Does Sanctioning still achieve its goal?

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Sep 11, 2017
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I'm in a game with a very aggressive and about-to-runaway Denmark right now and I am looking for ways to weaken him; this is not about asking for advice, though, but rather about the diplomatic WC Sanction option.

With the changes to trade routes from some months ago (or longer, I haven't been active for a while) one can get copious amounts of culture by establishing trade routes to civs that are culture whores (like a war and pillage frenzied Denmark). These TR usually don't give much to the target if they are strong in the game (top or doing really well on science, have lots of luxuries and lotta culture) but can give pretty crazy yields to civs that establish the TR even if those civs (me) are not that far behind in the big picture.
Thus, once the Sanction WC proposal is enacted, all other civs will have to take the hit of not being able to leech massive amounts of yields from the runaway any more, while the runaway will lose only relatively little gold (and have the warmonger thing going against him) since he can simply keep trading with city states.

So the question is this: does the Sanction WC option really fulfill its goal of punishing the target when it comes to powerful civs that excel in culture (or science)? Or does it punish the others more?

I haven't thought much about ways to fix this yet, but one idea could be to either prevent trading with city states for the sanction target or at least reduce yields or something like that but lets first gather opinions, I guess.
 
I think the sanctioning currently works best against a CV contender, depriving the chance to ramp up tourism via TRs. Also re: "since he can simply keep trading with city states" -> you can pass city-state sanctions to prevent that.

I'd love it, however, if we could add an even bigger embargo option, causing the targeted civ to no longer be able to trade (for) resources and technologies as long as the embargo resolution is in effect. That would be something that would have a much bigger impact on non-CV runaways.
 
Sanctions right now are
(1) not very effective and
(2) politically difficult (almost everyone will dislike the proposal).

At least one of these needs to change!

Ideas for making sanctions have more bite:
  • sizeable reduction in diplo penalties (say, -33% instantly) from warmonger penalties for wars past & current wars against target Civ
  • target Civ gets -50% to all Trade Route yields
  • target Civ may not make any new deals to import or export resources
 
Sanctions right now are
(1) not very effective and
(2) politically difficult (almost everyone will dislike the proposal).

At least one of these needs to change!

Personally I never got the impression that sanctions were too politically difficult; they are politically difficult sometimes, if the intended target has a good rapport with most civs, but often strong civs that should be weakened will have enough enemies that it won't cause too much trouble so that is not a major issue IMO.

I like the idea of including restrictions on luxury and/or strategic resource deals, though!

Overall I definitely agree that sanctions feel underwhelming and, as laid out above, in some situations they can be more harmful to everyone else than they are to the sanctioned civ.
 
I do sanction civs to conquer them easier. That's basically it. Sanction weakens them economically and allows their enemies to easily take up their cities without consequences.
 
I agree with civplayer33. I never really thought about it, but its not that good, if you are blocked to trade with the leading civ (you normally sanction) and decrease the option to close the gap a bit by trade. Reduce the yields by trade routes by 50% (40%/33%/...) for any nation and block strategic/luxury trade to any non-vasall-non-defence-pact-partner sounds realistic and balanced.
 
If sanctions become too strong they are a diplomatic nuke. That’s not fun. They’re as strong as they can be for a targeted action.

G
What if "Sanction Civ X" literally just became "past & current warmongering diplo penalties incurred by warring against Civ X are halved"? No economic effects. Basically just a denouncement by the whole world.

I think that'd be a heck of a lot more useful than the current form (and I'm not even a Domination player!).
 
What if "Sanction Civ X" literally just became "past & current warmongering diplo penalties incurred by warring against Civ X are halved"? No economic effects. Basically just a denouncement by the whole world.

I think that'd be a heck of a lot more useful than the current form (and I'm not even a Domination player!).

Well that would only add the reduction of past warmonger penalties since new ones are already "significantly reduced" according to the description as it is now, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to include past wars as well, though I'd like to see this combined with either "the target's trade route yields are halved" or "trade route yields to and from the target are halved".
 
I always saw Sanctions as one of the tools Diplomatically strong civs had to counter civs going for a tourism victory, or to weaken large empires that aren't necessarily ahead in science or culture by denying them a catch up mechanic. It's not a counter for strong culture or science civs for the very reason that you want to leach off them through trade.

Keep in mind these resolutions don't necessarily just apply to the runaway civ. If the runaway civ also controls the WC, any close competitor (i.e. you) could find themselves hit with these powerful sanctions.
 
whats the best way to weaken a civ that is runaway in science? playing agasint 10 civs and babylon had its own island and now is a full era ahead of everyone else. all the civs including me are in the start of modern era and babylon already mid way in atomic era with battleships, nukes and subs :/ i tired sanctioning him since all the other civs hate him, it worked then realized no trading with him anymore is worse for me than him since i cant leech off his science and culture anymore.
 
rp03ev, the time for action was at the very start of the world congress, where it would have been best to pass proposals such as world science initiative (especially if Babylon was the score leader) and first and foremost "Scholars in residence"!

Playing on non-pangea/oval maps always represents a bigger risk of a runaway AI, because it's an obstacle to the most efficient way of limiting a runaway science AI -> early war on it.
 
rp03ev, the time for action was at the very start of the world congress, where it would have been best to pass proposals such as world science initiative (especially if Babylon was the score leader) and first and foremost "Scholars in residence"!

Playing on non-pangea/oval maps always represents a bigger risk of a runaway AI, because it's an obstacle to the most efficient way of limiting a runaway science AI -> early war on it.
i playing on perfectworld3 since it generates most realistic looking maps. i already have those two science proposals active but he still has a huge lead. im playing on epic speed...is it a waste of time to keep playing? really wish there was a mechanic mid/late game to slow down these runaway civs, especially when its hated by all the other civs in the game. he is fighting a war against 6 civs and still holding his own bc of his huge tech advantage.
 
If the goal is to economically hurt the sanctioned Civ, how about the target Civ just loses 3 Trade Routes? Perhaps -25% Gold from City Connections, too, if desired.
 
I don't intend to make any changes to sanctioning.

G
Well, that's a bummer. Seemed like the consensus in this thread was that it doesn't do much in its current form.

Yeah it is; I understand the wariness about changing yet another mechanic but I just feel that sanctions weren't taken into account properly when changing the trade route yields to be much more relevant...sanctions can now have a pretty odd effect in certain situations and I believe those situations aren't necessarily rare either.

Oh well, since I'm not gonna learn C++ just for this I suppose I'll have to live with it.
 
Oh well, since I'm not gonna learn C++ just for this I suppose I'll have to live with it.
what do you mean, just for this?:trouble: HERESY! :lol:

on topic:
I often times played with the thought of trying to sanction myself (not bdsm-like) in order to not receive foreign trade routes from cultural victory contenders or civs that are behind in tech. Apart from the obvious benefits this method of denying trade routes has over a declaration of war, you get the benefit of still beeing able to trade with their, and soon-to-be your city states.
 
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