Better to eliminate a Civ completely or leave them one city?

G

Gary King

Prince
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Dec 24, 2005
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If I capture the last city of a Civ, then from what I understand, I will receive an EXTREME warmongering penalty among ALL Civs. So it's often recommended to just leave the Civ with one city, preferably a bad one, such as one located in tundra.

However, sometimes it seems preferable to take the last city. For instance, sometimes the last city happens to be the capital, and so it is usually their best city. The last city would end up being the capital if it is located at the back of the Civ's lands, for instance.

Also, if I leave a Civ alive rather than eliminating them completely, then they usually Denounce me, and sometimes other Civs will follow suit, perhaps ruining some of my Friendships.

So, is it usually best to leave the Civ with one city? In what cases would you still eliminate a Civ?
 
Number one rule of Civ V diplomacy: Thou shalt not apply the coup de grace.

Get an ally to do that for you so that the AIs get mad at him instead.

However, when conquering someone; bypass their useless cities and focus on the cities they have that matter so they'll still have a useless one when you take their capital.

And if you are really worried he'd denounce you, just stay at war. Even if the fighting has stopped, as long as no peace treaty is signed he can't denounce you.
 
Okay thanks, I wasn't aware at just how damaging to relations eliminating a Civ would be, but you have confirmed it for me. Before I knew anything, I'd of course eliminate Civs, but once I learned about it, I eliminated Civs about 50% of the time. Now, I'll try to keep that at about 90% of the time, with the 10% of the time I will eliminate the Civ when the whole world already hates me or something.
 
There is one exception, though - you can exterminate any civ as long as you are not discovered by the remaining ones.
 
In my current game, Dido DOWed me, so I wiped out all her cities but one. Then I had a big army but nothing to do with it, so I DOWed my next neighbor, Austria. Immediately after the DOW, almost all the other Civs denounced me. I'm guessing that they are better friends with Austria than with me? Even though I was Friendly with at least a few of them.
 
its not like it used to be where you leave them one city and they dont hate you as a rule.. now each city you take generates additional AI warmonger hate towards you.. obviously completely eliminating a civ compounds the matter.
 
It seems always better to leave them with one city. Preferably a useless tundra troll city :)

In fact, its best to only annex one city total (their capitol), and get anything else in a peace trade. Peace traded cities don't cause war monger hate, as it is a trade negotiation.

There have been many times I have DoWed and just waited for the peace deal to grab a City, then just sell it off to someone else. great tactic.
 
Is it possible to build some cities just for the purpose of giving it away to a target civ so that they will have so many useless cities and if you take one of their good cities -their capitol for example- at that time it will not hurt your reputition too much?

I haven't tried this tacktic yet but it sounds wonderful ;)
 
Remember that the warmonger penalty you get for taking a city is proportionate to the number of cities your enemy has left. If you're invading a warmonger, one trick is to take all his original cities, then invade the puppets and liberate them. That way you get a bonus for destroying his last cities instead of a penalty.
 
erkanus said:
Is it possible to build some cities just for the purpose of giving it away to a target civ so that they will have so many useless cities and if you take one of their good cities -their capitol for example- at that time it will not hurt your reputation too much?

I haven't tried this tactic yet but it sounds wonderful ;)
Click to expand...

Yes, but founding a city has costs:
-building a settler causes growth stagnation
-rush buying settlers costs gold, better spent some other way (probably)
-Culture costs of your next policy increase when you drop the city. It will drop back down i guess...

but, if your OK with that, then planting a city next to one AI and selling it to another is a good way to promote border tension.

Personally, I think its better to DoW, then take a small city in a peace deal. Then sell it to someone else. This costs you almost nothing (minor diplo hit for the DoW).
 
Gary King said:
In my current game, Dido DOWed me, so I wiped out all her cities but one. Then I had a big army but nothing to do with it, so I DOWed my next neighbor, Austria. Immediately after the DOW, almost all the other Civs denounced me. I'm guessing that they are better friends with Austria than with me? Even though I was Friendly with at least a few of them.
Click to expand...

Being the one that DOWs someone else also hurts diplomatic relations. It would have been better to wait for Austria to DOW you.
 
Are there tricks to getting the AI to DOW me? I'm sure there are, but I can't recall any at the moment, and so I end up not using any of those tricks. I guess I could do as much as possible to make our relationship worse on purpose?
 
Gary King said:
Are there tricks to getting the AI to DOW me? I'm sure there are, but I can't recall any at the moment, and so I end up not using any of those tricks. I guess I could do as much as possible to make our relationship worse on purpose?
Click to expand...

Yes that would be a good trick if any.
I usually make the AI hate me for every aspect and keep my military weak enough with old units (and ready for upgrading) so that the AI thinks that they can beat me and DoW. But some times this does not work and simply I wait for ages with nothing but denouncement by that target civ. Following by a chain reaction that every other civ in the game end up denouncing me :D
 
Gary King said:
Are there tricks to getting the AI to DOW me? I'm sure there are, but I can't recall any at the moment, and so I end up not using any of those tricks. I guess I could do as much as possible to make our relationship worse on purpose?
Click to expand...

I find that the penalty for declaring war seems pretty small. I just DoW when i feel the need. Annexing cities through war is costly. Dont be the First to do this or you will loose trading partners or worse. Back in GnK it was far worse to DoW, but now its pretty painless.

the best strategy seems to be to ferment tension between others somehow, and once a few others have been at war or capture a city, you should have no problem doing the same.
 
You need to be small and have several red points in diplomatic relation. I never had a DoW when I'm quite good in Demographics army value. AI bash and denounce me, but rarely DoW. Only warmonger went against me after a war where I took their capitals or main other cities.
 
In my last game I tried this one: I just DoW my neigbour and started to weaken their army and attacked the first target city. After 10-12 turns I was just about to take the city. But instead I accepted the peace deal they offered me and took the city without hurting their population :)

I think if I do this until they have only one city (the capital) and then take that city by force will save me a lot of warmonger hits.

The main down side of this tactic is that you have to take just one city at a time in most cases.
 
erkanus said:
...
The main down side of this tactic is that you have to take just one city at a time in most cases.
Click to expand...

Most cases, yes.
Remember, its a trade negotiation screen.
No reason not to offer them something in order to try and get a better city / more cities.
Also, Often if you refuse and keep spanking them they will offer more 3 turns later.

I am not suggesting you brake the bank or anything, but if you are going to get a new, already improved lux in the deal, offering a copy of one of yours to get the right city is not a bad idea.
 
Okay thanks, all good tips.

Although personally, I find that if I am strong enough to go to war, then I am strong enough to eliminate a Civ completely. By then, the biggest problem is the happiness, so usually I wait until I've got an Ideology so I can pick a tenet that gives me huge happiness, like +2 for Monuments or something.
 
JeSuisNapoleon said:
Most cases, yes.

Also, Often if you refuse and keep spanking them they will offer more 3 turns later.
Click to expand...

I didn't know that. Is that 3 turns valid every time or it is generally speaking?
But in any case that is definitely a good idea ;)
 
erkanus said:
I didn't know that. Is that 3 turns valid every time or it is generally speaking?
But in any case that is definitely a good idea ;)
Click to expand...

You have to still do damage to its cities or kill units. Peace treaty seems to be base on you potential damage.
If you raze its army, you'll have more if you can also shoot cities.

I had a game where an AIoffer treaty peace with only a few gold. I wait some turns and went again to negotiate peace. Offer was weaker, because I freeze my aggression.
 
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