When do I stop caring about warmonger penalty?

[larse]

Playing Russia, single player at Emperor in modern era. I am contemplating which VC to pursue. I have scientific as first prio, but domination is quite possible - even religious victory might work too.

I own ~80 pct of my original continent. The other continent is 50 pct bigger than mine and I have so far settled 1 city there - (safely) between 2 city states that I want to suzerize(?). At this point my warmonger penalty is ~-60. Does it matter much if this decrease any further? Every civ has denounced eachother.

 

[Karmah]

At some point, it doesn't anymore. Most of my games (if not, all) ends in a bullying feast anyway. I can't let the AI win and I m not good enough yet to do it peacefully on immortal. And even if I wanted to, I don't manage my diplomacy well enough. So it's an early war of expansion, followed by peace in the renaissance, then from mid industrial to the end its me vs the world. Not all at once but I alternate each relationship between hate and war. I tend to keep one ally, I m not sure how, probably because I start most war as joint war.

Now some people here, like the djinn or Victoria, did make a good case about managing good relationships, I m just not there yet.

 

[Felis Renidens]

For me if I got to the point where everybody hates me already I stop caring and if some civ is stupid enough to declare war on me I may go for elimination. But playing on chieftain-warlord I usually manage to keep good relations most of the time.

 

[gettingfat]

When my military is powerful enough so I actually welcome a war, and I realize it's impossible or too costly to meet their silly agenda. The agenda issues plus the different government alone will put the human player at double digit minus.... horrible design.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Wait, when did you START caring ?

 

[Felis Renidens]

When my military is powerful enough so I actually welcome a war, and I realize it's impossible or too costly to meet their silly agenda. The agenda issues plus the different government alone will put the human player at double digit minus.... horrible design.

I learned here a useful trick. Throwing an extra 100 gold (not much later in the game) in a trade deal will make them happy for a while. Also sending the occasional trade route in their direction. It does not always help but not much of a cost.

 

[Leyrann]

Typically I stop caring about warmonger penalties as soon as everyone hates me. That said, I try to play my peaceful games 100% peaceful, except for taking some cities if I get declared war upon early or if someone keeps declaring war on me.

 

[Felis Renidens]

And if someone forward settles me and then declares war on me it was actually my city all that time.

 

[larse]

A reason why I wonder is that I have to eliminate little Norway (ironic, me being Norwegian). I do have CB for territorial expansion. The war will be easy and quick - probaly in less than 5 turns. I WILL HAVE TO RAZE their marginal and recent city (Bergen) though, due to its provocatively bad location. Will this raze make warmonger penalty become too high to be relevant? I still have a quite strong Scythia left on my continent with a handful of cities, though they are increasingly preoccupied taking city states across the ocean. I do not want to disturb Scythia just yet because I hope for more wars overseas. Over there live culture+science hooker America, drunkard spying France and anachronistic England. London is by the coast and could easily be conquered by my nayy + 2 land units (for siege). Paris is further inland, but Washington DC lies in the middle of that other continent and could be a bit tricky

If I don't win by science then taking DC is a must. Perhaps I could catch Teddy off-guard sometime while he is proudly admiring some wonderful national park of his creation. To finish I may secure domination by taking Scythia's capital Pokrovka, which is bordering one of my encampments.

 

[Leyrann]

A reason why I wonder is that I have to eliminate little Norway (ironic, me being Norwegian). I do have CB for territorial expansion. The war will be easy and quick - probaly in less than 5 turns. I WILL HAVE TO RAZE their marginal and recent city (Bergen) though, due to its provocatively bad location. Will this raze make warmonger penalty become too high to be relevant? I still have a quite strong Scythia left on my continent with a handful of cities, though they are increasingly preoccupied taking city states across the ocean. I do not want to disturb Scythia just yet because I hope for more wars overseas. Over there live culture+science hooker America, drunkard spying France and anachronistic England. London is by the coast and could easily be conquered by my nayy + 2 land units (for siege). Paris is further inland, but Washington DC lies in the middle of that other continent and could be a bit tricky

If I don't win by science then taking DC is a must. Perhaps I could catch Teddy off-guard sometime while he is proudly admiring some wonderful national park of his creation. To finish I may secure domination by taking Scythia's capital Pokrovka, which is bordering one of my encampments.

It depends. If you raze a city, you get triple the warmonger penalty, but if it's a small city, that reduces the warmonger penalty compared to normal, plus you have a (minor) reduction from your CB. If Norway only has some three cities then it should be allright, though you also get a warmonger penalty for extinguishing a civ.

If everyone already hates you, nothing of that matters and war is simply your standard method of diplomacy.

 

[joncnunn]

The new patch might have somewhat delayed when it hits; but once all the world hates you, it's effectively infinity already and any additional can be ignored entirely.
So effectively there's only a limited window in which you might not want to raze cities in bad locations: Between you entering Classical era and you being denounced by everybody.

 

[Felis Renidens]

With the last city it seems a bit strange though. Taking the city is double _surprise_ war, razing is triple _formal_ war. So it seems razing the last city will cause less warmonger penalty. Either way it will be enough to get you denounced for the rest of the game.

