A moderate warmonger penalty is -16!!??

What I don't like about this is that
I take a city in medieval era, -9, wait 18 turns for the penalty to go away, take another city, -9 again.
After another number of turns I sue for peace, keep the cities and get another -18 penalty.

This encourages long drawn out wars to keep the penalty low (where you repeatedly refuse peace).
If I took both cities and made peace right away I would get about a -35 penalty, making the whole world hate me.

The only balancing factor in this is that you get some war weariness, no science bonus from a city state and the two cities aren't productive while at war. (which is not much of a penalty)

 

I'm only on my 2nd Civ 6 game at a fairly low difficulty level and I've certainly discovered this.

Being a pacifist kind of chap, I haven't started a war with anyone. People keep starting wars with me, and even though I have a tiny army I keep sending it in the general direction of my attacker's cities. The AI seems utterly incapable of defence, so hey presto: I end up taking cities.

So I am now on -70 ish with everyone, despite never having started a war.

Skim-reading this thread, it appears my technique should have been fighting 'phoney wars', i.e when people declare war on me, don't actually do anything?

 

Reminds me of my last game (deity). America asks me for a joint war, the next turn calls me a warmonger. Spain is worried about my scout, only my scout, at their border (he probably had the plague?), so I promise to play nice. I buy open boarders, and step inside with my scout. The turn after, I'm told that I've broken my promise (you can come in but you can't come in). By turn 50 I took two AI cities in a surprise war that they started. I didn't commit any war crimes after that for the rest of the game (another 150~ turns). For the rest of the entire game, everyone hated me (angry face). The entire rest of the game. Ugh!

On deity, it's near impossible to be friends with someone. Once you survive the initial "Ancient Blood-lust Gandhi" part of the game, it's always downhill from there. Did you meet Egypt by turn 10? Guess what, your military sucks I instantly hate you (because I started with 5 warriors and 3 cities to compensate for being utter poo AI). Also, your navy sucks and I hate you (how could you not build a boat by turn 2? C'mon!). And you didn't expand your territory (Rome now hates you)?

I'd explain more, but you are weak in espionage, whatever that is since we haven't even discovered writing yet "HEY DAN, WHAT'S A SPY?" you know what I just hate you hold up "WHAT? Okay nevermind" we don't know what a spy is. France denounces you.

 

I tried partial wars - they don't work. Basically if they declare war then I wipe them off the face of the map. Just don't raze cities - maybe there's a situation where it's worth it, but I've never seen it. And all those people who call you warmonger? Well they'll still trade with you.

 

These are only temporary. Build up your army, Cleopatra now starts batting her eyelashes. Make a strong navy and Harald will be inviting you round for drinks (although I don't usually bother and hope he declares war). Expand your Empire and Trajan's your best buddy.

The real issue with the harder difficulties is you have little choice other than to go fast for a strong military, because that's pretty much all that the AI respects. Personally i don't mind that too much, because I like to go to war, but it does mean that any other victory has to be earned by force of arms.

 

If you wipe out a civ you get extra warmonger penalty.

I can't trade for any luxuries if the AI hates me.
I can still buy them with lumps of gold, but I think it's 2-3 times more expensive.
I also can't buy open borders if I'm denounced, so cultural victory is slowed down.

 

Diplomacy feels completely broken to me as it stands and it is one of the most disappointing aspects of the game. I'll admit that I haven't paid all that much attention to it compared to other aspects of the game but that's mainly because I'm getting denounced left and right by every civilization on the globe and it seems to occur even when I try to be civil with neighbors. I have not been able to ally with any Civ to date or maintain friendly relations with anyone for very long. I often do not even understand what is happening - some Civ that is far away from me who I have yet to interact with will all of a sudden denounce me out of the blue. I basically just ignore diplomacy now so IMO there is plenty of room for improvement. I'm not even sure what benefit I would get out of diplomacy - I mean what can the AI even offer? Protection - lol? They only ever seem to want lopsided trade deals - I would be more inclined to play nice if there were some tangible economic or cultural benefits for good relations (maybe there are but I haven't really noticed any).

 

You can give them open borders, gift them luxuries or gpt, send a delegation/embasy, have the same government and follow their agendas (most important/random).
The benefit is good/equal trades, ally status (no worry about war), diplo friendship circles sometimes, research agreements, and getting some tech/policy boost.

 

Yeah I know there are some minor benefits but for me it's just not worth the headache of dealing with it. I was thinking more along the lines of increased trade route yields or culture/economic modifiers the longer you maintain good relations - something that would help facilitate a science or cultural victory since there is no diplomatic victory.

 

Quite. It's simply not worth it at the moment. A swift kick to the cojones is the best strategy for all occasions...