How do I attack a civ, without being hated for the rest of the game?

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Is there a general rule of thumb, how many cities you can take out without everyone going crazy? Playing Genghis on a Pangea map at the moment and to use the strength of the Mongols, I simply have do some wars. But after taking two of Etiopias cities and one Brazilian, half of the world is already starting denouncing me. There are no other wars, everything is peaceful...

The devs added a nifty lil UI trick, if you hover over any city it will tell you how much warmonger penalty you will amass from taking a single city.

The hate is also expanded by other nation's tolerance towards it, some don't care, others will denounce you for just declaring a war with a scout.

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

Is there a general rule of thumb, how many cities you can take out without everyone going crazy? Playing Genghis on a Pangea map at the moment and to use the strength of the Mongols, I simply have do some wars. But after taking two of Etiopias cities and one Brazilian, half of the world is already starting denouncing me. There are no other wars, everything is peaceful...

I think you can take out one city without any denouncements, maybe two early on, but to get away with that you have to be friends with all other Civs.. Attack another Civ and take a capital and even your friends might start to denounce you

Playing as Mongols/Huns on Pangaea you have to just accept the fact you will be hated and try and keep the happiness up as you roll over them; target civs who have built happiness wonders. Taj Mahal, Chichen Itza and Notre Dame?

I prefer (at Emperor level) to play on continents map... kill everyone on your landmass before Astrology

 

[DocRock]

Well I took 5 cities (2x Etiopea, 3x Brazil) and then ended the war before taking their last city. And it ended really bad. ALL (!) other Civs declared war on me three turns later. Brazil was the only one who couldn't declare war but it build settlers and destroyed my road connection with them (I razed one of their cities). Etiopea went to war again and with their one vote in the congress and the "somebody we like better denounced you" modifier ruined the rest.

Fortunately, the Keshiks are so freakishly overpowered that I eas able to hold all enemies of and even forced half of them into peace treaty by destroying legions of armies (on Immortal).

I simply do not like the warmonger hate. Civ 4 did this much better. If I play a warmonger, i need to wage war to keep my advantages. And I especially hate it, that I cannot annihilate someone completely without getting a ridiculous negative modifier. I hate to have one-city enemies around me who - for the complete rest of the game - will denounce me, propose bans, vote for my enemies, declare war as soon as some other guy helps them and build cities somewhere between my lines. Inreally miss the Vassal system.

 

[reddishrecue]

Well I took 5 cities (2x Etiopea, 3x Brazil) and then ended the war before taking their last city. And it ended really bad. ALL (!) other Civs declared war on me three turns later. Brazil was the only one who couldn't declare war but it build settlers and destroyed my road connection with them (I razed one of their cities). Etiopea went to war again and with their one vote in the congress and the "somebody we like better denounced you" modifier ruined the rest.

Fortunately, the Keshiks are so freakishly overpowered that I eas able to hold all enemies of and even forced half of them into peace treaty by destroying legions of armies (on Immortal).

I simply do not like the warmonger hate. Civ 4 did this much better. If I play a warmonger, i need to wage war to keep my advantages. And I especially hate it, that I cannot annihilate someone completely without getting a ridiculous negative modifier. I hate to have one-city enemies around me who - for the complete rest of the game - will denounce me, propose bans, vote for my enemies, declare war as soon as some other guy helps them and build cities somewhere between my lines. Inreally miss the Vassal system.

I did something similar with dutch using honor. I did something similar with morocco and i managed to get 3 capitals, i couldnt believe it. I got kind of lucky though because my city state had killed ottoman who was one of my enemy ai. The other ai were already at some other level or something, but capturing constantinople was taking forever. I was using range logistic promoted xbows.. i shouldve brought seige or something.

 

[Redaxe]

Well I took 5 cities (2x Etiopea, 3x Brazil) and then ended the war before taking their last city. And it ended really bad. ALL (!) other Civs declared war on me three turns later. Brazil was the only one who couldn't declare war but it build settlers and destroyed my road connection with them (I razed one of their cities). Etiopea went to war again and with their one vote in the congress and the "somebody we like better denounced you" modifier ruined the rest.

Fortunately, the Keshiks are so freakishly overpowered that I eas able to hold all enemies of and even forced half of them into peace treaty by destroying legions of armies (on Immortal).

I simply do not like the warmonger hate. Civ 4 did this much better. If I play a warmonger, i need to wage war to keep my advantages. And I especially hate it, that I cannot annihilate someone completely without getting a ridiculous negative modifier. I hate to have one-city enemies around me who - for the complete rest of the game - will denounce me, propose bans, vote for my enemies, declare war as soon as some other guy helps them and build cities somewhere between my lines. Inreally miss the Vassal system.

Part of my experience is it depends on your military strength. Check this in the demographics, if your army is strong enough the AI won't declare war on you. I tried this once myself, I went on a warmongering rampage with a huge army and everyone hated me and denounced me but no war. Then I disbanded my entire army and yes a few turns later the DoWs started coming.

