Confused about the New Warmonger Mechanic

As all of us are aware, the Fall Patch severely changed the way the AI responds to the "warmonger threat". Being someone who prefers domination, I was one of the many who protested the change in other threads. The new penalties seemed a bit too severe now.

My opinion about the new system came after a game as Mongolia. This was my first victory on emperor and one of the most rewarding games when I actually won (some time after turn 400). The madness started after I took two Iroquois cities (including one capital) and left him with only one city left (out of 3). Fractal gave me a Pangea setup, therefore by the time I started fighting, I knew all 11 civs. After I finished my war with the Iroquois I got denounced by a few and shortly after I declared war on my next victim, the entire world declared war on me. Luckily, because the Mongols are awesome (and this was an emperor game) I was able to fight against everyone at the same time even though I was in the middle of the Pangea and surrounded and eventually win.

I played a couple of conservative games after that with very little warring and then started a new game with the Huns. I decided to not care about the new system and go all out war to take advantage of the early UU. This time Fractal gave me two continents (or maybe a Pangea with a bottle neck - I'm still exploring the world). I completely wiped the Zulu, Spanish, Assyrian while the Dutch watched and did nothing but trade with me. I then wiped the Byzantine after I met Portugal and (edited addition)the Shoshone .

Currently in this game I have declaration of friendship with 4 of the remaining civs and no one has declared war on me and only the Shoshone denounced me. This is after I wiped 4 civs while one (then two) others watched. I'm extremely confused as to what happened. I was hoping a comparison of the two situations couple help me and others who are having issues with the new system better understand it and work with it.

Here are some of what I think are the relevant differences:
-In the Mongol game I knew everyone before the wars started, therefore the penalty stacked with everyone at the same time and amounted to a bigger penalty which snowballed once denouncements started and led to world war.

-In the Mongol game, my military was fairly small but successful. I took a lot of territory with very few troops. With the Huns, I've been among the 4 biggest armies. Perhaps that would work as a deterrent from war. However it doesn't quite explain the DoF requests.

-In the Hun game I completely eliminated 4 civs whereas in the Mongol game I didn't start "genocide" until after everyone was at war with me. Does the number of witnesses influence your reputation that much? I've read several times on this board that witnesses will ruin your reputation with civs you meet after the fact.

Edit:
-the Mongol game I had taken 2 cities (1 capital) and just started a war with a second civ but had not yet taken any of their cities. In my current Hun game I've taken a total of 4 capitals and 12 additional cities from the 4 civs I wiped.
Perhaps I'm missing other factors but I'd like to hear your input.

 

Taking out a non capital city/less than 15 pop or so city= Minor to no penalty


Taking a more than 15 pop city = Minor to medium penalty

Any sized capital- Major Penalty

If you do any of the top two more than about 5-7 times, it will go up to the next tier of penalties.

 

Perhaps I should've been more clear:
in one game I took one capital and one non capital city and was penalized more harshly than in my current game in which I took 16 cities total (including 4 capitals).

 

This is what I have discovered. Started early war against dido. Took her capital, and 2nd expo that she settle between my two cities. Left her with 3rd city on northern coast, a crap city. This on Pangea, 8 civs. Standard. I ad met France, a close neighbor, had Indonesia, and Portugal to my south. Had not met everyone yet.

Saved game. Time to experiment. France asks for open borders, his preview before declaring war. We are friendly. Make peace with dido, next turn she denounces me, a France declares war. Next turn, Indonesia, and Portugal, denounce. I destroy napoleons army, take his first expo, take his capital, meet Brazil, get denounced by Brazil. Next turn war with everyone.

Reload game, France asks for open borders, I stay at war with dido, France declares war, I stay friendly with Portugal, and drop to guarded with Indonesia. I again destroy napoleons army, take the same two cities from him, meet Brazil, and no world war.

It is not the war that causes the problem, it is the denouncements.

I left Napoleon his 3rd city, on the northern coast also, beside ditto, and declared war on Brazil, since his capital was so accessible. Met Venice, took Brazil cap, and Indonesia denounces me. Ditto, and Napoleon keep asking for peace, which it refuse, and still no mass denouncements, and no world war.

