A moderate warmonger penalty is -16!!??

[elitetroops]

From what I have observed through my play and others is that taking out 1-2 civs early is the new REX. Early game armies are so strong in the hands of the human player and the no penalty window is short. After you have clawed out your section of the world it is time to cultivate that land and grow those cities. (and walk the whole map to make sure no barbs are popping up...this is seriously way more annoying than having to micro workers or tile placements in 4 and 5.) Once you are in the Industrial era go and take out the rest of your enemies and forget about being friends with anyone ever again or find a friend and ride out the easy science victory.

Pretty much this. Or if you're playing on continents, spend the Medieval and early Renaissance era taking out the rest of your continent before making contact with the other continent. Then hope that Harald doesn't arrive prematurely in his longboats just before you're done dealing the final blows to silence all those who know about your warmongering.

 

[Dustbrother]

Pretty much this. Or if you're playing on continents, spend the Medieval and early Renaissance era taking out the rest of your continent before making contact with the other continent. Then hope that Harald doesn't arrive prematurely in his longboats just before you're done dealing the final blows to silence all those who know about your warmongering.

This is an interesting question. if the AI does not observe your warmongering do you still have the modifier with them. I'll bet your warmonger score is the same irrelevant of whether they knew you when you did the crime or not.

 

[vranasm]

This is an interesting question. if the AI does not observe your warmongering do you still have the modifier with them. I'll bet your warmonger score is the same irrelevant of whether they knew you when you did the crime or not.

you don't get warmonger penalties from the era before meeting AI's... the victims don't tell either...

what I mean... whatever you accumulate as negative warmonger penatly before you meet another new AI is not influencing diplomacy with the new AI.

 

[elitetroops]

This is an interesting question. if the AI does not observe your warmongering do you still have the modifier with them. I'll bet your warmonger score is the same irrelevant of whether they knew you when you did the crime or not.

There's no warmonger penalty with civs who haven't met you or the target before the war is over. In my current game I took out my own continent early, right in time before Harald arrived. Now I have met everyone on the other continent. Nobody has any idea about my dark past.

 

[nokmirt]

Although, if they denounce you, that's sticking around, no?



I think there's merit to the argument that a "white peace" (nobody gains anything) should be accepted if you truly didn't want war. Granted, I think this really only applies if nobody has lost anything. If you've lost some units, had your land pillaged, etc., I could see wanting some compensation. And I'm always sympathetic to the argument that you need to reduce the AI's military strength so they don't do it again (although, realistically, you probably have if it brought them to the table). But if you think you're entitled to take cities as punishment for your declaration of war, that's kind of a warmonger's attitude.

I am a warmonger. However, good point, it makes sense.

 

[isau]

Ok I've done a lot of experimenting here and I think I have partially figured this out.

The diplo modifiers in Civ 6 work differently than in previous games. In Civ 4 for example if you had -1 -2 +3 +5 you'd be at +5 (Neutral). But I had Ghandi at +5 and he was "Unhappy." Drove me crazy because I just couldn't understand what was wrong. How could he be Unhappy with a relationship of 5?

Well, turns out the numbers don't mean the same thing in Civ 6 that they used to. They mean minus or plus whatever value PER TURN. There is a hidden running total going on in the background, not shown anywhere on the screen, and your pluses and minuses are adding to that each turn (presumably with a cap on the high and low end). So in theory you could hit -16 and the AI still be Friendly with you for a while. But each turn your relationship will degrade until they are no longer happy with you.

That means the AI may be far less broken than we thought. It's just extremely poorly communicated (you can't see your running total anywhere on the diplo screen) and completely different from previous games, which is what is throwing people.

 

[Ashbery76]

The CB system needs to mean something.You use them in a minor war and everybody is still hatefull.I think the devs need to play eu4 again.

 

[steveg700]

You're saying that all of this:

Delegations, Open borders, Trade deals, Trade Routes (which doesn't get you to just under 20 by the way.)

should be equal to this:

Declaring war on another civ they don't give a damn about for the first time EVEN if they join along side you in a joint war. And yes this was a formal war, CB not surprise.

Come on mate, that's just nonsense and yes I was paying very close attention to the diplomatic lay of the land.

I think King Jason has designated himself the title of "everything's fine guy".

Yes, by his own accounting, a single -16 penalty is significantly disproportionate to all the positive bonuses that have to be stacked five layers high under fairly constraining conditions to get to +20 (which is likely not even accurate). Open borders is something like +3, which is actually a more typical modifier. How many civ's are we supposed to have matching governments with?

