Why the warmonger penalty is unrealistic...

GhostSalsa said:

I do adapt - I have adapted - I'm bored because all my Immortal games are starting to suffer from extreme déjà vu. I've played a lot of games where I did all the enemy-selecting just right and got to conquer and conquer while being friends with everyone -

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You know there's more than one way to win right?

GhostSalsa said:

It's boring because I'm conquering other people's enemies. Because diplomacy only has one meaning (massage alliances and judge timing - be a conniving spider) out of 1000 possible ones -

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Then stop playing it that way.

GhostSalsa said:

What if I want to just carry out a grudge with my neighbor and not throw away the game?

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So, do what you want with no consequences.

GhostSalsa said:

What if I want to just be a little petty and simplistic and not throw away the game?

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Then accept the consequences.

GhostSalsa said:

What if I want to conquer with my Winged Hussars which by the way I've tanked my tech progress now to open metallurgy before they obsolete - you know get some use out of these Unique Units that I essentially paid for with I bought the expansion - instead of waiting until post-ideology to conquer like always - and not throw away the game?

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LOL. I paid for my copy of the game too, that obviously means that I always have to win, exactly how I want. /sarcasm

This kind of attitude that you are entitled to win your way because you paid for it is just sad. You assume there is only one way to win, therefore it must be correct despite people saying the contrary.

GhostSalsa said:

The warmonger penalty lets you only play one way. Sit around passively and play nice and then swoop in on the bad guy just before the other civ's units take their city - then get ideology and do whatever you want with bombers.

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No, there's you know simply not killing the other civ, or taking their cities, or many other ways.

GhostSalsa said:

I want to play other ways.

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No. You want a game that caters to your every whim. It seems you are obsessed with using war to win or accomplish anything in the game. You want Declare War to basically be an I Win feature without any repercussions.

I've yet to have Warmonger be a problem for me, and I've not played the diplomatic backstabbing that you seem to think is the only way to win. I've wiped out civs before they met others and not gotten penalties, I've had warmonger status drop off in a reasonable period of time, I've won without using what is basically an exploit to avoid warmonger status.

What I see is whining.

SemperFi2382 said:

What I see is whining.

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Of course it is. You're arbitrarily defining your extremely narrow playstyle - either conquer super-early or only attack unpopular civs - as multifaceted and my suggestion for alternate playstyles - aggression for fun without boring calculations of who is the imaginary dimplomatic bad guy this round, and wanting to use early UUs that are completely worthless in the current game balance - as the "only play one way" faction. That's false, I'm tossing the rest of your unhelpful reply. You're not whining because the game is letting you play the one way you want. Congratulations on being happy and not wanting the game to be better or more diverse.

I want to point out that I'm already playing games with successful diplomacy and lots of warfare most of the time using all the suggestions the penalty-defenders bring up. So it's backwards to claim that people who want less penalty are unwilling to play more than one way. We want to play more than one way.

It's also very illustrative that I've had two games where the BNW warmonger penalty got me chain-denounced and tanked my diplomacy and in both games I was Poland. It's illustrative because all the current game pressures vis-a-vis tall empire bias and limiting pre-ideology expansion can be summed up as: You will be punished for settling mid-game, you will be punished for conquering mid-game.

Poland offers a really cool unit for mid-game warfare so naturally I want to use it rather than ignore this unique feature and play them like a vanilla civ. In both games I was invaded by neighbors who had strong militaries but only settled 3 cities.

It's mind-boggling that the current state of the game is you can 1: be Poland 2: be invaded in the Renaissance era 3: be completely punished by a vital game mechanic (diplomacy) when you win. Why give Poland a Renaissance unit at all??? Why give any civ a Unique Unit???

Game mechanic-wise we get penalized for taking a significant step towards victory in taking out a civs capital. Why dont we get penalized for building the Eiffel tower - a significant step towards a culture victory ?

Same for hubble telescope, or ISS. Why no diplo difficulty for taking these steps to victory ?

There is only this extreme diplo dance required for the Domination victory.

I accept that in BNW about half of a domination victory is diplomacy (as per Magma_Dragoon's excellent article) ...

...but, I dont need to do very much of this diplo at all for all the other victory types . Why ?

GhostSalsa said:

It's mind-boggling that the current state of the game is you can 1: be Poland 2: be invaded in the Renaissance era 3: be completely punished by a vital game mechanic (diplomacy) when you win. Why give Poland a Renaissance unit at all??? Why give any civ a Unique Unit???

