals atm and I did not capture any other city.


I'm fighting with battleships and submarines vs caravels and privateers and aircraft carriers (yes it's weird) and I don't even do anything to stall their tech... Even the runaway civ still uses old troops but at least he has mostly Renaissance era ships and a few submarines. The AI does have the battleship technology by now but still produces old units somehow. I will win eventually as long as they do not all dow me at the same time. They may have old units but they have MANY units.

EDIT:
I did denounce Hiawatha (cost me 4 luxury resources that he now no longer wants to trade...) but at least I have some peace with the rest of the world. Oh and he is hostile now towards me but I got a decent fleet by now.

SilverDash,
Based on what you've said, I think this game is still well within your grasp with some skillful diplomacy and good ol' human intelligence being superior to artificial intelligence. As Keirador said, you can't just snipe his capital and claim a domination victory any more. I would still build a coalition against him... if you take some key cities, including his capital, Hiawatha will sue for peace and give you very favorable conditions. If you don't think you can handle his army, let him come to you first and just defend for a while until you've destroyed all his forces, then counterattack. Without his capital, he'll be too crippled to challenge you for a science victory.

No it's domination only. But I got it covered now.
- leading in science again
- keep your empire happy
- got most city states (14 votes for me now w/o hosting) and Hiawatha controls the other 12 votes so we can do whatever we want.
- world ideology + embargo's on all enemies
- iron curtain (saves me 400 gold per city)
- I'm like 5 turns away from nukes and secured about 20 uranium by conquest.
- I finished all small civs and left them some small crap city to chew on.
- Hiawatha loves me. I denounced him but after it expired he immediately loved me again. I also donated him some crap cities that I took over like some artic ones. I can still heal my ships on it because he is my ally + he is taking the hapiness and science penalties and such and attacks from the other civs on it.
- I noticed that voting and making the proper proposals will make everyone love me even though I warmonger a bit (much). Also having lots of allied city states helps in keeping peace?
- holy crap the AI still sucks really hard even in BNW when it comes to sea combat. With (I believe double) range promoted b-ships they just sail passed my b-ships and don't even notice that they get attacked? Or they just want to kill one of my cities and ignore all else. Also their admirals and land units are almost always unprotected when boarding the sea.
Not to mention how 2 subs can sometimes sink an entire fleet of 10-15 units... Sad. They want to surround my subs and if they can't they often just refuse to attack and just sit next to my subs idling for I dunno why...

Soon I have the other half of the world and then I will gather all my ships (which are a lot by now) and nukes and go for Hiawatha's capital plus the Spanish capital that he conquered. Should be really easy. ~10 nukes per city and then holding it. But damn, almost 400 turns...
Still, even though some civs have only like 2-3 crap cities left, they still build fleets so fast that it makes my head spin... The cheating = abnormal.


So things that you can do so a civ likes you or at least won't dow you that easily:
- donate useless lux or gold or cities
- trade routes
- proper proposals + proper voting
- allied city states
- denouncing enemies that, that civ dislikes
- having a medium sized empire (not too small, not too big)
- a big as possible army, culture and faith
- no genocide and as less city capping as possible
- open borders?
- having nukes <<< biggest factor even though you never have enough to deal any real damage.
Pillaging, dow-ing, and couping city states doesn't seem to do anything.