Avoiding the "warmongering menace to the world label"

All well and good the only problem is that I am on a giant earth map, with domination only victory. I guess that means we are all warmongers don't it, AYE!????

Never give them open borders.

Am I the only one who actually likes the diplomacy system here, and feel the previous games have been too forgiving?

I mean, first, if a country declares war irl, the rest of the world will naturally react to it, and probably not in a good way... If you goo too agressive you will eventually be viewed (perhaps rightfully so) as another Hitler or Saddam.

Second, it helps balance the game slightly away from war. It would tip the game very much in favour of conquering if no one would care once a nation was wiped out.

Third, it gives (at least I think) the diplomacy some more finesse, since you can more easily create alliances against warmongers, not forcing you to always match all other nations military. That is, if you know how to make friends that can help you if you are attacked. But I bet those who have a hard time making friends with the AI never bothered to check in on the global politics diplomacy screen too often. Like in poker, if you can't spot the sucker at the table, it's probably you.

To answer the thread topic: See who likes who and declare friendships and denouncements accordingly. It's very important to do this, even when going for conquest. Make sure to only attack nations that most other nations don't like, or at least the ones that the powerful nations don't like. If you both declare friendship, have the same friends, have traded recently and denounced the same nation(s) for example it can easily balance out the bad from warmongering. If you on top of that can get them to declare war at the same time as you it's just icing on the cake. If you play it right most will be friendly with you and one leader will be the "Ghadaffi" whom all other hates. It's also very funny to watch the scapegoat get the modifier "they believe you are trying to win the game in the same way as they are, and they don't like it".

they key to avoid warmonger status is to neither start nor finish the war. You can take as many cities as you want if you didn't start the war - except the last city. And city states count the exact same but they only have one city, so you can never take over city states without some kind of penalty.

So if you want to have a good rep, get the AI to declare first, don't take their last city, and never conquer CS's. Pretty simple actually.

Well, technically, if you are conquering cities and wiping out civs, you are a warmongering menace to the world, so they are right to label you so, and to hate you for it. Remember, they're trying to win as well.

When you generally make insults to them or respond in a negative/threatening manner to them, does this affect any OTHER civ's perception of you? (For example, if they say "you're settling too close!" and you respond "Deal with it!" or something like that)

I wonder because armed with the knowledge in this thread, now I want to try to find as many ways as I can to make civs attack me without me being considered a warmonger. Also would make those binary responses a little more strategic (as currently I always just pick the "nice" response).

Wait, so that three times smaller civ next to me dares to insult me while my military has more effective weapons and outnumbers them 5:1? No idea of self-preservation there.... If I knew that civ B right next to me is a warmongerer and five times stronger, it wouldn't cross my mind to go and f*ck around with their leader.

slackerpants said:

Am I the only one who actually likes the diplomacy system here, and feel the previous games have been too forgiving?

I mean, first, if a country declares war irl, the rest of the world will naturally react to it, and probably not in a good way... If you goo too agressive you will eventually be viewed (perhaps rightfully so) as another Hitler or Saddam.

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I get that point. On the flip-side though there should be some sort of time element where the UI forgets past actions over time favoring what you've done lately to react to.
For example, I've had many games where I expanded out early, finished an early war conquering my nearest neighbor. Finished by 1000 BC. Then from that point on in the game I tech and build. No wars, no aggression at all. By the time 1900 AD rolls around every other Civ should not be labeling me a warmongering menace to the world.

Plus it removes a strategic element from the game; why ever bother trying to form and maintain an alliance in this game ever? If you're winning it's out the window. It's out the window if you're pacing the AI too. And additionally I'll never be able to be backstabed or backstab an ally (a fun strategy available in past Civ games) because I never really have allies.

Further, I'd argue that the City-State solution is just bothersome and historically inaccurate. City-States in history remained City-States because they were continuously conquered and subdued but never lost their own culture. Diplomacy-wise there really should be no real penalty for conquering them; only positives for liberating them from other Civs. And if you take a Civ's capital that controls City-States, those City-States should go autonomous again.

If done right, players would be viewing City-States as pre-built cities... maybe with Unique City-State only buildings or something to entice wanting to control them.

(sorry for the tangent heh)

Zenstrive said:

Never give them open borders.

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I keep seeing this over and over again, but I don't really believe it affects relations or DoWs at all. I always sell open borders and I have had no problem maintaining good relations with at least a few other civs (even when I've conquered several civs and have 200% power over the next most powerful civ). Can anyone confirm one way or the other?

Pazyryk said:

I keep seeing this over and over again, but I don't really believe it affects relations or DoWs at all. I always sell open borders and I have had no problem maintaining good relations with at least a few other civs (even when I've conquered several civs and have 200% power over the next most powerful civ). Can anyone confirm one way or the other?