 

[isau]

Here's a screenshot showing what I think is going on. I worked Ghandi up from Unhappy to Friendly by sending him free Gold. It had no effect at first, but after a few turns his opinion of me changed to Neutral then to Friendly. Then I decided to test things by declaring war on Trajan. Ghandi is currently upset, with our total relationship being -11. But he's still friends with me for now, altho each turn he will be getting more and more angry.

The gotcha is this is totally different than previous Civ games, where the + - showed their absolute opinion. As far as I can see you can not directly see the numeric value of their current opinion. It's a hidden value in the background, increasing or decreasing each turn by the amount in the diplo window.

Spoiler :

 

[steveg700]

That means the AI may be far less broken than we thought. It's just extremely poorly communicated (you can't see your running total anywhere on the diplo screen) and completely different from previous games, which is what is throwing people.

Well, they said many times that warmonger penalties would increase over time, being totally absent at the start of the game.

Thing is, those penalties also need to be mitigatable over time, and that's made problematic when the result of a civ not liking you is a diplomatic stone wall that precludes the means to gain positive bonuses. Accept my delegation already, you @#%#!!

 

[steveg700]

Here's a screenshot showing what I think is going on. I worked Ghandi up from Unhappy to Friendly by sending him free Gold. It had no effect at first, but after a few turns his opinion of me changed to Neutral then to Friendly. Then I decided to test things by declaring war on Trajan. Ghandi is currently upset, with our total relationship being -11. But he's still friends with me for now, altho each turn he will be getting more and more angry.

The gotcha is this is totally different than previous Civ games, where the + - showed their absolute opinion. As far as I can see you can not directly see the numeric value of their current opinion. It's a hidden value in the background, increasing or decreasing each turn by the amount in the diplo window.

Ghandi is currently your "declared friend". Which he was before you got the warmonger penalty, right? He's not gonna "surprise war", you so he maintains his DOF until it expires.

Big difference between that and being friendly. Don't expect that DOF to be renewed in the current state.

 

[isau]

Well, they said many times that warmonger penalties would increase over time, being totally absent at the start of the game.

Thing is, those penalties also need to be mitigatable over time, and that's made problematic when the result of a civ not liking you is a diplomatic stone wall that precludes the means to gain positive bonuses. Accept my delegation already, you @#%#!!

That's not what I mean. What I mean is that the numbers represent something different in Civ 6 than in 4 or 5. In those games, if you got a -16 penalty it was the absolute value of the penalty. The AI's opinion of you was equal to the total of all those displayed numbers. You could tell if an AI liked you by just adding up all the values.

In Civ 6, their opinion of you is based on a hidden running total. -16 diplo in Civ 6 appears to mean - 16 per turn to the hidden number. So it's not that the other civs are flipping instantly. They start flipping when the running total get low from being drained by the diplo modifier.

This also means the increase from a - 8 penalty to a -16 one is HUUUUUUGE jump in penalty. Way more than just 8 points. It's 16+15+14+13+12+11+10+9 points, or 100 points off your running total score. I think whoever coded it assumed 16 was double the penalty of 8, but actually its about four times the penalty. - 8 means 36 points off your diplo score, while -16 means 136 points off your score. LOL.

 

[isau]

While we're doing the math, if I'm right about running totals, the difference between 24 and 16 penalty is:

24+23+22+21+20+19+18+17 = 164 diplo points more for the surprise war.

Therefor, a surprise war during that era would thus cost you a total of 300 points. I don't know how big the pools are, but I assume thats enough to make someone furious at you unless you have tons of bonuses to counteract it.

 

[Yzman]

in mine domination game i finished today mine max was -255 warmongering penalty... after 7 declared wars and took around 20 cities

warmonger penatly makes diplomacy completely irrelevant...again...

LOL, it was you attacking everyone for a domination victory that made diplomacy irrelevant.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Ye i hate the way warmongering penalties go. Also in civ5.

I believe i read that a surprise war gives 33% more penalty or something like that.

The difference should be much bigger imo. I think DOWing in itself should be a really modest penalty when done the proper way, Huge penalty for surprise wars.
Capturing cities should give a moderate base penalty, significantly reduced against civs that are warmongers themselves, increased against peaceful targets.
Increased against small civs, decreased against bigger civs. Greatly decreased against civs that are close to achieving victory. (seriously, the whole world should celebrate you if you prevent another civ from achieving victory right?)

 

[pietro1990]

Ye i hate the way warmongering penalties go. Also in civ5.

I believe i read that a surprise war gives 33% more penalty or something like that.

