How is the (early) warmonger penalty different than human reactions in multiplayer?

[bbbt]

So there's continual complaints about the warmonger penalty. Right or wrong, I'm guessing firaxis added it to make the AI more 'human' like in it's behavior in this respect.

Basically, you're playing a 6 player mutliplayer game, start of the classical era. Everyone is plugging away happily, you're building a few units and wonder-whoring, when player 6 declares war on player 5, and 15 turns later, player 5 has been wiped from the map.

Isn't the basic reaction "Oh <snip>" - player 6 is on the warpath? He needs to be stopped, or I'm next!"

That's seems to me what Firaxis was going for. Granted, I'm not sure the AI needs to be too human-like (cultural victories would be untenable), but that's what I think the intention was.

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[joshua43214]

why do we need another apologist thread for the warmonger penalty?
Not all of play MP, not all of us want to play MP, not all of us even want the AI to be more "human like."

the problems with the warmonger penalty have been hashed over to death. Everything from entire civs being basically obsoleted, to being unable to take away a city that the AI settled right on your caps borders.

If the AI was really playing more "human like," then the AI would know that settling right on my cap will result in war.

 

[Aristos]

why do we need another apologist thread for the warmonger penalty?
Not all of play MP, not all of us want to play MP, not all of us even want the AI to be more "human like."

the problems with the warmonger penalty have been hashed over to death. Everything from entire civs being basically obsoleted, to being unable to take away a city that the AI settled right on your caps borders.

If the AI was really playing more "human like," then the AI would know that settling right on my cap will result in war.

Now that is an exaggeration (and a poor argumentation... "apologist thread"? => Ad Hominem).

I can proof, with in-game experience and with code, that the warmonger penalty is "easily" handled, quotes because it is not really easy as in "press green button" but as in "you have to work on diplomacy, plus use some countermeasures, plus use a good timing for conquests"... it has made warmongering harder, which is a welcome change, but far from impossible. You just need to put the "work" on the diplomatic and strategic balance now, before going on a conquest spree, or be prepared to assume/pay the consequences. Exactly as it should be.

This is not Panzer General with cities in between anymore, as the original "designer" envisioned... it's a little more than that now.

 

[joshua43214]

Now that is an exaggeration (and a poor argumentation... "apologist thread"? => Ad Hominem).

I can proof, with in-game experience and with code, that the warmonger penalty is "easily" handled, quotes because it is not really easy as in "press green button" but as in "you have to work on diplomacy, plus use some countermeasures, plus use a good timing for conquests"... it has made warmongering harder, which is a welcome change, but far from impossible. You just need to put the "work" on the diplomatic and strategic balance now, before going on a conquest spree, or be prepared to assume/pay the consequences. Exactly as it should be.

This is not Panzer General with cities in between anymore, as the original "designer" envisioned... it's a little more than that now.

With respect, you are simply wrong.

Rome settles a city right in your 5 ring. There is no way to get around the diplo penalty for this, period. The best you can hope for is to get the city (which was probably poorly placed to begin with) in a peace deal, there is no "diplomacy" angle you can work this early in the game.

Like I said, this is just another apologist thread for a horribly broken mechanic that was clearly never beta tested, and a total fail on Firaxis' part.

 

[Aristos]

With respect, you are simply wrong.

Rome settles a city right in your 5 ring. There is no way to get around the diplo penalty for this, period. The best you can hope for is to get the city (which was probably poorly placed to begin with) in a peace deal, there is no "diplomacy" angle you can work this early in the game.

Like I said, this is just another apologist thread for a horribly broken mechanic that was clearly never beta tested, and a total fail on Firaxis' part.

Nope. You are wrong. How come I never have this problem? Of course, I actively try to avoid it happening (many measures, maneuvers, etc, but I leave that to you as the beauty of this game is, among other things, to try and discover ways to play it).

What I can tell you is: it is possible, as long as you want to play the game with a strategic, long term approach and are willing to try/explore/adjust many different tools/tricks...

 

[Sagax]

You just need to put the "work" on the diplomatic and strategic balance now, before going on a conquest spree, or be prepared to assume/pay the consequences. Exactly as it should be.

Shrewd diplomacy being a must in the Medieval-Renaissance Era. Early warmongering getting penalized more severely than in the Modern Era when the whole World Congress watches you.

I understand the reasoning behind discouraging early domination, but the current execution is just illogical. By this logic going to war nowadays should be a non-issue.

 

[Vitruvius]

Rome settles a city in your 5 ring, how is that Romes fault. If he is a liberty domination player he will settle cities anywhere he wants and eventually want to settle over you. Why not just suck it up and settle with whats left. Its your fault for not settling that spot before him.

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[Aristos]

Shrewd diplomacy being a must in the Medieval-Renaissance Era. Early warmongering getting penalized more severely than in the Modern Era when the whole World Congress watches you.