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The problem is not the open border or DoF agreements. The problem is once they have them, the next thing asked for is free resource X or X amount of gold to help an ally. If you turn it down you get negative marks for turning down a request.

So this then becomes forcing you to tediously watch for when a worker finishes working a resource tile so you can sell it before the turn is up to the highest bidder.

chazzycat said:

they key to avoid warmonger status is to neither start nor finish the war. You can take as many cities as you want if you didn't start the war - except the last city. And city states count the exact same but they only have one city, so you can never take over city states without some kind of penalty.

So if you want to have a good rep, get the AI to declare first, don't take their last city, and never conquer CS's. Pretty simple actually.

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My God man, then how are you supposed to win a Domination Victory?

Pazyryk said:

I keep seeing this over and over again, but I don't really believe it affects relations or DoWs at all. I always sell open borders and I have had no problem maintaining good relations with at least a few other civs (even when I've conquered several civs and have 200% power over the next most powerful civ). Can anyone confirm one way or the other?

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the trick seems that open borders prevent the AIs to look at your cities and your militaries. So if you maintain pace in technology, resources, and money, they will always see you as something to look up to, not to eat away. Hence the friendships.

I always have problems with AI gang-banging me after I open borders to all of them. Without opening borders, I befriend them all.

Until my border meet their borders, then they got nervous.

What no one sad anything about are denouncements. Do they have effect?

I do not know code, but by logic you denounce civ and the when you declare war you state they are bad boys so you have to war them. It should reduce DOw negative effect, it probably does.

I work as waring, I do not like you expect war. So civ do not get upset as mach if declared by open enemy.

Well I always try to denounce civ before declaring. throuth I am not sure how it works.

codepoet said:

I get that point. On the flip-side though there should be some sort of time element where the UI forgets past actions over time favoring what you've done lately to react to.
For example, I've had many games where I expanded out early, finished an early war conquering my nearest neighbor. Finished by 1000 BC. Then from that point on in the game I tech and build. No wars, no aggression at all. By the time 1900 AD rolls around every other Civ should not be labeling me a warmongering menace to the world.

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I agree it's silly that it stick so long, it should decay eventually. But it's the same as with unit movement, it takes the fastest modern unit several years to cross the earth, and an ancient unit can't do it in less than a couple of hundred years. I think you have to see it a little bit from a meta perspective. I guess they didn't want us to wipe out civs completely. And really, it's much better just requiring to take their capitals, in the old games it often ended up with just 2-3 civs controlling all earth which was kind of boring. This way you still have some civs to interact with, and you can still benefit from RA's with civs that "lost" to another nation. Also, are you sure you didn't attack any CS? Just wiping one civ shouldn't be that bad.

codepoet said:

Plus it removes a strategic element from the game; why ever bother trying to form and maintain an alliance in this game ever? If you're winning it's out the window. It's out the window if you're pacing the AI too. And additionally I'll never be able to be backstabed or backstab an ally (a fun strategy available in past Civ games) because I never really have allies.

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This I don't get at all. You can make allies, and it's useful if you pick the right ones. It's also nearly impossible to keep an alliance through an entire game, and it seems you're saying that's what you're looking for? The AI do ally and backstab each other any way.

codepoet said:

Further, I'd argue that the City-State solution is just bothersome and historically inaccurate. City-States in history remained City-States because they were continuously conquered and subdued but never lost their own culture. Diplomacy-wise there really should be no real penalty for conquering them; only positives for liberating them from other Civs. And if you take a Civ's capital that controls City-States, those City-States should go autonomous again.

If done right, players would be viewing City-States as pre-built cities... maybe with Unique City-State only buildings or something to entice wanting to control them.

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Sure it's not historically correct. Some of the City States in the game were not city states in history but rather part of a nation, and some of the great nations cities were actually city states in history. Better just see City States in the game as small nations.

But the thing with City States is that they ARE pre-built cities, fresh for the taking. It's far too valuable. They didn't exist in the previous games, the only cities available was the ones built by other great nations. If there was no penalty for taking the CS's you could just go on conquering cities without ever being in war.

Mutineer said:

What no one sad anything about are denouncements. Do they have effect?

I do not know code, but by logic you denounce civ and the when you declare war you state they are bad boys so you have to war them. It should reduce DOw negative effect, it probably does.

I work as waring, I do not like you expect war. So civ do not get upset as mach if declared by open enemy.

Well I always try to denounce civ before declaring. throuth I am not sure how it works.

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I did mention them, they don't have that effect. I get the feeling a lot of players don't understand this game mechanic. It's just for telling the world you don't like a leader. The effect is that, if you have denounced the same leader as another did, you get a diplomatic bonus because you agree. It's similar to having the same declaration of friendship as another leader.

