Declarations of war and earning warmongerer reputation.

[skallben]

In mostly every game, you have opportunities to wage wars sooner or later. You can take the toll of a rushed attack or you can build up and execute it with minimal losses. From my experience it seems that attacking sooner has the huge benefit of not earning you the warmongerer reputations.

Is it true that none of your actions when you are unknown to them just slide past them or can they realize from other civs that you are that warmongerer. Does this reputation spread or is it only that sole leaders judgment that determines if you become a warmongerer in their eyes?

 

[Andulias]

Short answer: you become a warmonger - everyone knows about it. Every one and their grandmother.

 

[Adjuvant]

Not everyone always "cares", though. Also, warmonger diplo penalty can fade.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I believe the warmonger penalty now fades with time, so it could just be the case that you did receive the penalty with Civs you hadn't met, but by the time you met them the penalty has worn off.

 

[apocalypse105]

Not everyone always "cares", though. Also, warmonger diplo penalty can fade.

Does anybody know how long it takes to fade away?

 

[Andulias]

Depends on each civ I think. With some, it takes hundreds of turns to fade away, at least in my experience. At the same time I don't even have it with others

 

[Adjuvant]

I think it "might" matter more to the "friends" of whichever AI you're fighting. I think further it might matter more to specific civs. I tend to ignore it actually. I get warmonger penalty when the wind blows, sometimes. Also I've seen it "trip" when my military tops a certain "size" (relative on demographics) even at peace-time.

 

[Ghonasiflaids]

Yes, the warmonger penalty now fades with time, as well as the 'you declared war on leaders you made friends with'. You can tell it's fading when it shows up as dark red.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I think I just definitively debunked the myth of the 'free DoW'.

Game as Austria, I've not dealt a single blow all game, then right at the end I decide to declare war on Pachacuti - bam. Nebuchadnezzar thinks I'm a warmongering menace to the world.

He was already on 'guarded' with me, though, so in the grand scheme of things it's not that significant. And if I've got the penalty with the other Civs, it's not showing yet.

 

[smallfish]

Short answer: you become a warmonger - everyone knows about it. Every one and their grandmother.

Upon meeting China on another continent: "Ah, the bloodthirsty one shows himself..." and "just between you and me, your military is kind of the laughing stock of the world"

 

[Barghaest]

Well, I'm currently in a game as Persia. I started out having skirmishes with Spain (none I started)... when I met Polynesia we became friends but everyone else on Kamehameha's island hated him so when I finally met them (embarkation) they turned on me. I started a few wars... captured a Spanish city that had somehow slipped into my territory and annexed a city-state. Had a warmonger penalty.

I threaded an embarked army past a plethora of CS units (allied) to reach a small sub-continent between my continent and Polynesia's (couldn't get a settler past the horde of triremes) intent upon attacking another city-state to annex it and gain a foothold from where I could spread my empire like a plague. I noticed the warmonger title had faded, so I proceeded with my assault.

Polynesia turned against me and all of the empires had the warmonger tag back after I conquered the CS... I'm even suffering DOUBLE influence drain with my allied CS (struggling to maintain 6 as allies). This moniker STILL hasn't faded several hundred turns (and many repeat denouncements by AI) later. I haven't reached permawar status with any CS yet, but I seem the be forever the warmonger.

I just met three more AI as I achieved Caravels (Arabia, China, India).

Arabia was neutral (no warmonger). We exchanged embassies (and luxuries) and no change (they gained "have an embassy in your capital" but also "You built wonders they coveted" - guess they saw the GL in my capital and got jealous).

China was friendly. We exchanged embassies (and more luxuries). They do not have the warmonger flag with me.

India was neutral. We exchanged embassies (I had no spare luxuries at this point) and next turn they were guarded (no modifiers listed except "have an embassy in your capital") but the turn after that jumped to friendly. No warmonger flag.

I'll probably see if another war flags them.

The original five empires I met before (Spain, Polynesia, Ethiopia, Inca, Maya) will not forgive my warmongering and (with one exception below) have never risen above Guarded (even though I've forgiven Maya for spying on two occassions). Spain I can understand, I've Citadel bombed them twice after a peace-treaty, captured one of their cities, refused to forgive them for there constant bullying of my primary CS ally - Vatican City, my first CS ally in the game and has remained so since... they were my original salvation from extinction at the hands of the rabid Spaniards in the Ancient Era - and even mooned Isabella at one point... well, in my mind at least. Ethiopia I can understand to some extent (I've been bullying one of their protected CS every time I can... it's too tempting since when they aren't Angry with me they're Afraid and I need the gold to feed my CS allies to compensate for the influence drop per turn hit from my warmongering). Inca has hit Friendly once (no modifiers listed) exchanged embassies with me then open borders... then denounced me a few turns later and got the warmonger flag back.

Since Inca, Polynesia, Ethiopia and Maya have been warring amongst themselves (seen each DoW the others several times, there's no unity among them except for their friendships with Spain - all but Polynesia - and hatred of me) so much that there's large patches of city ruins decorating the "no man's land" separating each of their empires.... (and at some point the poor Aztecs existed squarly in between all four and I have no idea who eliminated them but I've Tenochtitlan exchange hands three times - it was Incan when I first explored the continent).