I understand the reasoning behind discouraging early domination, but the current execution is just illogical. By this logic going to war nowadays should be a non-issue.

I understand your point, although I am not sure of the complete validity of it. First, regardless of what we think, it is clearly a game-balancing feature, and one that also was clearly needed to make the end game viable in BNW (and anyone can remember how much complain, or bragging, there was in these forums about ending the game pre-300 in standard, which was just ridiculous even before BNW, and would be completely broken with BNW).

Second, I am not convinced that War is less penalized in the end game. Depending on some environmental factors, the WC penalizes the warmonger with decisions that some times (many?) are even worse than a diplo modifier... go and attack a very liked, and diplomatically supported civ and see what happens... of course, if the target is an isolated, influence-less civ with almost zero or small importance in the world, then the WC may not penalize the warmonger... (exactly as in real-politik, if you ask me... ).

 

[Syailendra]

Rome settles a city in your 5 ring, how is that Romes fault. If he is a liberty domination player he will settle cities anywhere he wants and eventually want to settle over you. Why not just suck it up and settle with whats left. Its your fault for not settling that spot before him.

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rome is playing great, but the mechanic is broken. Say, irl, you have neighbour spit on your shoe in front of everybody, then you chalange him on a fair boxing match. If you win should you be the bad guy of the neighbourhood?
Or other way, a man mug you in an alley, you fight and you win then take his gun for a prize, should you be the bad guy?

 

[Aristos]

rome is playing great, but the mechanic is broken. Say, irl, you have neighbour spit on your shoe in front of everybody, then you chalange him on a fair boxing match. If you win should you be the bad guy of the neighbourhood?
Or other way, a man mug you in an alley, you fight and you win then take his gun for a prize, should you be the bad guy?

No it's not. Using your own example, if you challenge said neighbour to boxing, and then paint the road with his face, you are still the one defending a principle (although in the political-correctness infested 1st World, this may not be possible)... but if you go and take his house after beating him, then you will surely be seen as "overaggressive"...

In civ5, you go and beat the heck out of Rome, demand the city in the peace settlement, and if the beating was enough, Rome will concede, and then you have a new city without the warmongering penalty.

 

[joshua43214]

Nope. You are wrong. How come I never have this problem? Of course, I actively try to avoid it happening (many measures, maneuvers, etc, but I leave that to you as the beauty of this game is, among other things, to try and discover ways to play it).

What I can tell you is: it is possible, as long as you want to play the game with a strategic, long term approach and are willing to try/explore/adjust many different tools/tricks...

Are we even playing the same game? What long term strategic approach can you possibly be thinking of? He settles my land, cranks out a carpet of death, I have to sit around like a sissy and wait for the DoW, get the rest of the AI (who probably likes him more than me anyway) to DoW him with non non-existent gpt, then still get penalized if I take his expo in a peace-deal, and get an even bigger penalty if I torch the useless thing.
This is better?!? This is more "human like?" It is broken pure and simple. To make matters even worse, the "improved" mechanic for where the AI settles makes it even more likely that you will get forward settled by a more "peaceful" AI. I said it when the patch was released, and I will say it again - the fall patch is a pile crap that was never properly tested, and it has not been balanced because all the dev's at Firaxis tend to read are the apologist threads like this one.

Rome settles a city in your 5 ring, how is that Romes fault. If he is a liberty domination player he will settle cities anywhere he wants and eventually want to settle over you. Why not just suck it up and settle with whats left. Its your fault for not settling that spot before him.

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The AI regards forward settling on them as an act of aggression. I am not allowed to also treat it like an act of aggression? Where am I going to get this settler from anyway, since it seems to be my fault that I do not start with an extra settler and I do not get a massive bonus to production? Even if the AI goes tradition, the AI can crank out settlers faster than I can if I go liberty.

I would just like, at the very least, to be able to DoW and destroy an aggressive civ who decides he wants to settle my territory.
For the life of me, I do not understand why you folks think it is ok to have my diplomacy ruined for the entire game just because I started next to Rome/Washington/Hiawatha/etc.

 

[bbbt]

? If you take the city he settles near you, it's not going to 'ruin your diplomacy for the entire game'. If you take a bunch of cities or knock him out of the game, that definitely causes problems.

 

[Aristos]

Are we even playing the same game?

With all due respect, Joshua, we are playing the same game, but not the same way, obviously. If you have the same object, exactly the same, and two users of the object arrive at different results, then it's not the object that is different: it's the users.

Now, I don't want to qualify your play style nor anything similar, as that only leads to flame wars (if you take it that way, now that is your problem), but I would suggest to you to try some more, try and try, it's fun, and I am sure you will find some of the not-so-few ways of managing warmongering (let's call it "rational warmongering" to differentiate from the boring "kill-the-suicide-AIs" of the past) without "ruining your diplomacy"... I just did, Immortal level, I just obliterated Theodora completely, and am not suffering any diplomatic consequence whatsoever. This was Immortal, and Theo was both liked and powerful. It was just a perfect mix of manipulation, liberations, and timing.

