Does the game now favor peace over war?

[bonafide11]

I'm glad that Brave New World expanded the peaceful game and made it easier and even more fun to win without being a warmonger, but the more I play, the more I think it's easier to win by just completely avoiding early and mid-game war. The repercussions, in particular happiness and diplomacy, for warmongers are so significant and long term that they end up setting your civilization back quite a bit, and it's difficult to overcome them.

Civilizations with early military advantages are actually a bit of a double edged sword because while you can conquer your neighbors, it will anger the rest of the world, which will hinder your trade and trade routes, while also causing your happiness to plummet, which will slow your growth, production, gold, GPP, and research. Sure, the Zulu are powerful enough to conquer any civilization that they choose in the early-mid game, but good luck keeping up with the AI once you start taking cities and your diplomacy and happiness dwindles.

Civilizations with advantages in culture, tourism, research, religion, gold, etc. have none of the negative consequences that militaristic civilizations have to suffer from. Neighboring civilizations will watch and remain friendly with me as I peacefully become 100% influential over their civilization, but if I dare take another civ's city, they won't forgive me for the rest of the game.

Ideally, the game should have an equal strategical balance between warmongering and peaceful playing. Of course, you can still win by warmongering, but my point is that it's significantly more difficult than playing a peaceful game. In previous versions of Civ, I've always believed that warmongers got favored, but I think Brave New World reversed that too much, and I hope an upcoming patch will balance it more so warmongers aren't excessively punished.

Thoughts?

 

[joncnunn]

Well, the game has never favored long wars of attrition.

Also, against the AI you don't need a good UU to win a war against the AI. The standard ones will work if you use them correctly.

And if you remember to leave your victim one useless city instead of wiping them out, you'll have a less lot warmonger penalty.

 

[LostJB]

I'm not sure that I agree with the premise that Warmongering and Peacemongering should be equal options. War is and should be a high-risk, high reward strategy.

I recently won a Cultural Victory while playing peacefully. So this game I decided to go more warlike- so far I'm satisfied. I went war with the Netherlands to gain my second, third, and fourth city. And cities with much more Pop than I could have settled. Now I also did this opportunistically while Dido was also at war with them. So that war actually improved one of my relationships. On the other hand, I got the warmongering penalty with Spain causing a DoW. I lost most of my trade fleet. However, the Civs on the recently discovered new content don't seem to care. So new trading partners! I think if you're cautious in your warmongering and are keeping up good relationships otherwise- it can be a good way to go.

 

[LostJB]

And if you remember to leave your victim one useless city instead of wiping them out, you'll have a less lot warmonger penalty.

Very very important point there.

 

[bonafide11]

And if you remember to leave your victim one useless city instead of wiping them out, you'll have a less lot warmonger penalty.

Maybe it will be "a lot less" warmonger penalty if I leave them a city, but just taking a few cities of theirs is still enough to give a significant warmonger penalty, and that is a major diplomatic hit that can last the entire game. So, from my experience, leaving them a city doesn't solve the problem because you're still getting the warmonger penalty regardless.

 

[Babri]

I disagree with OP. In my most recent game as Assiyria, I warmongered as hell. Eliminated Gandhi, captured Rome, Athens, Sparta & even an unlucky CS ally of the Greeks. Yes I have many enemies but out of 10, 2-3 are currently my best friends. And most importantly I am the most powerful nation in the world. If I would have just sit around, everyone on my continent would have grown powerful and Rome & Greece would inevitably team against me...

My conclusion is that with BNW it is important that you pick your enemies & friends. Don't declare war on everyone, do things step by step & denounce your enemies before declaring war on them.

 

[pwnerer]

After playing/winning only 2 games, I feel it does favor peace somewhat. However, it seems to be more logical war now rather than schizo world wars constantly, which i feel is more realistic. The end game really sets up a scenario where peaceful freedom lovers are going for space/culture wins vs order and fascist alliances that must attack to win. If you play peaceful/freedom correctly, you can really paint the AI into a difficult corner which makes war really almost impossible.

 

[regeneration64]

I disagree with OP. In my most recent game as Assiyria, I warmongered as hell. Eliminated Gandhi, captured Rome, Athens, Sparta & even an unlucky CS ally of the Greeks. Yes I have many enemies but out of 10, 2-3 are currently my best friends. And most importantly I am the most powerful nation in the world. If I would have just sit around, everyone on my continent would have grown powerful and Rome & Greece would inevitably team against me...

My conclusion is that with BNW it is important that you pick your enemies & friends. Don't declare war on everyone, do things step by step & denounce your enemies before declaring war on them.

I couldn't have put it better myself. War, if done right, can provide you with many many advantages. Wonders perhaps being the key ones. If you've got a potential runaway on your hands it is better to take them out rather than go head to head in the late game for that VC. You're doing something wrong (or have very peacefully-minded AI) if everyone hates you for warmongering.

