Everybody happy until sudden stockpile

I played my first game tonight, to learn the ropes i switched down to emperor.
I actually like the absence of total early agression, it was getting tedious after some games in succession. The early game was all buddy-buddy, two DoF with my neighbours, despite a border struggle with one.

This all changed suddenly when i had some surplus happiness and decided to settle a 6th city. It seems the Rexing days of the AI are also done, they expanded quite slowly (not a bad thing) so i had some space to settle into.

My one friend got concerned about me settling to many settings, and out of the blue denounced me. My other friend liked them better and followed. A few turns later i had two other denouncements, one hostility-declaration and two DoWs.

The DoW seemed quite ill prepared, the one i was warned about never sent any troops, the other placed a few into the slaugherfields of my fortified border city.

As two city states sent me Trebuchets i was able to go offensive after ~10 turns and take one of their 4 cities.
Trying to re-sell luxes i was quite surprised to find all other civs (but the Mongols, i guess they don't care) branding me was a warmonger.

Other civs declare on me, and i am a warmonger? Is that a new mechanism? I did not have a single war before, never even touched a CS worker, the sole influence were two DoWs on me and a single city i captured.

I wonder how that will be on deity, if all your trading partners and friends suddenly decide to go after you - all at once. Seems the AIs are even more inclined to do so now, with the peaceful early game.
Maybe you have to spice things up artifically and get some AIs to declare on eachother very early, might be difficult without a big income.

slowcar said:

Other civs declare on me, and i am a warmonger? Is that a new mechanism? I did not have a single war before, never even touched a CS worker, the sole influence were two DoWs on me and a single city i captured.

Click to expand...

I've been saying since day #1 that this needs to be changed. The only way you should get declared a warmonger is if (a) you did the actual DoW or (b) you get involved in a war with a Civ that has a Defense Pact or DoF with the third party civ that's denouncing you...if that makes sense!

Aussie.

I agree with Aussie. The one declaring war should get the warmonger branding

I agree too. I think if they declared war, I should be allowed to ignore at the very least one truce request and not be branded a warmonger. Some truces are a complete joke anyway. I have a massive army standing next to their capital and they have almost nothing to fight with, and they offer me zero in return for a truce. What madness is that?

Even if I destroyed them, surely I am not that monger. Imagine if the world thought that the UK & US (et al) were warmongers for winning WWII (nukes not withstanding).

cairnsy44 said:

I agree with Aussie. The one declaring war should get the warmonger branding

Click to expand...

Wait a min, so you can get the warmonger label just by actually being at war? Really?

cairnsy44 said:

I agree with Aussie. The one declaring war should get the warmonger branding

Click to expand...

I'll offer up a few caveats though. If someone has a DoF with the Civ declaring war, then you might get branded a "warmonger" if you refuse a peace offer from the *real* warmonger. Also, if you were previously denounced by the Civ declaring war, then *neither* side should get a warmonger penalty (the Cassus Belli defense). Lastly, if it was clear that you were acting against their interests over a long enough period of time-settling where they asked you not to, spying on them when they'd asked you not to, or constantly undermining their diplomatic relations with City-States....then you should get the Warmonger Branding, even if you didn't do the actual declaring ;-).

Aussie.

Aussie_Lurker said:

I'll offer up a few caveats though. If someone has a DoF with the Civ declaring war, then you might get branded a "warmonger" if you refuse a peace offer from the *real* warmonger. Also, if you were previously denounced by the Civ declaring war, then *neither* side should get a warmonger penalty (the Cassus Belli defense). Lastly, if it was clear that you were acting against their interests over a long enough period of time-settling where they asked you not to, spying on them when they'd asked you not to, or constantly undermining their diplomatic relations with City-States....then you should get the Warmonger Branding, even if you didn't do the actual declaring ;-).

Aussie.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Nobody should get branded a warmongerer for the AI's "Lets not let war define who we are, now give me three cities" peace offers.

Aussie_Lurker said:

I've been saying since day #1 that this needs to be changed. The only way you should get declared a warmonger is if (a) you did the actual DoW or (b) you get involved in a war with a Civ that has a Defense Pact or DoF with the third party civ that's denouncing you...if that makes sense!

Aussie.

Click to expand...

Its know based on cities so yeeah you are a warmonger if you take cities

Well, I am not sure if what you tell is that off... say we are talking about real nations, for a while. Nation A wants to conquer its neighbour B, but does not want to appear as the aggressor, so it just pushes and pushes as much as it can, even trespassing borders and settling inside what B considers its territory. A pushes so much as to practically force a reaction from B or make B risk losing all respect from others, so B reacts. Now A has its excuse and goes conquering a key city or two from B.

Who is the warmonger?


P.D.: a defensive war of some nation that is not a warmonger, is happy with destroying the invading army to the point of winning the war (either by not losing anything or by getting reparations). More than that and the "self-defence" excuse is dust.

Aristos said:

P.D.: a defensive war of some nation that is not a warmonger, is happy with destroying the invading army to the point of winning the war (either by not losing anything or by getting reparations). More than that and the "self-defence" excuse is dust.

Click to expand...

Expect most of the time when you're fighting a defensive war, if you want it to end, you have to invade to make the AI reconsider it's thoughts about annexing all of you.

Callonia said:

Expect most of the time when you're fighting a defensive war, if you want it to end, you have to invade to make the AI reconsider it's thoughts about annexing all of you.

Click to expand...

this is the unfortunate side of the peace treaty code for the AI. It's not sophisticated enough to understand it's lost a war when it's lost most of it's army. It takes doing damage and threatening a city before it'll look for peace.

Granted, even if an AI lost all of it's units, I'd expect it to sue for white peace or minimal gold/lux for peace. Never a total loss unless everything is lost.

Callonia said:

Expect most of the time when you're fighting a defensive war, if you want it to end, you have to invade to make the AI reconsider it's thoughts about annexing all of you.

Click to expand...

I have seen different. Beating their army (and/or navy) is sometimes enough to get a peace deal with reparations; depends on the situation, but I had the experience (including BNW... I did not accept, of course, because that Siamese capital was just "wonderful"... literally ).