[GS] Grievances balance

[Wit]

Is it just me, or do the grievances points need to be adjusted? After many months away from the game, I finally found the time to start my first GS game. Take a look at the attached snapshot (I am playing marathon speed, so keep that in mind when looking at the turn numbers).

So, here is the situation: It is fairly early in the game, I have just five cities, Tamar converts one of my cities, I warn her, she ignores, I denounce -- our grievances are balanced at this point, which I would argue is not fair, because she initiated it, but... moving on. A few turns later, she converts another one of my cities -- I warn her again, she ignores again, I declare formal war. How are our grievances: I am down by 75! That is just wrong, she committed a second offense, at this point I should be ahead in terms of grievances, after all I only reacted to offenses she initiated.

[Side note: At this point, another civ had converted another one of my cities, and I am on brink of losing my religion.]

What do you think? I am not sure what the right solution should be, but an overall re-adjustment along with some kind of an exponential increase of grievances for 2nd/3rd/... offenses seems to be required.

 

[WillowBrook]

The current gameplay relating to converting cities and other requests isn't very well fleshed out. (The lack of definition of troops on the border is another common complaint. Turns to comply with requests needs visibility, etc.)

I'd love to see some refinement to grievances generated, but I don't know if they even have a way of adjusting numbers based on other past behavior in the game yet.

 

[Ziad]

Formal War declarations aren't necessarily tied to a particular offense. If you denounce and declare a formal war against someone who offended you, the game doesn't know you are doing it in response to this particular offense because formal war has no strict purpose. As a result you you receive the maximum grievance penalty for a denounced war declaration.

How does the world know that you are doing it in response to conversion? You could be declaring war for their territory.

The purpose of the Casus Belli system is to avoid the very situation you are in.

One of them is the Holy War declaration. This is in response to someone converting one of your cities. This Casus Bellum essentially halves the grievance penalties of a Formal War as this one has a particular purpose and so they are seen as "justified" (You get era score points for them btw).

Some of them eliminate punishments entirely such as the Protectorate war declaration (someone attacked a city state ally ... liberating the city has no penalties).

You do need the Diplomatic Service civic to gain access to the first set of Casus Belli however, but fortunately the grievance penalties in the early eras are relatively minimal so you should be OK. Some civilizations get access to a Casus Bellum earlier than other civs as part of their UAs.

I think the system needs more fine tuning like most things, but overall it does serve its purpose.

 

[Minou]

To me Casus Belli are one if the greatest IDEAS from Civ 6, but in reality are completely meaningless. If you are going to take and keep a couple cities, everyone will hate you regardless of whether you declared a surprise war or had a cause, As I either play peacefully or rush early if warmongering, I have never used one other than the rare cases I do so to trigger the Nationalism boost.

I would actually love it if they gave you zero grievances for wars justified by good cause (Protectorate, Liberation, Reconquest). You should still get penalty (but lower) for Formal, Retribution, Colonial and Expansion. It might make sense if Religious and Ideology gave no penalty from Civs also following the same religion / government but a higher penalty from those following the offenders religion / government.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Grievances have been in the game for a long time and I still haven't bothered to figure out how they work. To me, that measn they are probably not relevant enough, or else I would have been forced to learn

 

[Victoria]

No, do it right and they will not hate you. It is a little gamey but needs must.

There is a big divide between those that want to just wargame and kill all civs and those that want a more balanced approach. Even if you do get some grievances early they can be minimised and will go.

The game is geared for this strongly now.
You can take 2-3 civs and end up with 15-20 cities and have all the grief that comes along with that which now includes lack of trade and worse, lack of diplomatic points. Or you can get hundreds of gold per turn before T100 and have alliances as well.

It is starting to be worth taking 1 civ cunningly and settling down, with the odd skirmish here and there where you can pillage civs for more that you would get owning their cities.

Some people just want to fight and that is fine but the game is not designed as a war game. The Dom victory is there for those people but civ has been loosely about history and taking every capital in the works just did not happen.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Some people just want to fight and that is fine but the game is not designed as a war game. The Dom victory is there for those people but civ has been loosely about history and taking every capital in the works just did not happen.