 

[joncnunn]

Maybe it will be "a lot less" warmonger penalty if I leave them a city, but just taking a few cities of theirs is still enough to give a significant warmonger penalty, and that is a major diplomatic hit that can last the entire game. So, from my experience, leaving them a city doesn't solve the problem because you're still getting the warmonger penalty regardless.

The Civ V AI defines warmongling quite a bit differently than the human.
All it cares about is:

1. Who was the one who DOWed.

2. Who applied the coup de grace to a civ that was already down to its last city.

It doesn't care about capturing other cities at all.
This is even more exploitable if in advanced settings you turn on "require complete kills"; in this case you can leave the poor AI with just a military unit and no cities.

 

[Merciorum]

I've seen a fair few wars, but they're more rational and opportunistic than mindless attacks, like in G+K.

 

[bonafide11]

The Civ V AI defines warmongling quite a bit differently than the human.
All it cares about is:

1. Who was the one who DOWed.

2. Who applied the coup de grace to a civ that was already down to its last city.

It doesn't care about capturing other cities at all.
This is even more exploitable if in advanced settings you turn on "require complete kills"; in this case you can leave the poor AI with just a military unit and no cities.

This is certainly not true, as I've gotten the warmonger penalty without ever declaring war on someone or wiping someone out. The AI does too care about capturing other cities.

 

[bonafide11]

I couldn't have put it better myself. War, if done right, can provide you with many many advantages. Wonders perhaps being the key ones. If you've got a potential runaway on your hands it is better to take them out rather than go head to head in the late game for that VC. You're doing something wrong (or have very peacefully-minded AI) if everyone hates you for warmongering.

Based on the poll results, the vast majority of people disagree with you. War isn't just about stealing wonders -- it's a victory condition, and with the current game mechanics, it's the most difficult victory condition because the AI resents you for it at an early age and it's very difficult to balance your happiness while conquering cities, especially with an AI that won't trade with you. The AI or your own people do not grow angry at you if you play a peaceful diplomatic/cultural/space race game, but there are severe repercussions for playing a domination game, even from other aggressive civs. Once one civ denounces you, it's a chain reaction to get denounced by other civs.

 

[Atlas627]

Based on the poll results, the vast majority of people disagree with you. War isn't just about stealing wonders -- it's a victory condition, and with the current game mechanics, it's the most difficult victory condition because the AI resents you for it at an early age and it's very difficult to balance your happiness while conquering cities, especially with an AI that won't trade with you. The AI or your own people do not grow angry at you if you play a peaceful diplomatic/cultural/space race game, but there are severe repercussions for playing a domination game, even from other aggressive civs. Once one civ denounces you, it's a chain reaction to get denounced by other civs.

Its the only victory condition that actively makes others lose. The AI, like any normal player, SHOULD try to prevent themselves from losing. This is why they are irritated at the warmonger: they are a threat. Would you sign a research agreement with the tech leader, so he can get even further ahead of you?

The victory condition should be hard because of the resistance other civs put up. This includes diplomacy. The advantages toward other victories acquired by war are smaller, easier to get, and thus are more tolerated by other civs. I have eliminated 2 civs before, and as long as another civ who witnessed it all doesn't view me as a rival, it removed the warmonger penalty. Once I eliminated the 2nd civ and we were the only civs remaining, he denounced me, signaling to the non-existent other players that I was a threat.

Edit: And yes it does care about cities.

 

[Shimmler]

Dunno, I obliterated Sweden in Classical Era in my Russian campaign. Even though I have this infinite penalty (taht I broke my word about puting my troops away from their borders) I am considered by a world's general good guy.

 

[iggymnrr]

Favoring peace? Probably. Passivity may be a better term. There is a certain feel that a person can found the initial city and put the game on auto pilot for 50-75 turns, then begin doing something and still win. I think someone here recently came up with a Brazilian immortal strategy than basically did just that. (I think he built parthenon and CI with no workers?)

 

[Wuddel]

I am generally bad at fighting wars before dynamite. Building units and researching military techs even in the early industrial era, will just put you behind so much. I tried to do some early warmongering with shaka. I beelined the impi (only build buildings and HAnging Gardens/Petra before, so a pretty good start) But when I got them they already were outdated (on Immortal), the cities to strong, and even with 3-4 trebs you could only take them with heavy losses on the "sacrificial units". I managed to take out one civ, and had a pretty good highly promoted army which could easily roll to the next target. However China had already snowballed and was in Modern Era.

Wars favour the defender until dynamite. Not using all these Classical and Medival units seems a waste, but at the moment peace is the way to go. The Ideologies however are put there to let wars erupt though.