But if you want to use your time complaining, well... enjoy. I am done with trying to help in cases like this.

P.S.: about the extra settler --> this shows to me that you are not considering all the possibilities... did you know that a settler is not subject to the "pass-through" rule? In most combinations of terrain, it is very easy to keep a settler at bay with 3, max 4 units of any class. That is what I mean by active management of the game, since the early turns: explore, explore, explore, and if you see it coming, block-block-block. If you don't, well, then it can be argued that it was your fault to have a foreign city at your doorsteps.

 

[andxtiltone]

I think that there should be no diplo penalty in the ancient/classical era, and the only in the renaissance era does it turn on. I mean, it's not fair when you want to take a couple of cities, maybe a capitol, next to you because you have no where else to settle, and then you now have enemies for a majority of the game.

 

[Aristos]

I think that there should be no diplo penalty in the ancient/classical era, and the only in the renaissance era does it turn on. I mean, it's not fair when you want to take a couple of cities, maybe a capitol, next to you because you have no where else to settle, and then you now have enemies for a majority of the game.

But then you have runaways (human or AI), and pre-300 finishes, and that ruins the long term prospect of the game... pre-BNW, this was a matter of preference (do you want to win at the earliest vs do you want to prolong the experience?), post-BNW it's just not an option anymore, because it ruins the end-game where most of the strengths/features of the expansion are.

 

[Infantry#14]

It's really too bad warmongering gets in the way. I wished the game let us take over a neighbor or two for the sake of expansion instead of building settlers.

 

[joshua43214]

With all due respect, Joshua, we are playing the same game, but not the same way, obviously. If you have the same object, exactly the same, and two users of the object arrive at different results, then it's not the object that is different: it's the users.

Now, I don't want to qualify your play style nor anything similar, as that only leads to flame wars (if you take it that way, now that is your problem), but I would suggest to you to try some more, try and try, it's fun, and I am sure you will find some of the not-so-few ways of managing warmongering (let's call it "rational warmongering" to differentiate from the boring "kill-the-suicide-AIs" of the past) without "ruining your diplomacy"... I just did, Immortal level, I just obliterated Theodora completely, and am not suffering any diplomatic consequence whatsoever. This was Immortal, and Theo was both liked and powerful. It was just a perfect mix of manipulation, liberations, and timing.

But if you want to use your time complaining, well... enjoy. I am done with trying to help in cases like this.

P.S.: about the extra settler --> this shows to me that you are not considering all the possibilities... did you know that a settler is not subject to the "pass-through" rule? In most combinations of terrain, it is very easy to keep a settler at bay with 3, max 4 units of any class. That is what I mean by active management of the game, since the early turns: explore, explore, explore, and if you see it coming, block-block-block. If you don't, well, then it can be argued that it was your fault to have a foreign city at your doorsteps.

Sure I have done the same thing. The problem is that this a mid/late game thing when you have some surplus gpt for bribes and you have already established some positive diplomacy. I also find it is rather rare when you can get everything to just pull together and get no visible negative diplomacy.

As for being forward settled on, we are talking the first 50 turns of the game. My scouts are out scouting, not sitting around blocking settlers unless I just happened to see the settler enroute - in which case I steal it if I can. Deity is even worse, I can't count the times I have had the AI just drop a city on my doorstep because it was the first place they found with good food.

Seriously though, why should I ever pay a diplomatic penalty for killing off a forward settled city? Why should I have to go through any diplomatic hoops at all? I should just be able to denounce and DoW an aggressive expansionist, and the AI should shower me with DoF's for doing it.

As for "ruining" the late game stuff that BNW is all about, BNW is still out of balance late game, and I avoid modern era like the plague in domination. I am just not interested in turtling up late game so that I can finish up with OP units. For peaceful games, modern era is just a lot of moving spies around and spreading the dough to keep the AI at killing each other - not something I am interested in doing for an extra 50 turns if I can help it.

 

[zukenft]

Firaxis headquarters, during BNW fall patch:

"hey, we should fix the AI for the fall patch"
"nah, too much work. just make the AI hate the player more"
"not even the tactical AI?"
"dude, I'm still losing on prince"

 

[bbbt]

If I have a close neighbor, I usually camp about two units (say an archer and a warrior/spearman) near his capital. As soon as a settler comes out, I usually DoW him and take my free worker. I basically continue doing that until I've settled where I want to settle.

 

[Makavcio]

It's very different!

You've attacked them! I hate your guts now and I will hate you forever and ever!

LoL, Maka, you so crazy DoWing all these guys in turn 3!