Casus Belli

[jeb1000]

When I went to declare war the Casus Belli was showing. I clicked on it and nothing happened so I then clicked Declare Surprise War.

Did I miss something? What was I suppose to do after clicking the Casus Belli? Should it not have said something that showed that it did something?

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Brings up a second window of dow options, but if you don't yet have the culture for holy/protectorate etc, the other option is "formal war", which is only moderately better than surprise, and not really what I'd define as a casus belli, more like a default. If it was during or before Medieval era, it doesn't really matter which you use so much. Aside from the penalty being low, you have the rest of the game to work it off, and it will disappear eventually. Taking cities has additional warmonger penalty, tho, particularly if your opponent was acquainted with and friends of another AI. If you take an opponent's cities and do not kill him, you will have that penalty with him the rest of the game.

 

[joncnunn]

Even in the Classical Era; if there is already an option to declare formal war; I'd so instead of surprise war if you can still achieve your war objectives before Medieval era begins. Timing is key, while the declaration cost is based on your current era; if it takes so long to capture a city that you enter the next era, you'll pay whatever era cost in War Mongling rather than the one it started in.
In addition, the CB options that start showing up in the Medieval era while reducing the War Mongling cost compared to formal war don't reduce it below Classical era's formal war War Mongling cost; so if it's still the classical era, it's not worth waiting for.
To use formal war (or any CB) you also must have either denounced the opponent at least 5 turns ago (and the denouncement not yet expired) or alternatively the target denounced you at least five turns ago (and not yet expired)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How much WW does each action have? How much more WW do you get for using one CB vs another?

I have 0 respect for the system as a whole unless the information is readily available in game.

The CB system is a joke until the tradeoffs can be evaluated. It's anti-strategy in a strategy game right now.

 

[manu-fan]

How much WW does each action have? How much more WW do you get for using one CB vs another?

I have 0 respect for the system as a whole unless the information is readily available in game.

The CB system is a joke until the tradeoffs can be evaluated. It's anti-strategy in a strategy game right now.

It does what it says: Moderate, Severe, or whatever.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It does what it says: Moderate, Severe, or whatever.

No. It does not. Its present implementation is cancer to strategy in the game.

I have no numerical framework or anticipated consequences for each choice from the game.

There is a formula here on CFC for calculating expected WW from unit kills, combats, and war declarations and how much WW to anticipate for a given amount of WW. The system in the game is garbage and will remain so until you can make these anticipations without memorizing the formula, using information the game presents.

WW is a rule. The game hides the rules. In a strategy game where you're expected to evaluate the tradeoffs of accumulating more WW against your expected gains, that's junk and I have no respect for it because it provides an obstacle to actually utilizing strategy. It's a serious implementation flaw and if it's intentional design, I call it out as broken by design.

I have enough confidence in that position that I think I could demonstrate the implementation/position as self-inconsistent in debate, even if debating against the developers that implemented it. Any answer that allows for the hiding of this rule from a design perspective would necessarily be inconsistent with the handling of other game mechanics, even including basic ones like food or production.

 

[manu-fan]

It's deliberately vague. That's all they want you to know. Just deal with it. I don't even know what War Weariness does in terms of how much WW for each city. I just go with - Moderate is better than Severe.

 

[callan]

Jeb, to answer your question, if you have denounced, or have been denounced by, an opponent for a certain period of time (I think 5 turns) then you would have the option to declare "Formal War" in your Casus Belli menu. There are also other conditions that could give you extra options such as being far ahead of an opponent technologically or if enough of your cities have been converted by enemy religious units, etc.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's deliberately vague. That's all they want you to know. Just deal with it. I don't even know what War Weariness does in terms of how much WW for each city. I just go with - Moderate is better than Severe.

If the developers are deliberately introducing vague, trial-and-error fake difficulty, then they are deliberately failing or deliberately misrepresenting civ 6 as a strategy title.

That is the reality of creating a rule for gameplay, then hiding its functionality. It is no different from hiding production costs, tech costs, or the effects of building a wonder. You could hide any of these and say "just deal with it", and you'd be making a logically identical (non) case for why that rule is hidden as you have for WW. It doesn't hold, and it won't even if a developer says it. It's a design mistake regardless.

I do not celebrate or condone intentional failure/game undermining itself.

What would change my mind? A demonstration that either 1) WW is not a gameplay rule akin to production cost of a unit or 2) that WW and its effects are clearly discernible in-game with comparable effort to other rules like happiness, gold, etc.