I agree but it seems like taking out a civ's capital requires so much military prep that you are basically funneled to dom victory, which is why I basically never fight offensive wars in civ 6 (or 5).

This doesn't apply to really ancient or classical wars against people right next to you, but apart from that...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Some people just want to fight and that is fine but the game is not designed as a war game. The Dom victory is there for those people but civ has been loosely about history and taking every capital in the works just did not happen.

Except, of course, that every VC in Civ has to go through a military check if everyone on the board is trying to win the game. Missionaries don't combat knights well. Space ports are not particularly strong against bombers, modern armor and nukes. Nor are sources of tourism.

And as of right now that IS still part of the design. It's something devs past and present never really reconciled in Civ.

 

[ezzlar]

CBs do not work perfectly. And many of them arrive late game. But still, the design has prevented many exploits that otherwise would turn up if implementation would be more lenient towards the player.

But then despite all the design choices they then added the "To arms!" and suddenly grievances are very much less relevant

 

[Victoria]

So just to make a point. In ancient times....

I declare a surprise war in Tomyris and 12 turns later have taken 2 of her cities.
She has 300 grievances with me and 54 bad feeling
Everyone else has 25 bad feeling toward me this decays at 1 point per 2 turns. Most will denounce me.

or

I declare a formal war and take 2 cities
She has 200 grievance and 36 bad feeling
Everyone else has 14 bad feeling toward me. Not really quite enough to denounce.

or

If I had forward settled her (within 10 of her cap)....and also stressed her borders and made both promised and she then declared on me
At the end of the war I would have
+60 diplomacy points
3 Scythian cities
Scythia would have about 25 bad feelings toward me.
Everyone else would be fine, some may like to dislike me a bit due to their allegiances but all around 5 points.

##############################
Some major changes are that because the grievances associated by war are what effects most things and these do not change from era to era, just the decay rate does.... war in the early stages has been penalised more but war much later is more acceptable. They have toned down the difference.
The early diplomacy can be crippling but taking the time to formalise war often stops denouncement which is the real killer to diplomacy.
Goading someone into attacking you can be a real benefit as long as you do not go too far and taking smaller cities does not garner so much grievance.

Now... if someone break a promise or takes your city state or even denounces you, regardless of age, if you declare war in them immediately (ideally formal war or casus) then you can not really suffer consequences unless you take cities, it is an excuse to pillage but taking a city or two is possible with Casus as the grievance is so much lower now. in fact one could say that waiting for a 50% casus is better than an ancient war.

I am not so convinced the system is so crap any more.
Go over the top and wipe out a vic and eveyone will hate you for a few hundred years but it will go. Take over half the planet and it will get a bit extreme but there needs to be the benefit of peacefullish play.

 

[Thibaulthc]

Does anyone already noticed if liberation / emergencies / protectorate war now give correctly grievances for taking / razing cities other than the targeted ones?

 

[Thibaulthc]

Beside that problem, I find the system of grievances / losing favor / casus belly /... quite good.

I personally think that it requires some adjustments, but those are easily moddable.

My changes:
-more grievances for breaking promises
-grievances decay slower (bcoz I play on epic speed)
-lose flavor faster and stronger because of grievances
I'm unable to change it myself, but I hope the bug from some CB is now corrected, otherwise you can just wipe a whole civ of there's an emergency against them for example (or liberation / protectorate wars)

 

[Ziad]

-grievances decay slower (bcoz I play on epic speed)

Playing Historic speed on the Play Europe Again map now and I'm very amused seeing civs that were once at war with each other become friends within the same age. I find it oddly realistic.

What's not realistic is someone getting a natural disaster emergency and getting 100 units from it for free. Yikes.

 

[Stilgar08]

Beside that problem, I find the system of grievances / losing favor / casus belly /... quite good.

I personally think that it requires some adjustments, but those are easily moddable.