@zentrive that is terrible advice I have no trouble when I sign open borders with civs, if anything I usually find that this makes them more a little more friendly

also you can use this to tell if the relationship is starting to sour - if they suddenly refuse a straight open border deal then you need to keep an eye on them. I suspect the ai views things the same way

Its only the deceptive civs that you have to look out for wrt open borders - and they will probably declare on you anyway - Alex I'm looking at you

@slakerpants I agree, I too quite like civ5 diplomacy, you have to work with the system to make it work. 90% of the time it all makes sense with only the occasional what the???? and with the latest patch its gotten much better thanks mostly to the shared war bonus. friends with friends and enemies with enemies is really key.

Your actions have diplomatic consequences so you actually have to weigh each action because you may loose a friend if your not careful.

is declaring war worth it, is taking that extra city state ally work it, is taking that capital worth it, is killing of this civ worth it, do I really need that wonder...

@codepoet your wrong about not having allies so no backstabs.

Had a great game was friends with ghandi (same continent) and washington (near continent). we all had some shared wars against catherine & napolean who played the villians nicely (the tick is not to kill them off completely so everyone can keep hating them).

Eventually washington (tech leader) starts acting like a pig agressively colonising on my continent and upsets ghandi - so it looks like I'm going to have to choose sides.

Washington is in danger of running away so I keep him busy by bribing him to war first with Arabia then with ghandi (I'm worried about ghandi sneaking culture) and figure that this should keep them all nicely busy. Trouble is washington starts kicking ghandi's butt and taking cities - I was going to wait for my DOF with ghandi to expire to join in so I wouldn't get the backstabber penalty.

But then washington hits future era and I panick with a carrier with nukes nicely positioned off washingtons coast (just in case) I strike. I nuke his uranium, placing my nukes so that its can radius hit 2 cities at once for effect. kick him off my continent. take a bunch of cities that he'd taken off ghandi, then invade his continent supported by bombers, then stealth bombers, liberating a few city states into the deal. a dozen or so turns later and washington just has a city or two on some desolate island in the middle of the ocean.

It was one of those perfect backstabs a thing of savage beauty

What fun is it to let civs live. In domination the idea is to kill all the worlds capitals. Why should I take a CS as an ally when I can take it over. To me that is more interesting.

What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

@jdog5000 Wow, thanks for that great breakdown. I "knew" much of it, but not in that kind of detail and I found it very interesting and helpful.

Regarding the pissing match over open borders: I think you're both correct. It all depends on your difficulty setting, your skill, and your circumstances. If you have a "weak" military in the AI's view, granting them open borders will very often precipitate DOWs. This is because with open borders, they can see your territory and your military strength.

If you're weak and keep your borders closed, you can often get lucky and they won't know your strength and are less inclined to DOW. If your military is on equal footing or is stronger, then you may see Open Border partners like you MORE after signing the agreement.

But there is no doubt whatsoever that you need to be careful signing open borders, unless you're already dominating or the AI is far far away.

For the record, I sell open borders to everyone early in the game (usually) but stop selling to near neighbors in the mid-game.

Well, I have never sold open borders after I know that post patch they tend to march tons of warriors inside my borders and declare wars three turns afterward. That's when I already got archers and pikemen in my borders guarding cities and resources.

And then there's this instant when I was between Russia and Iroquois and they march their soldiers inside my borders when they were waging war and four or five turns later they both declare war on me, with no reasons whatsoever, while they were still waging war with each other.

So open borders no more!

nokmirt said:

My God man, then how are you supposed to win a Domination Victory?

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You're not, not if you care about your reputation. My advice was just answering the question on how to avoid the warmonger hit, and demonstrate that it's possible to engage in limited wars without real diplomatic consequences. There is a distinction between fighting a couple wars to gain land/power, and going for domination victory. Domination victory, by it's very nature, makes it impossible to avoid being branded a warmonger (eventually). You can't have your cake and eat it too.

chazzycat said:

You're not, not if you care about your reputation. My advice was just answering the question on how to avoid the warmonger hit, and demonstrate that it's possible to engage in limited wars without real diplomatic consequences. There is a distinction between fighting a couple wars to gain land/power, and going for domination victory. Domination victory, by it's very nature, makes it impossible to avoid being branded a warmonger (eventually). You can't have your cake and eat it too.

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It seems the AI civs can have their cake and eat it too, why not the human. The whole thing is unrealistic. I am the least warmongerer among all the civs I have met, yet I am the outlaw. In any case, it does not matter, I have done far more damage to them. But it is just too draggy and no fun. For one thing a civ would realistically not be able to afford permanent war, besides every army needs to be rested and refitted at some point, on top of that it would be political suicide. The point is this diplomacy in CiV is just boring and lame.

Please firaxis fix this and the AI and make the game fun! Let me know when its fixed. Its not only me but several people I know are getting tired of these patches which are supposed to make a difference are really not. People are not going to continually spend money on a game that remains broken.