But to stop Civs from denouncing you, you need to have some positive diplomatic points (which means understanding how Civ 5 diplomacy works) in other words, make them like you.
The easiest way is to denounce a civ that everybody commonly denounces. There is usually an AI who will fall into this category. Propose World Council resolutions everybody likes i.e. World Fair. Liberate AI workers or if you are really desperate pay a Civ 5 gold per turn tribute and get you the "We've Traded Recently". A 5 gold per turn tribute can usually blunt the diplomatic penalty from warmongering and for a small price you can usually keep the peace.

So yes you can warmonger (the penalities have been turned down a lot in the last patch) but just make sure there are some civs who like you.

 

[Xepthrichros]

I don't usually mind if my enemy is reduced to one city and denounces me for the rest of the game. Because most of the time, nobody cares anyway. The entire world regards them as the noisy city state that deserved to be put in their place.
Why? Because prior to me reducing them to one city.
I usually make everyone declare war on them, or make them declare war on everyone via bribes. That reduces my warmonger penalty, and makes them suffer sever warmonger penalties, even backstabbing penalties if they agreed to war on a friend for a bribe.
And I just swoop in after the war has started to deal the death blows, and walk out like a hero.
No one dislikes me. And everyone thinks the loser had it coming. Win-win.
That is, until I declare war on the rest of the world and get my domination victory.

 

[DocRock]

The military strength might be a good aspect to look at. I only had 5 Keshiks and a Spearman, because that's enough to conquer everything. In terms of military power I was at #7 or even #8 of the civs when I started to go to war. How are you supposed to match the AI rankings on higher levels where they run around with 40-50 units all the time?

My whole Pangea map was peaceful. Even with the Japanese and the Ottomans around. And I couldn't afford to bribe everyone into war. I did what I was supposed to do as the leader of Mongols.. Ride to glory on the battlefield.

 

[beetle]

Well I took 5 cities (2x Etiopea, 3x Brazil) and then ended the war before taking their last city. And it ended really bad. ALL (!) other Civs declared war on me three turns later. Brazil was the only one who couldn't declare war but it build settlers and destroyed my road connection with them (I razed one of their cities).

Two DoWs and 5 city captures are just on cusp of what you can get away with -- if this is all before Renaissance. You really chill out if you are not fast. Watch the mouse-over for “Major Warmonger Penalty” and plan accordingly.

I simply do not like the warmonger hate. Civ 4 did this much better. If I play a warmonger, i need to wage war to keep my advantages. And I especially hate it, that I cannot annihilate someone completely without getting a ridiculous negative modifier.

I agree with you about missile the vassal system, and there is no reason that I can think of why it could not work with V, but if you got what you describe wishing for -- the game would be much, much less interesting. IMHO they have the balance exactly right.

 

[DocRock]

I'd be fine just with the vassal system. Basically kill an opponent down to 1-2 cities, he gives up and you are done with them for the rest of the game. No more diplomatic issues because they hate you, no more surprising joining in a war, no more time-consuming "I denounce you because blabla" screens.

Right now, I feel much better by wiping my enemies out and taking the diplomatic modifier, instead of keeping them around.

Furthermore, for Civ 6, I wish there were more diplomatic options for a war without a warmonger value. If Civ 5 would be real, the whole world would have been firing all their missiles towards the US in 1945. Something like "if you help me against xy, because he is attacking me, you'll get a card blanche". Or if you get attacked, be able to take cities in a counter attack. Let's take WW2 as an example again. "hey US, hey Russia, what were you thinking? You should have destroyed Hitlers armies but stop at the border ffs. Otherwise we will all hate and declare war on you."

 

[OnceAKing]

I'd be fine just with the vassal system. Basically kill an opponent down to 1-2 cities, he gives up and you are done with them for the rest of the game. No more diplomatic issues because they hate you, no more surprising joining in a war, no more time-consuming "I denounce you because blabla" screens.

Right now, I feel much better by wiping my enemies out and taking the diplomatic modifier, instead of keeping them around.

Furthermore, for Civ 6, I wish there were more diplomatic options for a war without a warmonger value. If Civ 5 would be real, the whole world would have been firing all their missiles towards the US in 1945. Something like "if you help me against xy, because he is attacking me, you'll get a card blanche". Or if you get attacked, be able to take cities in a counter attack. Let's take WW2 as an example again. "hey US, hey Russia, what were you thinking? You should have destroyed Hitlers armies but stop at the border ffs. Otherwise we will all hate and declare war on you."

I agree with you on war monger penalties when your assisting in wars but one thing I've learned is that there is a difference in how the AI wants you to conduct war and how any user conducts war.


There is very low penalty for declaring war. Unlike in CiV vanilla. And you can pillage and kill units to your hearhearts content. But when you start to take cities is when everyone turns.

And it makes sense from a game design perspective and a real world perspective. Anyone who has attempted to take over the known world has lived in infamy ever since. Khan, Hitler, Alexander, the Romans. They have a lot of real world negative modifiers. The AI should notice that your trying to kill everyone and stop supplying you with resources for that.