 

[regeneration64]

I couldn't have put it better myself. War, if done right, can provide you with many many advantages. Wonders perhaps being the key ones. If you've got a potential runaway on your hands it is better to take them out rather than go head to head in the late game for that VC. You're doing something wrong (or have very peacefully-minded AI) if everyone hates you for warmongering.

Based on the poll results, the vast majority of people disagree with you. War isn't just about stealing wonders -- it's a victory condition, and with the current game mechanics, it's the most difficult victory condition because the AI resents you for it at an early age and it's very difficult to balance your happiness while conquering cities, especially with an AI that won't trade with you. The AI or your own people do not grow angry at you if you play a peaceful diplomatic/cultural/space race game, but there are severe repercussions for playing a domination game, even from other aggressive civs. Once one civ denounces you, it's a chain reaction to get denounced by other civs.

I agree that the Domination victory is the hardest one to achieve in BNW. Whether this is a good or bad thing is open to debate.

I think the key to addressing the problems you raise in your post (AI resentment, happiness, trade problems, own people getting angry, denouncements) is to tread very carefully when aiming for a Domination victory. You're unlikely to be able to achieve it until the late game without crippling your civ so the most important thing is to wage war methodically. Pick your alliances, sign defensive pacts, use diplomacy, make note of which civs you are up against and which need taking out first. Sort your civilisation out first and don't enter into too many wars in the early ears.

In some games it will be extremely difficult to win a Domination victory because of the civs in a game; this (if choosing random civs) comes down to luck and in these situations Domination victory may not be the best way to go.

Domination victory difficulty aside, the point I was making in my previous post was that war, in general terms, still has it's place and can be used to the player's advantage. I can't stress how important it is to take out a potential runaway or wonder whore or risk losing that peaceful VC at the last minute.

In my current game I am aiming for a cultural VC (England, standard continents). I've eliminated my Byzantium neighbours and have very good relations with India, the Inca and Cartage. I've gone to war with the other three civs (France, the Mongols and the Zulus) and relations are strained but it's manageable through diplomacy. In this game, the Mongols are the best civ to trade with so I don't really want to be at war with them but you know what they are like.

 

[Arte_Et_Marte]

Firstly I think the combination of reducing the AIs desire to expand AND increasing the warmonger penalty based on the percentage of cities taken was a bad choice. For huge stretches of time in the early eras it's common to see the AI with 2 or 3 cities, and even if the resulting political suicide was worth it it's very rare for taking one city to be worth the time or effort to amass the army to do it. This leads to a spiraling problem of as soon as you take one city it makes more sense to just go full warmonger after that.

With the old system you could take nearly all of the AIs cities and leave them with a one pop' city in the arctic effectively taking them out of the game for very little political cost. Neutering or conquering a civilization should have high penalties, if you want to go full warmonger you should have to pay the cost. So the percentage penalty does make sense if the empires are large enough.

Border disputes and war should be common and rewarded, the occasional city changing hands isn't game changing and it spices up the game, it has a low effect and should have low repercussions. Taking over an entire empire and going for a domination VC isn't playing nice and will alter the balance of power, so you should suffer the most fallout.

I'm going to start a game on a huge map and see if the AI expands more, that could be the perfect balance I think.

 

[Sidor1982]

The game seems a lot more pacifistic now because you compare it to recent patch from G&K, which was a warmongoer extreme - everyone DoW on everyone all game long and without any reasoning.

My opinion is, that the game is way better balanced now and for the war loving gamers there is always MP, so everyone should be pleased. You can develop specific strategies basing on nation, map type, starting position etc. and not only go for army and DoW every single time (which, let's face it, was boring after a while). The declaration of friendship finally mean something (gold trading, some safety, RA's), leader personality finally corresponds to AI behaviour etc. Additionally peaceful gameplay gets you more benefits than wars - RA's, more cultural influence from open borders, trade routes and common ideology - all these benefit peaceful nations and the AI's following peaceful route have more chaces of succeeding.

On the other hand I've noticed an improvement in AI warfare. The AI is less likely to DoW, but when they do, they are better at it. Human player will of course always be better at leading war, but still - if you get caught off guard (no units, no money, weak defensive position), you will lose cities. Previously very often 1 archer was enough to defend, now it isn't anymore (on the other hand you can get a peaceful victory without any military, which wasn't possible on last patch)

 

[Arte_Et_Marte]

Additionally peaceful gameplay gets you more benefits than wars - RA's, more cultural influence from open borders, trade routes and common ideology - all these benefit peaceful nations and the AI's following peaceful route have more chaces of succeeding.

That's the problem, it's gone too far the other way. Your military barely matter anymore. In my current game the Chinese, Iroquis and the mongols have shared their borders up until the renaissance and there's not been a single war.

Even if you're not going for a science, culture, or diplomatic VC you still can't ignore those mechanics, but you can all but ignore warfare. As far as I can see if you put a token range unit in each of your cities then there's virtually no chance of being attacked.