 

[Left Foot]

Warmonger penalties just don't factor in my game-play.
I've had friendly AIs surprise DOW on me, I just figure that making an effort to keep good relationships with the the AIs isn't worth the opportunity cost of not expanding in their territory to get what I need.
Also, if any AI declares war on me at any time during the game, I activate my righteous vengeance streak, which means that they're fair game to me for the rest of the game. So having a double or triple negative warmonger score doesn't really change anything.
I usually play King level, and try to alternate between Science, Cultural and Domination victories. Playing for a religious victory doesn't seem very interesting to me and never bother with it.

 

[Thibaulthc]

Only reason why I sometimes try to maintain good relationships at the beginning and middle of my games is to get good deals for my extra luxuries and strategic resources.
Once I cant stay friend with anybody, I Just stop caring and crush everybody who stands on my path or is close to victory.
I can't wait for the return of the United Nations and diplomatic victory.

 

[Leyrann]

Warmonger penalties just don't factor in my game-play.
I've had friendly AIs surprise DOW on me, I just figure that making an effort to keep good relationships with the the AIs isn't worth the opportunity cost of not expanding in their territory to get what I need.
Also, if any AI declares war on me at any time during the game, I activate my righteous vengeance streak, which means that they're fair game to me for the rest of the game. So having a double or triple negative warmonger score doesn't really change anything.
I usually play King level, and try to alternate between Science, Cultural and Domination victories. Playing for a religious victory doesn't seem very interesting to me and never bother with it.

Those friendly AIs, any chance that was mostly in the Ancient and sometimes in the Classical era? The later the game goes, the more reason an AI needs to declare war.

Also, sounds to me like you're calling the "all AI hate me" over yourself. The game is built in such a way that early wars happen very often, which means that you'll have one or more most likely every game. If they're then "fair game" to you for the rest of the game, and you attack them 3000 years later, then everyone else is going to hate you for starting a war, of course. If you want to conquer stuff without everyone hating you, do it early, do it fast. Later in the game, do not take more than one, maybe two cities. Take one more than you intend to and then give that last one back in the peace deal, and the AI you conquered the city from won't even hate you.

In my current game (now Industrial Era) I've played this way. Early on, I got declared a joint war by Persia and India. Being Australia, I turned it around, conquered all of Persia and made peace with India. Slightly delayed my first Classical Era tech to not get any warmonger penalties for this. Then playing an expansive but peaceful game, having two civilizations worth of land to expand (mine and Persia). In the medieval era, Russia declared war on me with a surprise horsemen rush. I fought it off, went on the offensive, took his two cities bordering my lands, then took St Petersburg, let him cede the two cities on my border, gave him St Petersburg back. Total warmonger penalty: 15, gone 30 turns later, as this is how warmonger penalties work. I got 3 denouncements during this time, right now there's 1 or 2 still standing (I've barely played beyond when the warmonger penalty was gone), of the, I think 9 civs I know, there's 2 denounced, maybe 4 unfriendly and 3 neutral. That's while all the relations are still bad because of the warmonger. I expect to have some friendly faces within some 30-40 turns.

 

[Left Foot]

Those friendly AIs, any chance that was mostly in the Ancient and sometimes in the Classical era? The later the game goes, the more reason an AI needs to declare war.

Yes, very much so.

Also, sounds to me like you're calling the "all AI hate me" over yourself. The game is built in such a way that early wars happen very often, which means that you'll have one or more most likely every game. If they're then "fair game" to you for the rest of the game, and you attack them 3000 years later, then everyone else is going to hate you for starting a war, of course. If you want to conquer stuff without everyone hating you, do it early, do it fast. Later in the game, do not take more than one, maybe two cities. Take one more than you intend to and then give that last one back in the peace deal, and the AI you conquered the city from won't even hate you.

No, no. That's not where I was going at all. I know that if I play to the AI's agendas I will have proper good relations with them (and I do get alliances and declarations of friendship on occasion). If the AI hates me it's because my style of play makes them hate me. What I was trying to say (poorly evidently) is that the opportunity cost for me to maintain good relations with the AI outweighs the benefits I get when I conquer them directly. They're not good enough at war to cause me much worry if they do declare war on me. And even AIs that hate me with apoplectic rage will still trade with me (not saying the deals are good, but they will accept trades).

The main point I was getting it is that I know how the warmonger penalties work, but they're just not much of an impediment, and not having them isn't much of a benefit, the way I play.

 

[Felis Renidens]

Well, I don't think the penalty is supposed to stop you from conquering the world. I think it's as it is a challenge some take on themselves. In the future there might be a way to win the game by having good diplomatic relations.

 

[Zuizgond]

Turn 1

 

[zxcvbob]

Usually by the industrial era, I don't care anymore -- I might have a friend or an ally that late in the game, but usually they are all frown-faces even if I'm playing peacefully.

I sometimes wonder how I can provoke them into declaring war on me

 

[Furycrab]

Wait, when did you START caring ?

Because the penalty decays I always did a little, but initially a lot of things went against it that I get to a point where I just stop caring, like how even taking a 1 pop city in the later eras got the world on your back. The patches I found fixed a lot of the bullfeathers and you can get some tangible benefits if you can get into an alliance or two. Unless going for a Domination victory, not sure it's optimal to ignore how it works anymore.