Liberation bonuses without a warmonger penalty?

Are liberation bonuses meaningful if you don't already have a warmonger penalty, or do you need to make you that you don't liberate until you've already taken the penalty?

I suppose this is really asking if your warmonger penalty can go negative (even if other civs treat that as zero).

how are you going to liberate a city without being at war? And to take that city, you will get a warmonger penalty, before you can liberate it.

Do you? I was under the impression that (if you liberated), you got a liberation bonus instead of the warmonger penalty (or at least that the liberation bonus was significantly larger than the warmonger penalty, such that you can rehabilitate your reputation by liberating).

TLHeart said:

how are you going to liberate a city without being at war? And to take that city, you will get a warmonger penalty, before you can liberate it.

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Well, not necessarily. You can acquire a city thru a trade or peace deal that did not belong to you, and be given the option to liberate it, hence acquiring a liberation bonus without the warmonger penalty.

How that works, I dunno, but there are code people here who can tell you that part.

Chum said:

Well, not necessarily. You can acquire a city thru a trade or peace deal that did not belong to you, and be given the option to liberate it, hence acquiring a liberation bonus without the warmonger penalty.

How that works, I dunno, but there are code people here who can tell you that part.

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but that means you are still at war. Can not liberate a city without being at war.

TLHeart said:

but that means you are still at war. Can not liberate a city without being at war.

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If you are gifted or purchase a city, you absolutely can.

TLHeart said:

but that means you are still at war. Can not liberate a city without being at war.

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Never heard of a rule like that. It's just that most of the time you acquire another civ's city, it would be by war.

Another thing I thought of is a conquered city defecting to you through cultural pressure. You might be able to liberate that, too. No war.

Afaik you don't get a warmonger-penalty for just "being at war" anyway, as long as you're not the one who started it.

^ This. Plus, this question is still an important one. The easiest way to clarify is with a hypothetical.

Situation 1: Greece is at war with Morocco, and has conquered Marrakech. I go to war with Greece. I capture Athens, racking up some substantial warmonger penalty. Then I move on to take Marrakech, liberating it and restoring it to Moroccan rule. The liberation bonus cancels out a good portion of my recent warmonger penalty. Morocco loves me, neutral civs are still neutral, so I have obtained Athens with very little diplomatic consequences.

Situation 2: Same setup, but I send my troops straight to occupied Marrakech. After liberating it, I move on and punish Greece by conquering, and keeping, Athens. It's the same result on the map; question is, is it the same result diplomatically. I.e. since I had no warmonger hate when I freed Marrakech, was the liberation bonus wated? Or is it stored and applied against my future warmonger penalty for taking Athens?

Any pros around here know the answer? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yes. I want to know as well. Basically OP's question is, can warmonger score go negative?

Let me give another example from my latest game.

I was at war with Greece. I planned to take Athens. Greece had also captured Heliopolis from Egypt previously. Since that was my first war, my warmonger score was at zero, plus whatever I got from declaring war. If I liberated Heliopolis before conquering Athens, would some of the liberation bonus be "wasted", so to speak? If so, in that example, that would make taking Athens before Heliopolis the optimal choice.

Liberation bonus? Never heard of it.

Tell you what does annoy me no end.... when you liberate a city-state IT SHOULD BE YOUR ALLY FROM THEN TO THE END OF THE GAME.

This isn't 'we gave you some gold'. This is 'we brought you back to life'. It should count a heckuva lot more than it does. I don't think I'm ever going to liberate again.

Ryika said:

Afaik you don't get a warmonger-penalty for just "being at war" anyway, as long as you're not the one who started it.

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You get 250 points added to your warmonger score every time you DOW, which translates to on average 1.25 points of hate. I think the score generated for a DOW is halved with every other civ who's already at war with the civ you've just DOWed, like conquering cities is.

To answer the OP in my experience I believe you can't have a negative warmonger score(ie a liberation score). I've liberated first then took cites and incurred the usual hate. If I do it the other way around I usually get away with it.

Sherlock said:

Liberation bonus? Never heard of it.

Tell you what does annoy me no end.... when you liberate a city-state IT SHOULD BE YOUR ALLY FROM THEN TO THE END OF THE GAME.

This isn't 'we gave you some gold'. This is 'we brought you back to life'. It should count a heckuva lot more than it does. I don't think I'm ever going to liberate again.

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I agree that the bonus for liberating a city-state does not keep you allied nearly long enough.
It should at least double. I don't agree that it should be permanent.