Casus Belli

[CaptainPatch]

Ever have a Declaration of Friendship, but then the other DoF partner starts doing provocative things like plopping Settlers into what is obviously your Sphere of Influence? Or drops a Citadel on tiles that your city was obviously expanding into? Then, when you try to Demand that he keep his Settlers away, he sneers at you and suggests that you don't have the military muscle to back your demands. Denouncing him certainly doesn't stop him from being provocative. About the ONLY thing you can do is do a Declaration of War -- on a DoF partner. The warmonger stench seems to stick to you forever thereafter.

There really needs to be some kind of mechanism that allows a player to break a DoF when the partner is being a jerk. Some legitimate way to break the DoF, declare war if necessary, and in such a way that the entire world can see, "He made me do it!"

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

Most of the time I say this stuff doesn't bother me and this wouldn't be necessary but the way you have it stated makes perfect sense and would improve the game. Most people are looking for a penalty free DoW but you're looking for a way to break a DoF with some one who hasn't exactly been treating you like a friend. That seems pretty reasonable.

In my last game I had a DoF with Enrico and we both founded religions. Of course he has to build Borobudur and we all know what that means, missionary spam, especially with good ol' OCC Enrico. I asked him to stop, he responded with the "one true faith" statement and continued. I had to block his spam the cheesey way, with units, until our DoF ended so I wouldn't get hit with the backstabber modifier. The penalty for eliminating a civ seems easier to overcome than the backstabber one. Anyway, I didn't want to get stuck with both.

 

[kaspergm]

Ever have a Declaration of Friendship, but then the other DoF partner starts doing provocative things like plopping Settlers into what is obviously your Sphere of Influence? Or drops a Citadel on tiles that your city was obviously expanding into? Then, when you try to Demand that he keep his Settlers away, he sneers at you and suggests that you don't have the military muscle to back your demands. Denouncing him certainly doesn't stop him from being provocative. About the ONLY thing you can do is do a Declaration of War -- on a DoF partner. The warmonger stench seems to stick to you forever thereafter.

There really needs to be some kind of mechanism that allows a player to break a DoF when the partner is being a jerk. Some legitimate way to break the DoF, declare war if necessary, and in such a way that the entire world can see, "He made me do it!"

I think your post is an excellent example of why Casus Belli is a dangerous ground to tread. Because those examples that you list to me does not justify a DoW - those are just the opponent playing better than you. This is not saying I'm against Casus Belli - quite in contrary I'm very much for it - but I do acknowledge that it's hard to find the exact definition of when war is "justified".

Personally, I would say justification for war would come from things like: Promising something and then breaking the promise (promise not to spy, promise not to settle or buy land, promise not to send missionaries, etc.). Using a general to claim land that is already owned by the opponent. Bullying or attacking a city state that is under protection of the other part. That kind of stuff.

Imo. as game is now, there is no such thing as land that is "clearly within your sphere of influence". That is subjective. If you wanted the land, you should have settled there before he did. If you needed the tiles for the city, you should have spend the gold to buy them up if border expansion was too slow. Someone did have a suggestion a while back which I found really interesting, though: You should be able to station a military unit in unclaimed territory and then make a claim of this territory being under your sphere of influence, as you put it. If someone then comes up and settles on the land anyway, it should be considered an act of diplomatic aggression. This could be linked to a casus belli somehow, but would need some other controls - like the claim was only considered valid if you were the civ currently closest to that territory and/or if you were the first to lay claim over it and/or if you had settled lands within certain distance and/or if you have sufficient military power present in the area (point is, we don't want you to walk a scout over to the other side of the continent and then lay claim on some land right next to someones capital and then have them suffer a penalty for settling the land before you do).