So I saved the game again

Made peace with ditto, next turn she denounces me, next turn world war. Reload, make peace with Napoleon, next turn denounced, next turn mass denouncements, next turn world war.

So it is either stay at permanent war, to avoid the denouncements, or leave no survivors, which I have not tested. But from others posts, genocide seems to lead to early world war also.

 

Pretty sure you've stated the root cause of it- denouncements are so over-stressed in the Civ 5 diplomacy system, that they are like a nuclear chain-reaction almost always sure to cause a hysteria mass-DoW against you once they start. It is a pretty lame mechanic, from what I've seen.

 

WHEN you take a city (especially regarding total number of cities in the game) plays a key role in determining how much warmonger score a city is.

IIRC, in the early game, when there are fewer cities in total (and the target civ has few cities), then taking a city from them will result in a much larger penalty. In the later game, when there are lots of cities in total (and the target civ has lots of cities), then taking an equivalent city will result in a much smaller penalty.

 

That's not how it works. Pop # don't count.

It's based on how many cities there can be on the map, versus how many are currently settled, and versus how many the Civ you attack has. Then it's modulated by a factor of hate of warmongers each leader has.

IRRC, the formula is something like (1000 * Estimated total of cities) / (Actual number of cities * # of cities the victim owns) = Warmonger Amount.

That gives a raw number that's then modulated for each leader that already knows you when you capture that city. Each of them have a factor indicating how much they dislike or tolerate warmongers.

It's (Leader Warmonger Hate factor * Warmonger Amount) / 100 = final Warmonger Score.

The final Warmonger Score is what gets used in diplomacy.

On a standard map, if you take a city from a civ that has four when there are 33 cities settled in the world, it gives :

(1000 * 52) / (33 * 4) = 393
393 * 5 / 100 = 19


19 Warmonger Score is high, high enough to be denounced if you don't have many positive modifiers to compensarte, but not so high compared to the diplo effect of being denounced itself (35).

It's really the denouncements that are the most harmful. It doesn't take many leaders with above average warmonger hate factor to get chain denounced. The warmonger amount reduce by 5 per turn, so 393 will have vanished in less than 80 turns, but if you got denounced by many, the first to expire will still be influenced by the others and will denounce again, creating the loop of hatred that no longer need any warmongering score to go on.

If you attack when 10% of the total cities the map could contain (it's 52 for a standard map, this include CS) are settled, and take a city from a civ that has only 2, or a CS, then the penalty is massive (taking any last city from a civ incurs a huge penalty).

If you take cities once the full number of cities is reached, and from a civ that has many cities, the penalty will be very minor. You can take a capital for a minor penalty if you go for it right away instead of capturing the Civ's 4-5 cities before you do.

Your threat level also increases with each capital you take out, but that's different from the penalties for capturing cities.

So without getting again in the debate whether it's too high or fine, the fact remains that now you have to really think about the value of any city you take and when you take it, and if it's worth or not the diplomatic effects.

"Wide conquest" is far more feasible on maps where the Civs are split and the groups won't discover each other too early. Then it's a matter of wiping out the neighbors before anyone else (ideally, or as few as possible otherwise) know you.

If you manage that you can have a conquered Empire with even conquered CS and still have many friendships after Astronomy.

 

I took 16 cities before my ram and horse archers became practically useless. This was 16 cities (4 capitals) by Renaissance. I was pretty much at perma war while I took out the for civs. In the Mongol game I used in comparison, I started the war with chariots, so around the same time, and took only 2 cities before I was denounced and DoWed by everyone. So there has to be something else.

My confusion comes from the fact that while I conquered four civs and I did not get denounced one by William. His diplo tooltip says my warmongering will bring a new dark time (or something like that) and he is only offering me 3gpt for luxuries. But his opinion of my character has not been made public. Maria I also watched me take out the last Byzantine city and about 10 turns later was sending me a DoF request.The only denouncement I received was from the Shoshone who were mad that I denounced Theodora.

So what is preventing the chain denouncement?

