How to survive as a warmonger?

[satorarepo]

So, I'm still trying to achieve my first domination victory on Immortal, after having become capable of winning peacefully.

I believe I get the early game right (following some guides from these forums), but after I conquer a couple of capitals, sooner or later everyone else hates me, denounces me, and eventually declares war on me.

I understand diplomacy is the key, but it's easier said than done Once I have those more or less 8 cities, I can hardly let go of any resource I don't have multiple copies of. And since most AIs are usually guarded or worse at this point, they ask for pretty much everything I have in return for attacking someone.

Any hints?

 

[poxpower]

You can check marbozir on youtube, he plays on epic/pangea/deity and all of his games are exactly the same:
1- go tradition
2- do nothing until turn 100
3- build a bunch of trebuchets/whatever
4- get 3 AIs to attack the one AI who has the nicest capital and who's nearby
5- go grab that capital ( usually some wonder spammer), peace out.
6- Repeat for next guy, but with canons.
7- stall out, start to build planes and tanks, win anyway, really late, because the AI can't deal with planes/battleships/artillery.

The big challenge is winning fast domination. You can check out rezoacken on youtube or filthyrobot maybe.
It's a very hard thing to do well and usually involves mostly composite bowmen/chariot archers/scouts/crossbow/horses etc.
It's all about going fast, building lots of roads and keeping all the cities small.

 

[pandaBee]

It's more fun just to crush all the naysayers. Destroy them under the heels of your iron soles.

 

[Dines]

Hi

Im assuming all standard settings ?

I play almost all my games at deity, huge, marathon, pangea,
so any advice from me should be seen in that light.
The diplomacy game gets even more important on huge maps, since there are more civs to deal with.

I also set up my games according to the hall of fame rules.
This lets you change some of the advanced settings.
The most important setting, is the ability to handpick your opponents.
If you want to play domination, its very helpfull to choose civs who are very tolerant towards warmongering. Another important factor is friendship willingness.
Friends are less likely to go against you, and will let you sell resources at a better price. You need a strong economy, not only to support an army, but almost more important, in order to bribe other civs to fight eachother.

But even with those settings, you still need to be good at diplomacy.

First off, never take out city states.
Its ok to declare war on one or two, in order to steal some workers, and train your army. But never actually conquer one.
It gives a huge warmonger penalty.
On the other hand, be on the lookout for other civs taking city states.
If you can liberate a conquered city state, you will not only get an ally, you will get a big liberation bonus that reduces previous warmonger penaltys.

Secondly, try to make the other civs fight eachother.
Sometimes its very hard, and the price can be very high, but its something you have to do. Its best if it is civs close to each other, since then they will actually fight each other, but even if thats not the case, its still worth it, in order to make them hate each other.
If any cities changes ownership, it will also be a great target for liberation bonuses later in the game.

The warmonger penalty for capturing a city is lower, if your enemy has many cities.
So the best way to take out a civ, is to just conquer their capital, and leave any other cities alone. Sometimes you also need other cities, if they have very good resources, wonders, ore a blocking your way, but then try to get those cities in a peace treaty.
Cities taken in a peace treaty deal (or any other deal) gives no warmonger penalty.
(unless you raze them)

Try not to go to war alone. When you are ready to attack someone, ask/pay others to
join in. This will halve the warmonger penalty with your ally/allies.
(but make sure you are not the victim of a killsteal)

Keep your promises.
Dont expand where you promised not to.
Dont mobilize near a border, if you are not ready to declare war yet.
Dont denounce or attack anyone you have a friendship agreement with.
So dont make friends with someone you will attack soon.

 

[victorpras]

Cities taken in a peace treaty deal (or any other deal) gives no warmonger penalty.
(unless you raze them)

Is this true? You get warmonger penalties for razing cities?

 

[phillipwyllie]

Is this true? You get warmonger penalties for razing cities?

No, you only get warmonger score for DOWing, and capturing cities that weren't originally yours.

 

[Iamteehee]

There is also a very very small warmonger penalty for denouncing people (or at least that's what the wiki says)

 

[phillipwyllie]

No there's not. You get -30 (iirc) diplo modifer with that civ and <insert value> with the civs that like you/them.

 

[consentient]

If your army is big enough, then it really dissuades them from DOWing, and if they do, you will paste them anyway. Train or buy as any troops as your economy can support. If you have full Commerce and a healthy set of caravans/ships, then you will be around 100-500 GPT by the midgame anyway. Honor makes even more gold.

 

[zxcvbob]

I seldom play at Immortal; mostly Emperor and sometimes King. But I've played enough Immortal games that I don't *think* this changes: In the early game, you can totally kill one neighbor if you get the opportunity, and the other AI's will eventually forgive you for it, and they will still trade with you in the meantime. (I very seldom get a chance to pull this off, but I always watch for it; the AI capital makes a nice 2nd city for me) But if you do this, watch your back for a while.

Make friends with everybody except one AI that you shun, and don't even exchange embassies with them until much later. (Caesar and Attila make good patsies) Pay the patsy to declare war on your best friends, then immediately denounce him for it. Wait 1 or 2 turns and you can now declare war on the patsy and everybody will cheer you and and think you're the hero, plus he is now stuck fighting on 2 fronts. Just take his capital and steal all his workers and pillage everything; maybe take one other nice city in the peace deal. You'll get the "We fought a common enemy" modifier instead of warmonger with the friend that you set-up, plus hopefully the war weakened them a little.

Liberate CS's every chance you get. Liberate cities from extinct AI's; even if it's their capital, you can declare war on them and take it back later.

Forbidden Palace is a very high priority wonder to either build or steal, because you want to control the world congress; make resolutions that everybody likes, like World's Fair and Arts Funding (you can vote against your own resolution if you have to)

The role you have to play is "Magnificent Bastard" be manipulative. Once you're strong enough and control the world congress, it doesn't matter what everyone else thinks, if they declare war on you it just saves you the trouble -- but make sure your cities have walls and castles and a sentry.

This totally does not work for me at Deity. I think the strat is still good, I just can't pull it off at that level.

 

[meRlinX_AT]

just don't care and take into account

• have a strong eco
  
• have a strong army
• declare war on other's, which are also not liked from your (big) friends
• and again, have a strong army

you cant be best friends with all