My changes:
-more grievances for breaking promises
-grievances decay slower (bcoz I play on epic speed)
-lose flavor faster and stronger because of grievances
I'm unable to change it myself, but I hope the bug from some CB is now corrected, otherwise you can just wipe a whole civ of there's an emergency against them for example (or liberation / protectorate wars)

I disagree especially when it comes to promise-breaks. Or else the way they handle those breaks have to change drastically. Even if I just sit around I get promise broken-grievances for converting cities by just existing next to them or I moved my troops away, but not far enough. I would be more than annoyed if that would further diminish my reputation ingame as it already did.

Playing peacefully most of the time I quite like the grievance system and I am not sure how I think of it balancewise. If I have to bring up something about it, I think, grievances are around far too long (playing epic here) and the measurement for "you caused grievances on others" is not balanced quite well. Friends and Allies should be angry that I attack(ed) their friend but others should bother far less as they do now... So the relationships between the civs should count much more here.

 

[Kurnn]

Grievance is FAR more easier then the system was before this mechanic.
There are MANY ways to minimize your grievences (tooltop and advisor), and in peace, make friend with whoever got grievences towards you, and make them happy in the million different ways you can. And their greivances will drop faster.

Also, you can gain/loose greivances by talking to them. Suggest promises etc.
Liberating cities ALWAYS gives you a good boost on your grievances, but not automaticly by all civs.

But, as long as you are not in war, the greivance is ticking down. Unless you play on normal or fast, then just wait and your greivance is gone.

Civ 6 is MUCH more about relationships and what nations does, or dont do. Gossip is valuable to look at.
Also, a friend to you, who dont like whoever you got lots of greivances against, will NOT blame you for that.

 

[MrRadar]

Well, there are grievances and there are grievances. Meaning, AI must be taught that not all grievances are created equal.
Fresh example: 7 seas, Deity, all else standard.

I'm Peter in the south, to the north is Wilhelmina and Kupe to the east.

I'm allied to Wilhelmina, but Kupe is hostile to me and to Wilhelmina as well, they have fought before, and there was one surprise DOW from him against me.
I receive another surprise DOW from Kupe and go to investigate what might've been the matter. He shows a lot of negatives for "caused grievances to other players"

Indeed, I converted all of Wilhelmina's cities and I see that she has hundreds of grievances against me, which translates into more than 40 negative diplo. But I also send all my 10+ trade routes to her, and that results into +42 diplo which offset the negatives for conversion and leaves me in about +20 positive for other good deeds, so we renew our scientific alliance every time, no problem.

So Kupe attacks me on behalf of the Netherlands, I imagine, to explain me that it is not polite to convert Wilhelmina's cities, and because of our alliance, he gets to fight against Wilhelmina as well, who stands by me and kinda tells him that it is perfectly fine as long as some trade is involved and would he mind his own business. Now that I wrote it out, I'm no longer sure that it is utterly unrealistic. It seemed so, before I started
Still not sure if it is worth a war.

 

[steveg700]

It's not just you. Grievances are whack.

Cleopatra smashes a city-state I'm suzerain of. I get a whopping 100 grievances.

If I were to denounce, that alone would grant her 50 grievances.

So, I lose my CS, which has a real impact on me, and she gets denounced, which does nothing really negative to her and actually serves to offset the negative diplomatic effects of her 100 grievances against me.

Now I want to declare war, but there's no casus belli avialable, so I'll have to go with surprise war and we know that will turn me into the bad guy.

Meanwhile, Teddy--Mr. Big Stick Agenda--is just fine with his neighbor's belligerence. Guess wars on city-states don't count against his policy.

 

[Victoria]

Now I want to declare war, but there's no casus belli avialable

The casus is early but not for some CS certainly. In this case declare a surprise war on him the moment he DOW’s the CS.
What this means is he has 50 grievances against you and everyone else has none in a few turns. At least you can fight him and levy CS troops against him. 50 grievances is nothing. Taking their cities will hurt but the point of ancient and classical is grievances do go quick.
One you have that CB and you CB as soon as they declare you can take 2 of their cities before getting any grievances.

It is nowhere near as bad as it used to be but war should not be free.

 

[MrRadar]

Ok, what happened here, was Phil trying to say "Who wants some? Come at me!", or what? I'm confused. Wilhelmina's and Giggles' votes make more sense to me.