 

Quite possibly your relative strength. The way you describe it in your Mongol game you achieved less and was less powerful in relation to the AI (at least some) and got chain denounced.

In your Hun game you seem to have reached a momentum where the other AI no longer dared denounce you. Had one of them dared it could still have gotten the ball rolling, but none of the AI was bold enough to do it.

It no doubt has to do with other personality factors as well (like boldness, for instance) which vary from leader to leader, and there's a small randomization (-/+ 2, IRRC) for those factors in every game. You can't perfectly predict how Maria is gonna act, for instance. She may be bolder, more aggressive, more disloyal in one game, for e.g.

This can also vary a lot according to how many warmonger haters you have in your game. In one game I was the most powerful by a long shot and had nukes. I took 2 capitals and 16 cities and got denounced only by one player, Maria Theresa, who has low tolerance. The other 2 AI with low tolerance were the ones no longer around to complain .

In a similar scenario but with less very good friends and more anti-war leaders and a far less impressive army I got chained denounced after I took my first few cities for "minor penalties" (that still stacked).

About William specifically, I had a similar experience to yours one time. I took everything he had but two cities. In the first wave I took one city and he denounced me, but no one liked him and no one followed his denouncement. Later I took a bunch of his cities. He was hostile, had a very severe/extreme warmongering modifier for me, but he didn't denounce, as if he didn't dare to anymore. The others gave me, IRRC, something like "early concerns about warmongering", and Maria Theresa bit more.

The AI don't "share" the warmongering score they each give you. They all calculate their own based on their hate factor and the raw number you get when you DoW or capture a city. Their denouncements influence one another, though, but as you no doubt knows the "denouncements" are generic (ie: one civ might denounce you because your warmonger score made the number rise high enough to trigger it, while the neighbor might join because of modifiers for covet land, wonder spam + the influence of the other's denouncement combined gave a high enough score). The warmonger scores are also mitigated by all the positive modifiers you have with each leader (some appears to be hidden, like possibly having TR or RA, or those factors decrease the numbers or raise the level at which they'll denounce or something) and then there are personality factors influencing if they'll denounce or not, and some leaders have lower thresholds at which they'll renew a DOF, and having a DoF with one Civ gives a positive modifier for you to all his other friends etc. If the Civs you take out are hated, that bears on it too. The warmongering scores stay the same, but their actual diplomatic effects can vary a lot.

I guess you also know that if you have allies in your wars, the warmonger score (or Amount, I don't know for sure) they give you is halved.

 

Yeah, I really don't understand it either. My game this morning [Korea, Emperor, Donut, Standard] I spawned dangerously close (8 tiles) to Polynesia, So I decided to take him out, ASAP with CBs. Being a donut map, I had met everybody by else by turn 80 (when I declared war), and Had DOF with 4 of the other Civs (Poland, Byzantium, Germany, Japan). The Huns and the French were 'Neutral'. As soon as I took Honolulu, Poland, Germany, Byzantium and Japan all 'back-stabbed' me, denouncing one after the other. Germany and Byzantium had been friends with Polynesia as well. As soon as I captured the second city, The remaining Civs Denounced me. I burned his last city to the ground, and for the entire rest of the game, every single Civ stayed hostile with me. Immediately after the message "Enemy denouncement of you has expired" showed up, said AI would denounce me again on the next turn. Even though I played peaceful from turn 87 on -- trading Luxes for 2gpt, sharing religion, not pissing anyone off with my UN proposals, etc -- EVERYBODY hated me all game long. [France went from hostile to Guarded a time or two, but that is it].
Needless to say, my goal of a sub 300 Science win went out the window with no one to RA with.

 

At first you paid heavily in diplo for capturing cities from (and most of all, wiping out) Indonesia very early in the game before there were all that many cities on the map. It was enough to trigger a denouncement from a first Civ with a DoF with Polynesia and/or a high level of hate for warmongers. Then that denouncement influenced the second Civ to be calculated, and those two the third one etc. For others with better relations to you or higher tolerance for warmongering, it took the second city to join the chain. Your warmonger score with everyone most likely disappeared completely or reduced seriously by the time the first denouncement expired, but the first AI for which it expired was still influenced by the denouncements of the others and denounced back a second time, and thn the second one did etc.