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You don't have to eliminate the aggressor or even capture their cities to "win", the other AI considered your actions overkill and responded appropriately. I've had similar experiences where I was invaded by smaller civs with strong militaries... I butchered their military units, captured their civilains and pillaged every tile I could see and when I was bombarding their cities down to nothing, they sued for peace offering me all but their capital. I got no warmongering penalty for that and it was quite a win as that civ never recovered from the damage I inflicted (and was soon eliminated by another AI).

mice said:

Same for hubble telescope, or ISS. Why no diplo difficulty for taking these steps to victory ?

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I'm sure the turtle-players would be screaming on the forum in a second if "clearly sees the threat you pose to the world" was suddenly a modifier on every single AI after the player made Leaning Tower... Then we could tell them "oh you whiners just need to play the game right and not make that tower ok"

Then go play a war game. This is not a war game, nor should it be.

Some thread titles complaining about how war overshadows the other elements of the game:
BNW Must Fix Science Victories to Allow Late-Game War
Is there a way to prevent early wars?
Constant War: Can't sue for peace!
Why i want the war-weariness back in the expansion!
So this is basically a war game no matter how you play it

Barghaest said:

I butchered their military units, captured their civilains and pillaged every tile I could see and when I was bombarding their cities down to nothing, they sued for peace offering me all but their capital. I got no warmongering penalty for that and it was quite a win as that civ never recovered from the damage I inflicted (and was soon eliminated by another AI).

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And if their capital has wonders (in both my games they had really good ones)? Again I want to point out that it's very costly to tech to metallurgy in time to leverage Poland's UU - and most UUs - because the push-back only works if I get Hussar on the field before the AI has rifling. Teching to Metallurgy delays Scientific Theory and gives up my chance to get late game wonders. What is me the player's compensation for this? There is none. There is none. If I'm being sensible I play to Poland's UA and ignore their UU and come on the forum and act like the game doesn't have a UU-exploitability deficit right now.

Poland deserves to be able to conquer a capital mid-game.

Magma_Dragoon said:

Then go play a war game. This is not a war game, nor should it be.

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Every civ has a UU. A specifically designed/modeled character that looks and acts different just for them. Why all this production from the devs if I'm not supposed to use it? I'm referring to the accepted argument that in BNW with the lack of profit in early war, early-UU civs currently get no benefit from their UUs and essentially suffer opportunity cost compared to civs with strong UAs and UBs.

I don't accept that all early and mid-game units essentially being window-dressing that I should never build and never use counts as an ideal game balance.

GhostSalsa said:

And if their capital has wonders (in both my games they had really good ones)? Again I want to point out that it's very costly to tech to metallurgy in time to leverage Poland's UU - and most UUs - because the push-back only works if I get Hussar on the field before the AI has rifling. Teching to Metallurgy delays Scientific Theory and gives up my chance to get late game wonders. What is me the player's compensation for this? There is none. There is none. If I'm being sensible I play to Poland's UA and ignore their UU and come on the forum and act like the game doesn't have a UU-exploitability deficit right now.

Poland deserves to be able to conquer a capital mid-game.

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Could care less if AI has wonders in their capital. I've razed cities containing wonders because I didn't like where the AI built the damned city or the fact they built wonders that give different Great Person progress (Pyramids and Great Library - my OCD has fits when I see this as I theme my cities and hate for captured ones to screw up my lovely patterns). Things like this make me wish cities were limited to one world wonder but that's out of the question because of the way they did Venice.

You can conquer a capital mid-game with only a Minor penalty assuming you aren't conquering every other city the empire has or it isn't the only one they have left. Around late Medieval/early Renaissance it's entirely feasible to snag multiple capitals and not be hated by all AI (earliest period for easy win via Domination). You don't have to capture every city a civilization owns to get their capital... especially with fast units like Winged Hussar.

The sport of setting friends against enemies, making friends into enemies with eachoter is fun and interesting . It is mandatory for the domination game to ensure trade partners throughto the point where you are powerful enough do without them.

For the three city tall science game you only need one or two trade partners and all your trade rtoutes will remain intact all game if you can stay peaceful.

So for the three city science or culture game you need significantly less diplomacy interaction with the AI

How many times have you said to yourself “Hm things are pretty good – I think I’ll just go for space “?