 

[CaptainPatch]

What about the case of Venice? NO Settlers allowed. All Venice can directly take advantage of is the 3-tile radius out from the city center. If early in the game, a DoF partner is edging a Settler into that radius area, and when Venice says "Don't settle near my cities", which is then sneered at, what's Venice going to do? Roll over and play dead? Let that side of Venice's growth potential be stolen? And potentially have it happen again and again? Or have its Religion overrun by another DoF partner's Great Prophets and Missionaries?

A DoF is about friendship. If a supposed "friend" is deliberately being UNfriendly, there really needs to be a way to say, "Your actions speak louder than words written on a piece of paper."

 

[otaman1]

I think it should look a little something like this:

You declare war and there's a prompt that shows the trades and stuff. You scroll down to the bottom and there's the No Casus Belli. So, you go to Discuss and click on Casus Belli. There are multiple things to choose from.

Casus Belli:
- Conquest (-1 warmonger penalty) (conquer a civilization or take a city)
- Revolutionary War (-1 warmonger penalty) (make another civilization your ideology)
- Holy War (-1 warmonger penalty) (make another civilization your religion)
- Humiliate (-2 warmonger penalty) (prove that the civilization's army is weak)
- Add to Sphere of Influence (-5 warmonger penalty) (make a city your puppet)
- Coalition War (-5 warmonger penalty) (form a coalition with another civilization)
- Trade War (-9 warmonger penalty) (only active when embargoed; if win, then embargoed is repel)
- Reconquest (-10 warmonger penalty) (reconquer conquered cities)
- Liberation (-10 warmonger penalty) (liberate a conquered civilization or city-state)

I know some of these may not be best, as you're viewing it. But these are my ideas, don't take them too personally.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Actually the problem is that the civilizations behavior is not realistic (programmed to win), but that's a problem that can't really be adressed since the player plays to win too, and will do whatever possible in order to achieve that goal, exploiting exploits included (like declaring war when surrounding a city with military units in Civ2), unless we change drastically how the diplomacy works. Or, maybe that the diplomacy is actually pretty good for a game with victory conditions, but that most of players don't understand it very well. Examples :

If you have a declaration of friendship with another civlization, it means that you have the same interests or goals immediately. For example, conquering a third civilization that borders you two. But, for some reason, if your friend is realizing that you will take most of this third civilization cities, due to more proximity or better army, then it can perfectly start to become less friendly.

Also, you have to know that DoFs will most of the time be seen like one-sided treaties by the AI and as a mean to lure the player with his own human feelings, a way to win (an edge) for the AI. For example, those funny demands the turn right after the one you DoFed. So don't be fooled by the name of this act, friendship is not really possible with a computer nowadays.

Also, most of the time the AIs asking for a DoF are trying to trap you as the program ; by throwing you into a bad sphere of influence, like being friend with the most hated warmonger or whore expander out there, or simply the tiny second and only remaining city of India being wanted by everyone else. This may make sense for those isolated and in search of friends AIs, but a DoF never really helped the player when needed, so there's no reason it does for the AI either. It's here only to trap you. The benefits are weak (are they even existing ?), but there are great drawbacks.

It would be far more interesting to list here the benefits one could have had by DoFing an AI in various games, as to how to use it. For now, what I know is that, when unsure, better always refuse such proposals. In my last serious game I DoFed Greece because they were so far and near France that DoWed me multiple times whenever they were not exactly near me and separated by a CS on an isthmus from me. But I couldn't really appreciate the benefits for even.

 

[kaspergm]

What about the case of Venice? NO Settlers allowed. All Venice can directly take advantage of is the 3-tile radius out from the city center. If early in the game, a DoF partner is edging a Settler into that radius area, and when Venice says "Don't settle near my cities", which is then sneered at, what's Venice going to do? Roll over and play dead? Let that side of Venice's growth potential be stolen?

I think it's important to distinguish between someone behaving like an @$$ and you being justified in DoW'ing him without anybody caring. While I do agree that one could call the most proximate tiles around your capital within your sphere of influence even if you haven't claimed them yet, I don't really have a problem with someone tricking me by asking for a DoF and then when I give it, plays me like a fool and does something to take advantage of me. That's him being an @$$, and he should face the consequences which might be me DoW'ing him - and if I take that path, I'm ok with getting a warmonger hit for it.