What would change your mind and cause you to conclude that this is an implementation harmful to strategy and inconsistent with other mechanic implementations? There must be some evidence that would do it, or you can't have a rational position.

 

[AriochIV]

Casus belli is Latin for "a complete waste of time."

 

[callan]

I don't think this is actually relevant to the the thread but for those who may care the way I break WW in Civ6 is be exploiting war duration. By that I mean that if after 10 turns (or at any point thereafter) the enemy has suffered a reverse (ie they have lost even one more unit than you) they will be amenable to peace. So you can declare peace whenever, such as when it will take you 7-10 turns to reposition anyway because movement rules are a chore now. And then declare again. This is truly effective because:

1) Even one declaration (and especially city capture)will ensure every other civ hates you forever, pretty much no matter what. As such you don't need to care at all about Diplo factors.
2) There is no disadvantage to selling peace and then redeclaring immediately upon cessation of the truce. In fact it is massively advantageous to do so as often as you can. Take all that gold, enslave his economy and then go fight his neighbour for the same terms and a free city or two after a very short break. It's just....well it's not very complicated, I'll put it that way. It's not very fun after a while either though.

For those who might (fairly) make the point that this is dumb and immersion breaking (and dumb). I can't disagree with that but I can state that it is stupidly effective. To the extent that I don't really even know what WW is, that's the truth. I can't calculate it, I've never even had to try. Is that how it should be? No, but I would invite you to try interspersed warfare and tell me it's not the reality of the game right now.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

How much WW does each action have? How much more WW do you get for using one CB vs another?

I have 0 respect for the system as a whole unless the information is readily available in game.

The CB system is a joke until the tradeoffs can be evaluated. It's anti-strategy in a strategy game right now.

If "WW" is war weariness, to my understanding, the use of Casus Belli is not involved. Casus Belli is a modifier to diplomatic relations, the "hit" you take, in numeric value, of a declaration of war in later eras. Where a formal war in atomic era will make people perturbed, particularly if they're on good standing with your opponents, explaining, hey, this guy took my stuff before and I have a legitimate gripe reduces the negative outlook, and if you don't actually take cites, or even if you recapture/liberate cities, when you end the war, that diplomatic hit will quickly disappear.

War weariness is a separate animal. It increases over time, regardless, but increases very quickly if you have enemy troops stomping around inside your cultural borders. This is why war in the game isn't simply a mechanism for acquiring more land. You can hurt someone very badly, for a long time, just meandering about with a couple strong units, occasionally pillaging a farm for health or other tiles for the yield. You don't even need to take cities to have capital gain in a war, provided you are consistently pillaging. You're going to hit a brick wall, though, when the opponent's war weariness becomes so great that it starts spawning red flag units, and since these don't generally attack the host cities or tiles, your invading units will soon be injured or forfeit.

 

[jeb1000]

Callan, it believe the CB came from so many of my cities being converted. When I when to declare war to stop the conversions, the CB was there but when I clicked on it nothing else pops up.

And ref you declaring and then going to peace, I have been doing that to be able to kill missionaries - declare war, kill missonaries and go to peace. They send more missionaries, declare war, kill and go to peace. Seems to work.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If "WW" is war weariness, to my understanding, the use of Casus Belli is not involved. Casus Belli is a modifier to diplomatic relations, the "hit" you take, in numeric value, of a declaration of war in later eras. Where a formal war in atomic era will make people perturbed, particularly if they're on good standing with your opponents, explaining, hey, this guy took my stuff before and I have a legitimate gripe reduces the negative outlook, and if you don't actually take cites, or even if you recapture/liberate cities, when you end the war, that diplomatic hit will quickly disappear.

War weariness is a separate animal. It increases over time, regardless, but increases very quickly if you have enemy troops stomping around inside your cultural borders. This is why war in the game isn't simply a mechanism for acquiring more land. You can hurt someone very badly, for a long time, just meandering about with a couple strong units, occasionally pillaging a farm for health or other tiles for the yield. You don't even need to take cities to have capital gain in a war, provided you are consistently pillaging. You're going to hit a brick wall, though, when the opponent's war weariness becomes so great that it starts spawning red flag units, and since these don't generally attack the host cities or tiles, your invading units will soon be injured or forfeit.

I have heard people (apparently mistakenly) claim CB impacted WW.

It's not like you have the precise implications of CB either, but the opinion of your opponent isn't an objective game rule like the impact of WW. It is also utterly irrelevant right now since relatively small conquest will pour enough salt to kill all that world's fish in the ocean, so once you start you might as well start throat stomping all the AIs and not stop.