Frim a gameplay perspective, hate it or love it, the devs want every victory to be viable. Arguably war monger is still the easiest but at least these mechanics are a speed bump. Look at it like overcoming the culture points with tourism when going for a CV.

I mean from a completely honest stand point if they didn't take steps to make domination victories harder the game would be imbalanced in favor of war. And we all know if CiV was strictly a war game It would be TERRIBLY sub par. It's not a war strategy simulator it's a civ simulator so I think it's best that they try to curb some of the domination advantages.

I really like the CB system in Paradox games, think that would make things interesting. Also it would be cool if people could capitulate rule too you without declaring war like USA basically did to South America for most the 20th century. Those kind of changes would make domination alittle more interesting.

 

[beetle]

No more diplomatic issues because they hate you, no more surprising joining in a war, no more time-consuming "I denounce you because blabla" screens.

If there is only one AI that hates you, they cannot ruin your relations with the other AI.

Right now, I feel much better by wiping my enemies out and taking the diplomatic modifier, instead of keeping them around.

It sounds to me that, because you resent the denouncing screen so much, you are sabotaging yourself with the other AIs. (Because you wipe out a civ (post-renaissance) rather than just taking their cap.)

Furthermore, for Civ 6, I wish there were more diplomatic options for a war without a warmonger value.

IMHO, they have the balance just about right. The Halloween patch really opened things up!

If Civ 5 would be real, the whole world would have been firing all their missiles towards the US in 1945.

How so? What cities did the U.S. capture in WW2? (There are plenty of real life aspect that Civ5 does a poor job modeling, but I am missing this one.)

Let's take WW2 as an example again. "hey US, hey Russia, what were you thinking? You should have destroyed Hitlers armies but stop at the border ffs. Otherwise we will all hate and declare war on you."

I think Civ5 game mechanics actually does a pretty good job with WW2. Germany lost her cap (to Russia) but was not eliminated. Russia ended up with warmonger hate for taking a few too many cities. Maybe Kyoto is a U.S. puppet? (Silly U.S., to lessen warmonger hate, you want to liberate Paris only after taking Kyoto.)

Even the haters-becoming friends (U.S. / Germany / Japan) is possible with Ideologies. Europe and U.S. are Freedom. Germany and Japan switched from Autocracy to Freedom after WW2. Russia stayed with Order (and gets more hate for that).

Within the broad strokes of the game, it all works pretty well.

 

[DocRock]

It wasn't eliminated because there was a vassal system in place. See, that's why we need it in Civ. Furthermore, the US took a lot of cities but they gifted them back to avoid a warmonger penalty. But they still have the right to put troops, missiles and such on their once conquered areas to make sure there will no uprising.

So actually that's something that would be great in Civ.

 

[beetle]

A vassal system would be very nice, but it probably would not help with the warmonger penalty with other civs. It might be nice too if gifting-back cities lessened warmonger penalty, but that might OP. I want a vassals, but I don't want the warmonger hate penalty decreased much at all, as I find it very balanced.

In terms of Civ5 game mechanics, the U.S. reduced German cities to 0 health (no doubt while using pillaged/heal/repair) but did not conquer cities.

 

[CivAddict2013]

What's funny about Civilization V is that you'll attack a weak civilization and the whole world will hate you. Then the same Civ that denounces you for warmongering, takes out the weak civilization and the other AI's basically say "Boys will be boys".

 

[Calz]

So France tells me he is annoyed with the Netherlands, so does portrugal. I agree to DoW On them. We strike a peace treaty after 10 turns. I get the -modifer from France and Portrugal saying they dislike my warmongering? Wow... You asked me to help...

 

[Lay_Lay]

We should not entertain new enhancements which result in making the game easier, especially easier to win a victory condition that is already one of the easiest.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

What's funny about Civilization V is that you'll attack a weak civilization and the whole world will hate you. Then the same Civ that denounces you for warmongering, takes out the weak civilization and the other AI's basically say "Boys will be boys".

Is the AI civ subject to the same warmongerer penalty as the human player, vis a vis other AI civs?

 

[reddishrecue]

Is the AI civ subject to the same warmongerer penalty as the human player, vis a vis other AI civs?

Yes, other ai often attack Ai that attack and abuse their diplomatic penalties.

 

[DocRock]

I am still wondering how the AI Mongols kept the peace with everyone in one of my games where they overrun 3-4 CS and still nobody declared anything on them. If a player would have done that, it would be all about the dark ages again.

There were 4 other Civs in the series + SMAC that had a viable game without discouraging war. And especially BTS did great without it. I actually do not care if it's the easiest victory type, for me it's by far the most fun one. And with BNW I always have this feeling that they really want you to win with a 3 city peaceful science approach. I want my war back!

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Probably because the Mongol AI's military is so overwhelming, all others will denounce but otherwise not doing anything.

Maybe it's the (king) level I play on, but I notice that once my military is overpowering, I can pretty much do whatever I want without getting a DoW fr AI civs. The AI won't trade fairly with me but that's about it. They're also weak on forming defensive pacts (never seen it actually) or ganging up on an obvious hegemonic power. And they've no conception of a local superiority of strength - only overall military might.