In chain denouncements another problem is that you barely can't get any positive modifiers since they barely trade, won't deal for OB, won't sign DoF, so you always remain the black sheep while each AI like the other AI better than you the whole game, thus the reason why you couldn't get out of the cycle.

You could have tried to get your two friends to declare war with you, it might have been enough to stop them from joining the chain (or not.. since you went as far as wiping out Indonesia). Another way you could have played this to avoid most of the woe is to have waged war on Indonesia to destroy its units and lay siege to its cities, but without capturing any city. You wait for the peace treaty then take a city in the peace deal, avoiding all city-capture (warmonger) penalties and paying only the smaller price for the DoW itself. You take the other city the same way in a second war. You would have gotten his land (with cities, or to resettle yourself) free of penalties. If you absolutely wanted the capital, one way to do it without paying too heavy a price is to bring another civ (not a declared friend of yours, not to be accused later of backstabbing) in the war with you. You help the AI take the capital of Indonesia and pay the warmonger price for it. You denounce him with the others, declare war and take the capital of Indonesia from him, now for a minor diplo penalty since it's one of many cities in the Empire of the third party. Some find that very exploitative, others find that it's simply that war has a much more important diplomatic aspect/component now.

 

Now to thicken the plot a little further, I will throw in some more information about this game. One of the other military powers in the game, with top 3 army, is Rome. They have recently just eliminated Austria from the game. I have no idea how many other cities they took up to this point since I've been too busy killing things on land to go to see. However, as soon as he took Austria's capital he was denounced by most of us (including me).

So now we have an AI that is likely at a lot lower warmongering level than me since he has only wiped one civ, he is at a similar military power as me (we keep alternating who has the most), and yet, he is being denounced and I am not. The main difference between Rome and I is that he had more witnesses. So I would venture to guess that the number of witnesses at the time is really what matters while a surviving witness such as William in my game does little to spread the word of your horrible deeds.

No one has actually declared war on Rome yet. People have been ganging on Napoleon instead. So the army size might be preventing the DoW for now, but the denouncements are coming.

I will be taking out William next time I play so we will see how that affects my popularity.

 

One thing I have found that leads to being denounced is pillaging a trade route that ends with the civ you are at war with. Pillaging the trade routes that your opponent created does not lead to the denouncement. The civ that created the trade route hates you for destroying his caravan.

 

Can you mitigate this at all by denouncing as soon as you make peace, rather than being denounced first?

 

Warmonger penalty is not applied on Civs you still not met.

Denunciation is a gave diplo penalty with that AI, but is a minor on other civs. If other AIs doesn't have friendly status with the denouncer, it makes no effect on them.

Also an AI civ is less prone to denounce you if your military is larger and you pose a threat to them. They are in afraid status and wont denounce even if they think you are the ultimate warmonger threat on the world.

On the explanations up there, warmonger score is not exactly the opinion a leader has with you. In fact the first level is always -15 (they have early concerns to your warmongering), but on the second level you are doomed in diplomacy (-50).

 

Based on the explanation I've seen, this is basically the same as the total Warmonger Score and the values post-patch would be:

Critical>=200
Severe>=100
Major >=50
Minor >=20

This serves first to determine which of the four modifiers each leader gives you for your warmongering, then apparently it's used to trigger specific coop actions from the AI, such as deals to declare war on you (which starts being triggered by this above 50) and deals to embargo you in the World Congress.

 

I've been wondering this while reading the thread also. I almost always denounce my intended targets and actively court friendships with bystanders before warring. I follow up by immediate denouncements after making peace. I've had bad experiences being labeled a 'backstabber' in the past so I figure it's safer to signal my intentions.

Just finished an emperor Morocco culture victory via 'art acquisition' game, and my first three wars were relatively smooth diplomatically for me. Maybe it was the gold everyone was making off trade routes to me or something but I didn't get the chain denouncement until I went and wiped the last two cultural powerhouses from the map in industrial and modern era.