‘Just’ go for space really means not have to deal with the diplo game extensively for each AI civ

GhostSalsa said:

...aggression for fun without boring calculations of who is the imaginary dimplomatic bad guy this round...

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Well you just said it there yourself: aggression for fun. How do you think people would react if you just randomly started assaulting your next door neighbour just because you found it fun? How do you think other school-children would react if one of their peers started bullying and beating up other kids just because they enjoyed it? How do you think a nation would react if it's neighbour started firing missiles at everyone because it gave them a chuckle?

You CAN play however you want. If you want to go on a bloodthirsty rampage, pillaging land, slaughtering enemies, and conquering cities, just because you find it fun, then you can. If you want to eradicate other cultures through bloodshed, just because you enjoy it, then you can. If you want to spam nukes at every other civ, just because it gives you a chuckle, then you can. But others Civs can do what they want, too. Every time someone such as yourself talks about how much they don't like the warmonger penalties, it sounds like they would just be content if every civ on the map would just lay back and do absolutely nothing as you rolled into their territory with units, conquering all of their land, and their allies land. Simply put, this is not just a war game - this is a strategy game. This is a game where you have to balance multiple features and systems in order to achieve victory. This is a game which involves war AND diplomacy, culture AND science, economy AND production. War is not the only feature of the game, and if you treat it like it is then you're going to have some serious problems.

In short, you CAN do whatever you want, go ahead and be a bloodthirsty warmongering psychopath in every game. But if you do, then there are going to be consequences. As Newton said, "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Your actions have consequences, that's sort of the overarching message of history.

GhostSalsa said:

I don't accept that all early and mid-game units essentially being window-dressing that I should never build and never use counts as an ideal game balance.

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Just because a Civ has a UU doesn't mean they have to go on a city-capturing/civ-eliminating rampage. I make quite good use of Aztec Jaguars to cripple my opponents - or boost myself - early in the game without taking a single city. Few UUs are designed solely for city attack (Battering Ram and Siege Tower are... as are a few others) they are designed to give control of the battlefield. An Aztec Jaguar is no better than a Warrior for attacking a city, but they can devastate armies. They're just as useful to defend against early AI zergs as they are to set an opponent back... and lurking in the jungle between empires to snag sacrificial offerings really boosts my Social growth.

GhostSalsa said:

Every civ has a UU. A specifically designed/modeled character that looks and acts different just for them. Why all this production from the devs if I'm not supposed to use it? I'm referring to the accepted argument that in BNW with the lack of profit in early war, early-UU civs currently get no benefit from their UUs and essentially suffer opportunity cost compared to civs with strong UAs and UBs.

I don't accept that all early and mid-game units essentially being window-dressing that I should never build and never use counts as an ideal game balance.

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Its amazing how you fail to look at this from every other point of view. Lets say we did as you say, lets take it to some extreme and remove warmonger hate.

How have we made the game better? How in any way have I made more ways to win? I haven't. I have now reduced the game down to only a war game.

And you talk about wonders as if they don't have consequences. They do.
"You have built wonders we coveted"
There is an easy diplo one. But there is one even more than that. Lost production time. If I am building the leaning tower, that is a lot of production I will not get back, especially if I DON'T complete it. That production could have gone towards something else, like military. So now a war happy person can just easily take my thing that I worked for to produce with their military units and I shouldn't be upset about that?

If I was playing against humans, and I conquered one of them early, do you think the others would forgive me late in the game?

Hell, I play with a group of guys, was mean to them when they were new to the game ( took them all out easily) and THEY STILL RESENT ME FOR IT. They now always gang up on me no matter what. The AI is nice in that it won't remember my past transgressions from game to game. It just remembers what I did during that game, which seems fair to me...

This topic is whining.

GhostSalsa said:

Of course it is. You're arbitrarily defining your extremely narrow playstyle - either conquer super-early or only attack unpopular civs - as multifaceted and my suggestion for alternate playstyles - aggression for fun without boring calculations of who is the imaginary dimplomatic bad guy this round, and wanting to use early UUs that are completely worthless in the current game balance - as the "only play one way" faction. That's false, I'm tossing the rest of your unhelpful reply. You're not whining because the game is letting you play the one way you want. Congratulations on being happy and not wanting the game to be better or more diverse.

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Wrong.