I'm beginning to suspect warmonger doesn't actually fade, it's just suppressed and hidden as a modifier until you do something else to lower rep. I still find it ironic that even otherwise "peaceful" AI will declare war amongst themselves (even conquer CS/other Civs) yet if I do it more than once or twice I seemingly get a black mark on my permanent record...

I'll probably tweak some settings to see if OpinionDuration rating affects how long it (and broken promises) lasts...

 

[mGGCwnAnnwn]

I dont get it, usually the people who think I am a warmonger are my neighbours and those close to them diplomatically. Considering I just destroyed a neighbour without a casus belli the feeling is kinda justified.

I've gotten into many wars with my neighbours whom they have forgiven me afterwards (including Bismark) and destroyed nations and not gotten denounced by everyone. I think people assume that they can get away with murder and when the AI gets pissed at you they cry "BAD AI!".

On the whole, in my experience, I find the diplomacy in civ 5 to be very reasonable.

 

[Barghaest]

Reasonable most of the time; however, I kinda dislike the hypocrisy of AI blantantly exterminating other AI/CS yet not being denounced by everyone but when a player does it there's more "sour grapes".

I don't want to get away with "murder".... I do dislike a rational decision to eradicate a pest (AI that won't stop DoWing me/keeps bullying or attacking CS under my protection/repeatedly encroaches my borders then yells at ME for "settling" near them/keeps asking me to move troops away from it's border when their within MY territory and there because if they weren't a sneak DoW could reach a few of my cities rapidly) or annexing a hostile CS to avoid the extra strain of trying to keep good relations but wanting the resources being viewed as "warmongering" when it's limited to one or two events over the course of several hundred turns. Warmongering should require a "three strike" rule minimum or declaring wars more frequently than AI or having spent more than 33% of the game turns in wars you have declared. If you DoW/eradicate Civs only once or twice in an entire game (especially when diplomatic solutions to annoyance fail), you aren't (and shouldn't be considered) warmongering...

I've had a game where I DoWed a neighboring CS near the start of the game and kept that war going through 3 Eras... never conquered the CS and was never considered a warmonger, but that was INDEED warmongering. I was killing the CS units for xp simply because, unlike barbarians, there was no xp cap and if I wiped out all the units I could still xp a unit by moving it in range of their city's attack. If all the AI had chain denounced me for warmongering, I'd have called it a fair cop, but that game I never got the warmonger title.

 

[Barghaest]

WOOHOO! Found the settings! In GlobalDiplomacyAIDefines.xml...

Apparently there IS a decay on warmonger according to this:

Spoiler :

<Row Name="WARMONGER_THREAT_PER_TURN_DECAY">
<Value>-5</Value>
</Row>

However, since the base value of conquering a minor civ is as follows:

Spoiler :

<Row Name="WARMONGER_THREAT_MINOR_CONQUERED_WEIGHT">
<Value>1000</Value>
</Row>

Also found values for breaking promises and the like, so it appears no modifier is intended to be permanent (even if it seems so during the standard course of the game because of how slowly they decay).

It indeed takes several hundred turns to decay (not to mention the values for declaring war and the like... so, assuming OpinionDurationPercent under GameSpeeds.xml inversely adjusts the decay, it should be possible to tweak the duration of warmonger title to fit your style. I'll play around with it and see how it goes (assuming all these flags are working as intended, which I shall soon discover!)

Still, the fact alone that it is intended to decay (however slowly) gives me much hope!

 

[Bakspatel]

I think it totally depends about how the civ is thinking about you. If they don't like you, you'll see the warmonger penalty pop-up very soon.
In a game I was playing against seven other civs, one included Korea. They were scared to death of me, for over 100 turns I've seen their status being 'Afraid' with regular comments about how great I am and trying to make a friendship. Because of some wars that I had waged, they did had a dark-reddish warmonger penalty in their list. In a later stage I made a friendship with them though, and the penalty disappeared.

The only way that you know for certain that you are too much warmongering is when other civs give you the message that you are starting to attract quite a bit of attention.

 

[Barghaest]

You know, I haven't seen a civ as "Afraid" since G&K... I've seen that on City-states now but have yet for a Civ to get that way despite severe military deficiency on their part.

 

[headcase]

You know, I haven't seen a civ as "Afraid" since G&K... I've seen that on City-states now but have yet for a Civ to get that way despite severe military deficiency on their part.

I've strangely had it happen in 2 out of 3 games, despite not having close to the largest army. It was England in one game and Austria in the other, I think.

 

[Adjuvant]

Warmongererererer diplo penalty doesn't matter anyway, really. If someone's gonna hate on you for being a warmongerererererer then you don't need em.

 

[Adjuvant]

You know, I haven't seen a civ as "Afraid" since G&K... I've seen that on City-states now but have yet for a Civ to get that way despite severe military deficiency on their part.

Monte was afraid of me today. I had a comparable army, denounced a couple of his pals and wouldn't sign embassies with him. He started messaging me every couple turns with "blah blah I hope you don't pick on me, I'm weak, blah blah", kinda like AI do when they insult you.

 

[Thyrwyn]

I've played two games (huge marathon maps) - in both of the them, Haile Selassie has been afraid of me (once as the Celts, and currently as Theodora)