That's not saying everything is perfect in the game, because it far from is, but I think it's very delicate how these things are tuned. One thing I've been asking for for a long time is the "denounce" function being tied up to a specific list of actions, and not something you just do at will. So if someone claims land immediately next to your capital, that might be valid reason for denouncement. And if someone I have a DoF with does something that gives me reason to denounce him, that should be reflected negatively on him, not reflect negatively back on me (I don't know if it still does, but at least at some point, you'd get a negative diplomatic modifier for denouncing one of your DoF friends, which is just plain nonsense).

About warmonger penalty, I think it is fine as a concept. What I don't like is how it is implemented. As has been discussed ad libitum, it decays way too slowly - WP should not follow you entire game (unless you consistently acts like a warmonger), but should be a temporary penalty. I hate how capturing a city gives you gazilions of WP, even more so if it's the last city, while the act of actually DoW gives you next to nothing - that should be the exact other way around. But these are numbers that can be tuned - and obviously, if the act of DoW'ing someone becomes the action that gives you the major warmonger penalty, this also makes the Casus Belli system all the more relevant. But I also think it's fine that you DO get a penalty for DoW'ing someone, even if he has behaved like an @$$.

 

[Galgus]

Perhaps breaking a DoF should be an option after the other civ refuses a request of yours, with a diplomacy penalty to them tied to it.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Perhaps breaking a DoF should be an option after the other civ refuses a request of yours, with a diplomacy penalty to them tied to it.

This. The DoF is between the two civs. If one of them starts to be a jerk, the honorable thing to do is to inform them the DoF is null and void, _THEN_ (not in the same turn) do a DoW if that is what it takes. Further, there should be a scale of choices to attempt a peaceful resolution. At present, all you have is "Don't settle near my cities." What's missing are 1) Please don't settle near my cities" (with maybe a bribe incentive to comply) and 3) "Do not settle near my cities or there WILL be consequences, starting with our D0F being canceled."

I don't really have a problem with someone tricking me by asking for a DoF and then when I give it, plays me like a fool and does something to take advantage of me.

This is where we diverge. If another civ "plays you like a fool", I should imagine that other civs could easily see that the other civ is dishonorable and untrustworthy, not you. Why isn't that other civ taking a negative Diplo hit for that? Does signing a piece of paper truly obligate a signatory to then be required to endure ANYTHING s***ty he feels like, just so the signatory isn't pariahed by the rest of the international community?

If you argue that the AI is programmed to win any way it can -- "... and the Scorpion said, 'I'm a scorpion; it's in my nature.'" --you are basically saying that it's entirely fine that the AI is programmed to cheat while humans are held to a higher standard. Bogus and a copout. Theoretically, programmers are aspiring to make AIs as close to human behavior as possible. "Okay to cheat" is a lazy shortcut towards making an AI more competitive.

 

[Arachnofiend]

This is where we diverge. If another civ "plays you like a fool", I should imagine that other civs could easily see that the other civ is dishonorable and untrustworthy, not you.

Welcome to global politics Patch. You can leave your honor and dignity at the door.

 

[Galgus]

Welcome to global politics Patch. You can leave your honor and dignity at the door.

I'm a naive player who tends to hold to honor and dignity with the AI civs...unless I'm Spain, in which case I have Natural Wonders to claim and heathens to convert.

Anyway, back on topic, it would also be nice for more positive diplomatic options between closely Allied civs, like a trade agreement for each of them to establish a trade route with the other.

Heck, what if such an ally who had Ally status with a City-State could influence the city state to be friendly with another civ, provided they remained the CS's ally and were provided an incentive.

I'd also like some rudimentary form of international war planning when fighting a common enemy- like requesting troop location information and designating a city and time to attack.