The difference should be much bigger imo. I think DOWing in itself should be a really modest penalty when done the proper way, Huge penalty for surprise wars.
Capturing cities should give a moderate base penalty, significantly reduced against civs that are warmongers themselves, increased against peaceful targets.
Increased against small civs, decreased against bigger civs. Greatly decreased against civs that are close to achieving victory. (seriously, the whole world should celebrate you if you prevent another civ from achieving victory right?)

Just use the mechanic of civ 5 brave new world had the best mechanic it does everything you describe.

 

[Synth]

Actually, it is fine to have warmonger penalties with even the civ you went to joint war with. There's nothing wrong with me thinking you're a warmonger and me having a blast pillaging the lands along your side.

I think the problem with warmonger is that it's too simplified. Perhaps it should be a two dimensional vector. One axis for Ruthlessness in war, the other axis for Warmongering.

• Ruthlessness increases if you raze cities (+20), keep cities you conquer (+10), pillage lands (+0.5). Ruthlessness decreases (-0.1) for each turn during a war where you have no military units within your enemy's borders. The increases and decreases are kept separate, and at the end of the war, your Ruthlessness will only decrease if there are no increases, otherwise it will only increase and your decreases are thrown away.
• Warmongering increases if you declare a surprise war (+20), a formal war (+10), agree to a joint war (+5). Your actions during any war has no bearing whatsoever on your warmongering status. During peace time, each military unit you have within 2 tiles of the border of another civ or city state will +1 to Warmongering. Warmongering decays very slowly over time (something like -0.5 per turn, so a 100 Warmonger on turn 100 would need to be peaceful for 200 turns to get 0 Warmongering).

This way a player could be:

• Ruthless peace-keeper (200 Ruthlessness, 0 Warmongering) meaning you never provoke war, but if war comes to you, you will make it worth your time. The international community regards you as a trust-worthy leader and other civilizations are much less likely to agree to a joint war on you. Friendly civilizations are more likely to consider an alliance with you.
• Kind peace-keeper (0 Ruthlessness, 0 Warmongering) means you don't really care what's happening. You defend your lands and that's it. Warmongering civs see you as an good target as "there's no harm in trying". Civilizations are more likely to agree to attack you. Friendly civilizations are less likely to agree to an alliance with you.
• Incompetent warmonger (0 Ruthlessness, 200 Warmongering) means you suck at war so much yet still behave like a mad dog chasing after everyone. You are regarded as an annoyance to the world and other civilizations are less likely to agree to an joint war with you.
• Ruthless warmonger (200 Ruthlessness, 200 Warmongering) means you are the cold-hearted killing machine. Other civilizations are likely to agree to a joint war with you because you guarantee results. Peaceful civilizations are more likely to bunch together and create alliances when you are in the game.

I'll be waiting for this to be modded in. Or for Firaxis to see this post and steal your idea.

 

[fatgordy]

That's not what I mean. What I mean is that the numbers represent something different in Civ 6 than in 4 or 5. In those games, if you got a -16 penalty it was the absolute value of the penalty. The AI's opinion of you was equal to the total of all those displayed numbers. You could tell if an AI liked you by just adding up all the values.

In Civ 6, their opinion of you is based on a hidden running total. -16 diplo in Civ 6 appears to mean - 16 per turn to the hidden number. So it's not that the other civs are flipping instantly. They start flipping when the running total get low from being drained by the diplo modifier.

This also means the increase from a - 8 penalty to a -16 one is HUUUUUUGE jump in penalty. Way more than just 8 points. It's 16+15+14+13+12+11+10+9 points, or 100 points off your running total score. I think whoever coded it assumed 16 was double the penalty of 8, but actually its about four times the penalty. - 8 means 36 points off your diplo score, while -16 means 136 points off your score. LOL.

Has anyone else confirmed that this is truly the case?

 

[Big J Money]

We haven't, but with 2-3 samples we could get pretty close, I suppose. I'll start up some games today and keep exact numbers per turn to see if the walls for unfriendly and friendly are indeed at some invisible hit point barriers.

I would think this is in XMLs too, which I'll look for but haven't modded before.

 

[esoba]

Yeah, the entire CB system doesn't work in its current form. The penalties are too stiff, even for justified wars. You can do everything right to build a relationship and a justified war equals hate from AI civs. I mean the entire system is pointless if a CB in the modern era equals a "Severe" penalty. Then just remove war or diplomacy at that point because it will equate to the entire map hating you with little hope of getting most of those people back to even a moderate feeling towards you. And yes I've done the gifting, trade routes, good trade deals, embassies, and attempting to fit agendas as appropriate. Still went from mostly friendly or no feelings either way to denounced from every civilization for a CB war. This is probably the area I think needs the quickest fix.