A bit frustrated

[Resident Mario]

Sorry for the long post.

I start a new game, Emperor, Huge, Small Islands, Standard as Elizabeth, aiming for a science victory via research agreements (always an easy thing to acquire on water maps full of . I get a starting position on the north-center of the map, with Monty and Askia sharing an island to the south of me. I settle three cities on the useful nearby lands, and then use my +2 naval movement advantage to explore far and wide into the map with Triremes, and then rush a few settlers and workers down south, past my neighbors to settle fertile southern land.

Everything goes as planned. I settle a couple of cities down south and then expand into a economic power via The Great Colossus, Machu Pichu, and selling the AI all my spares. I ally with a few city states and get 20 turns of golden age via Taj Mahal + Great Artist pop, which I use to build up a strong navy of Ships of the Line. Monty, being Monty, declares on Askia and gets his butt whooped several times in a row, and I DOW and puppet two of his cities and an allied city-state of his (Florence). 150 GPT, the per city on the map, and I've closed the gap between my mainland and my vulnerable colonies down south.

Then, catastrophe. Suleiman, jealous of my wonders, denounces me. The Arabian fellow, unusually chagrin this game (my relations in the green and he's still neutral? really?), does the same soon after, and then Ghandi, ever quick to denounce anyone who's ever warred, does the same. Then all hell breaks lose. Chain denouncements follow from every other leader in the game (and it's Huge, remember that). Rome flips from a just-completed DOF to Hostile, and declares within five turns. Within ten turns of that, I am at war with 6 people.

I've played 50 turns after that. The first thing that I learned was to thank god that I had invested so heavily into my navy; although my two principal enemies, Suleiman and Caesar, both claimed they could wipe me off the earth, the Targeting II promotions I had equipped all my ships with paid out in droves, easily cleaning the seas and then mercilessly ripping apart any AI stupid enough to go into the water (Suleiman in particular got his massive army cut in two by Ship of the Line sailing). It was pretty funny seeing Rome rush for my exposed island city with siege equipment and longswordsmen and getting beaten back by quintuple naval barrages. AIs can't fight on water to save their poor miserable lives. I've gotten DOW'd by everyone and yet no one can touch me (thank god it was an iron-sparse map).

The second thing I learned is that diplomacy in this game is insanely finicky. One denouncement can lead to two denouncements can lead to eight denouncements can lead to a global 1 v. 8 war. Wow.

Anyway, I'm going to abandon that game, I think. Although I'm pretty sure I can burn Rome and the Ottomans to the ground, it's mid-game already and Russia is a runaway tech giant on the other side of the map. I could have caught up with that pesky Catherine, but I had to deal with my bothersome neighbors instead. Freaking denouncements need to be fixed up, honestly.

 

[Zaimejs]

I hear you. I have had that happen. The only way to avoid it is to build a big army so everyone is afraid of you.

 

[PhilBowles]

Had you made friends with anyone beforehand? You can probably get by in any case with ignoring most wars if you have a continent to yourself. I have to say, I haven't had that happen to me for some time - the best way to avoid it is to build up choice allies, so that they'll pay no attention to you being denounced but will probably denounce your denouncers, or at least join you in denouncing - if a civ's been denounced, its own denunciations will carry less weight with neutrals, I think.

I often find Russia trying the runaway science thing on Emperor. It surprised me by actually pulling a science victory once (normally the AI half-completes the spaceship and loses interest).

 

[guczy]

Never-never-ever conquer city states, even if it's just one it will cause this, that was the main reason.

 

[Tabarnak]

Never-never-ever conquer city states, even if it's just one it will cause this, that was the main reason.

This and killing entirely a civ. For sure you can survive and win even if everyone hates you but you need to be the superpower civ.

 

[Resident Mario]

Well, Florence got its due, but I suppose I shouldn't have brought down Monty's last city. Askia had declared on him as well, perhaps I should have let him take the last one?

Then again he had enough men and resources to take down Florence anyway, and it had Gold (+5 happiness with Mercantilism), and that was something I was not willing to give up.

Either way I'll definitely be more careful about completely wiping people in the future. I just haven't ever been affected by those sorts of things, much.

 

[snarzberry]

Wiping out a city state, DoWing a Civ, and wiping out a civ is equivalent to DoWing on 5 separate occasions. So you did accumulate a lot of penalty points for your fairly small war actions. That's what can be learned, if you're going to rack up diplo penalty points for being a warmonger - make sure you gain a heck of a lot more out of it. By the time you get to the point that your relationship with everyone is truly destroyed and they just hate your guts, you want to be in an unassailable position.

 

[Kaosprophet]

Had you made friends with anyone beforehand? You can probably get by in any case with ignoring most wars if you have a continent to yourself. I have to say, I haven't had that happen to me for some time - the best way to avoid it is to build up choice allies, so that they'll pay no attention to you being denounced but will probably denounce your denouncers, or at least join you in denouncing - if a civ's been denounced, its own denunciations will carry less weight with neutrals, I think.

One thing I can surmise about larger maps, though, is that it's going to be much more difficult to make/keep enough friends to matter if the denouncements start chaining. With twice as many civs in play, you need more than twice the usual ratio of friends to enemies in order to 'break' the chain before it ruins the friendships you do have - and once the first friend turns on you, it's downhill from there.

 

[smallfish]

Wiping out a city state, DoWing a Civ, and wiping out a civ is equivalent to DoWing on 5 separate occasions. So you did accumulate a lot of penalty points for your fairly small war actions. That's what can be learned, if you're going to rack up diplo penalty points for being a warmonger - make sure you gain a heck of a lot more out of it. By the time you get to the point that your relationship with everyone is truly destroyed and they just hate your guts, you want to be in an unassailable position.

Case in point:

Spoiler :