Do you care about warmongering penalties or do you attack whenever you feel like it?

Artifex1

Warlord
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
284
Do you care about warmongering penalties? What about when you are playing a Civ like Macedon or Persia? Do you even attack friends sometimes if you feel like it? Does it matter even if it is egregious penalty?

When playing Macedon for instance do you feel it best to wait for a casus belli? or is it too important to keep warring to reap benefits even if you attack friends and get worst warmongering penalties?
 
Since the introduction of the "we are winning they fear us" huge penalty, I've stopped caring for the warmonger one, as long as I aim a science victory. I'll end up with everyone chain denouncing me whatever I do, so I might as well conquer my landmass, and declare war as soon as I see a settler nearby.
 
I play strategically, declaring war when necessary to further my plans. My current game, which is almost over, has me playing as Norway on a huge continents map at Emperor level. I started by eliminating Greece, my nearest neighbor, then attacked Spain and took all his cities on the continent and a small one over on the next continent, just north of Australia. Australia had declared war on me and just wouldn't make peace, so I attacked him and took his capital and another coastal city. Once I had those, I made peace with Spain by returning the city north of Australia. I made peace with Australia, keeping those two cities, and headed south for my real target - Kongo who had a huge cultural lead. They were surprisingly tough - I ran into three tank armies and helicopters, but I took their capital and another big city and made peace with them. As you can imagine, my warmongering is in triple digits with everyone but Alexander, but it hasn't affected my play in the least.
 
From my point of view, it seems that once you get tagged as a warmonger, it is nearly impossible to get rid of it. So, once they all call me one, when needed, I prove that they are right. The biggest gripe that I have about is, I can never denounce any one who has denounced me. When the Civ that denounced me time has expired, they immediately do it again, and I get no chance to denounce them. :mad:
 
I can't really see the point of just treating civ like an endless wargame so I don't ignore warmongering points (because if I would ignore warmongering points, the game would be an endless wargame). I like to use all aspects of the game. When it comes to war I mostly use a CB those times I want a one. This usually means that by the endgame, a couple of civs hate me, a couple of civs likes me and the rest is unfriendly or neutral. Of course since the last patch if I am (or probably when) close to a win, most is unfriendly, but that is ok, I am winning after all, I can take it.
 
What penalty? There's absolutely nothing that actually penalizes a player in any way for warmongering. In fact you are penalized for not warmongering. They will hate you regardless, warmonger or not. especially more so with the newest diplomatic hit for winning.

The whole warmongering penalty system is a lie designed to pacify players who don't prefer war in Civilization. Oh look there are "consequences" for warmongering. Yeah right.
 
If I rely heavily on trade for amenities I care. If I already have 1 of most everything... I don't care.
 
After a certain point, the warmonger penalities will be so high that it doesn't really matter what you try. So I just joint war with someone and usually they don't mind what I do that much. Other than that, I avoid attacking good trading partners and pick targets they don't like. But usually these are the people I want to joint war with. Since the other person in a joint war doesn't care that much about what you do, you're better off just always vying for a joint war and not caring about anything else. If you can win fast then they won't get too jealous of you winning but by that time you can always bop them off as needed.

The thing is in Civ 6, nobody is particularly intresting in dogpiling. In previous games where there was invite to join war, you'd have AIs coming to the aid of their friends or just joining in against you or with you because it's a good opportunity. In 4 for example, if you attacked into a bloc of friends, it would be like fighting them all. Here, they don't really care if their friends die beyond some worthless denouncements or not and just get picked off one by one. It's sorta why diplomacy is a joke in this game.

The result is I don't even casus belli at all after the medieval era. I usually maintain one solid ally, and if the rest disagree, then they can be conquest targets too, so I don't care what they think.

But just in case, get some declarations of friendships going right before you declare war on a target. That way, the other civs can't even denounce you or even get in the way for a long while.

Also, chances for liberation might help a bit since liberating a city will decrease your warmonger penalty. In those cases you might care a bit more.

In addition, it's also not a bad idea to have someone like Gorgo not be your partner since she doesn't care about you going to war in the first place. Ironically, she may even approve especially considering your victims will be forced to concede things to you meaning Gorgo will not like them. In these cases you can sometimes have a 3 way alliance.
 
Last edited:
I like to attack people without getting to much warmonger, or be able to reduce it by liberation.

You can murder a whole town in the stoneage without anyone caring....because who would know?

What happens in our modern time when anyone, whatever their reason may be, using bio weapons? They get the whole world against them.
And what happens when to two of the most powerful military nations in the world "just" threatens to use nuclear weapons?

Think about it. Warmonger isnt just a cool feature in civ. It's kinda "real" too. :)
 
I play @emperor, and have a tendency to go for Domination, or at least military-conquest in the early game. I dont worry about penalties for warmongering. I do watch out for war-weariness (I much prefer short wars), but I will DOW to steal a settler or worker, regardless of the warmongering penalty (also to take a city, be it AI or City State). I would NOT DOW only if I think that I will not be able to keep the settler, builder or city (too many enemies in close proximity/city is too strong), but the DOW penalty has no deterrent effect on me...all I ask is, "Can I get away with it?"

I do not use this same philosophy mid to late game. I seems that the atrocities committed prior to 1000 AD are more easily overlooked (or forgiven) than sins of the present (say post 1500 AD).

That's just me, but I feel that the pre-industrial ages are a lot more of a free-for-all than later years. :D
 
You don't need the A.I to like you for anything, so warmongering penalty is completely irrelevant. If they have a lux you wan't just take it. They can't trade techs anymore, and research pacts aren't worth it.
 
You don't need the A.I to like you for anything, so warmongering penalty is completely irrelevant. If they have a lux you wan't just take it. They can't trade techs anymore, and research pacts aren't worth it.

And miss out on tons of gold you get for selling surplus resources?
 
Agreed. It stinks to be sitting on 2-3 copies of multiple luxes in the late game with no willing buyers.
 
If you are trying to get a fast science win every penny can help get those great people.
 
I play on Emporer. Untill you get to the point where you can spam hubs....gold is life.
 
Top Bottom