I never advocated the narrow play style. You basically read part of the sentence and assumed it did. I distinctly said "I've yet to have Warmonger be a problem for me, and I've not played the diplomatic backstabbing that you seem to think is the only way to win. I've wiped out civs before they met others and not gotten penalties, I've had warmonger status drop off in a reasonable period of time, I've won without using what is basically an exploit to avoid warmonger status."

I'm not whining because I'm not playing Civ like a war game, you're whining because you seem to think that is all civ is about. You don't have to take another civ's cities, you don't have to go to war willingly, you don't have to play cloak and dagger politics.

It's clear that since you aren't actually reading replies to this thread, you are in fact just whining that the game doesn't cater to your will. War is not what civ is all about. I've played entire matches without going to war, and surprise, it's not only quite enjoyable, it isn't as impossible as you make it out to be.

The main annoying thing about the diplo hit IMO is when you are about to conquer someone and on the turn before you take their city, you meet a new civ from across the ocean. Arrrgh. It's not exactly unrealistic but it's really annoying that because you have no previous relationship, they immediately get mad about you wiping out a civ they only just met.

isau said:

The main annoying thing about the diplo hit IMO is when you are about to conquer someone and on the turn before you take their city, you meet a new civ from across the ocean. Arrrgh. It's not exactly unrealistic but it's really annoying that because you have no previous relationship, they immediately get mad about you wiping out a civ they only just met.

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Think about it from their perspective.
They just meet you, and the first thing they see you do is conquer another civilization, kill their soldiers with yours, burn their land, and sack their city. First impressions mean a lot, especially ones as brutal as that.

Talcove said:

Think about it from their perspective.
They just meet you, and the first thing they see you do is conquer another civilization, kill their soldiers with yours, burn their land, and sack their city. First impressions mean a lot, especially ones as brutal as that.

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Me: Oh hi!
Askia: Hey there.
Me: (seeing the razed city in the background) Uh, barbarian problem?
Askia: No. They were uh, really mean to me.
Me: (backing away) Ah. Well, I'm gonna get back on my boat and we'll chat later.
Askia: It's not what it looks like...
Me: Sure pal.

mice said:

Game mechanic-wise we get penalized for taking a significant step towards victory in taking out a civs capital. Why dont we get penalized for building the Eiffel tower - a significant step towards a culture victory

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Because the weak AI cannot wage war effectively. With its bonuses it has no problem wonder spamming.

I'd like to voice some concern over the warmongering penalty too. I'm aware that sometimes there are other factors that influences some AIs attitude towards you. Such as "they think we build cities to aggressively" despite them having twice as many. And before I start, I would also like to add that I like a mechanism as the warmonger penalty though it's a bit flawed. I like that you can erase some warmonger penalty by liberating although it could be a exploitable. And overall its not horribly bad, but just frustrating every now and then when you think the system is not logical.

The AI loves to forward settle. Had gotten myself a nice city location and China shows up and plopping her fourth city four tiles from my city. I'm India and of course plans to have workers in most of the third ring radius. China also has the Great Wall, so time is of the essence if I want that city gone. DOWd and razed it and aqcuired Shanghai too through a peace deal. That doesn't award you a warmonger penalty if I'm correct. This, was followed by denouncements from the rest of the continent because I razed a whopping 25% of the Chinese civilization. Denouncements for the next 3000 years and wars waged against the Turks and Dutch. As a human player you just have to put up with those sorts of provocative actions from the AI while they sometimes happily sit and watch themselves wage war against each other.

I need to add that I perhaps didn't help myself by capturing Istanbul from the Turks later on after the Dutch and Turkish double DOWd. I also think I DOWd China on another occasion to grab yet another settler heading my way and gaining another city through peace deal. I sold it back for a ridiculous sum, but again, that shouldn't affect. Now I know that you would point to these actions by me to explain the eternal hatred... but this is where I get so frustrated. The Turks have captured a city state which should give him an extreme warmonger-penalty. He has also been weakened through war, so one should think he should have recieved more hate than he got.

Oh well. I still like this game a lot and will continue to play it although I will continue to be dismayed by the fact that the AI who forward settles and get the city razed will have the international community's sympathy. In just this paricular case there might have been "coveting lands" modifiers too that influenced, but this is a pattern I've noticed in other games I've played.

And this wasn't meant as a rant and I hope not all of you just ignore my post. Sometimes it's so hard to predict AI behavior and I don't believe I'm terribly unskilled with diplomacy because most of the time it works just fine and goes according to plan.