Pillaging districts screws people the most aside from simply taking the cities, followed closely by cutting their access to amenities so that rebels do the job instead.

So if CB contributes to WW at all (which it apparently doesn't based on CFC formula, but might and arguably should) we have an objective joke mechanic. If not, then WW is a bit of a red herring, but CB is still close to irrelevant because of how opinions over warmongering are tuned.

 

[Cedbird77]

I have a question. I had a game today that has been just like all the rest of my games and the CB system. This one of my many questions that I came on the Forum to find an answer too.

One was yes I too went to CB to get a lesser WM hit to declare war on Philip. The warmongering pig lol. But there was no choices for me except the regular warmonger penalty.
One would say well you have to denounce him first. Well there is no choice to denounce him either.

I saw someone above say that you need enough culture to to to CB. But why can 't I denounce him? That is in many of my games. Culture though is often the thing I put on the bottom of my list in my games I might add. So if I need culture to CB then that would not be till later in the game.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Does he have a red face in his icon? If so, one of you denounced the other. You need 5 turns after denouncement to declare a formal war (under Casus Belli in the diplomacy screen).

In a way, you do need culture to get access to Casus Belli. All of them are unlocked when you reach certain civics. In your case, I suggest a Joint War with someone that also dislikes him, since it's unlocked as early as Foreign Trade (right after Code of Laws).

If you really need another CB, you need to reach Diplomatic Service (a Renaissance Era civic). This wil grant you the following CBs:

• Holy War - Available when AI convert one of your cities
• War of Liberation - Available when the AI controls a city from a friend or ally
• War of Reconquest - Available when the AI controls a city you founded
• Protectorate War - Available when the AI controls a City-State

If you still cannot use those, then you need to wait until Nationalism to unlock Colonial War (when the AI is 2 eras behind you) or Mobilization to unlock War of Territorial Expansion (when you have 2 cities within 10 tiles from 2 enemy cities). Nationalism is in Industrial Era, and Mobilization in the Modern Era.

--
If I might offer advice unrelated to the topic, maybe you should focus a bit more on culture. New governments and policies may be quite strong if timed right. Play a game as Rome to see the impact culture has (newly-founded Roman cities start with a Monument, which really helps Culture even later in the game).

 

[Dale]

You can game the system which shows how poor it is. Stay in ancient era as long as possible and find as many AIs as you can. Declare war on all of them before hitting classical for no war monger points. Keep population low and connect all the luxuries you can find whilst picking off AIs. Ignore their screams for peace whilst you chew them up one by one. By the end of classical you should have completely conquored all of the AIs on your continent for near zero WM and WW. Even go slowly through classical to give you more time.

Win game any way you want.

 

[Cedbird77]

Does he have a red face in his icon? If so, one of you denounced the other. You need 5 turns after denouncement to declare a formal war (under Casus Belli in the diplomacy screen).

In a way, you do need culture to get access to Casus Belli. All of them are unlocked when you reach certain civics. In your case, I suggest a Joint War with someone that also dislikes him, since it's unlocked as early as Foreign Trade (right after Code of Laws).

If you really need another CB, you need to reach Diplomatic Service (a Renaissance Era civic). This wil grant you the following CBs:

• Holy War - Available when AI convert one of your cities
• War of Liberation - Available when the AI controls a city from a friend or ally
• War of Reconquest - Available when the AI controls a city you founded
• Protectorate War - Available when the AI controls a City-State

If you still cannot use those, then you need to wait until Nationalism to unlock Colonial War (when the AI is 2 eras behind you) or Mobilization to unlock War of Territorial Expansion (when you have 2 cities within 10 tiles from 2 enemy cities). Nationalism is in Industrial Era, and Mobilization in the Modern Era.

--
If I might offer advice unrelated to the topic, maybe you should focus a bit more on culture. New governments and policies may be quite strong if timed right. Play a game as Rome to see the impact culture has (newly-founded Roman cities start with a Monument, which really helps Culture even later in the game).

Awesome awesome awesome! That answers my question greatly. And great suggestion about culture.

Most times my opponents have already denounced me. And 5 turned has gone by. So I guess I was looking for the chance to denounce them. In order to use CB. But they beat me to it. So there is no denounce button for me.
My only other question is. Why do I still get a heavy warmongering hit for CB when they denounced me over 5 turns already?

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Warmongering penalties scale by era, so half,say, -100 warmongering is still -50, an egregious amount.