I'm a warmonger

[pwoz]

I've had multiple games now where I have been declared war on without ever having declared war. I usually end up taking 1-2 cities and suing for peace, otherwise the AI asks for everything I have.

The end result is a few of the other civs decide I am a warmonger, despite never having declared war on anyone. I understand they changed the warmonger penalties, but this is a bit odd.

In my most recent game as Austria, it's turn 110 and there is only one civ left that has not denounced me, since a AI I had a DOF with decided I was a warmonger and denounced me.

Anyone else having similar experiences?

 

[DemonMaster]

In short, No.

I see a lot of these posts and threads, I must do something right, because in most of the wars I have been involved in, the AI actually have a just Casus Belli (and I do am involved in wars a lot).

So don't break any promises you make or in the industrial age, be aware of the SP chosen by your neighbours. In my latest game I selected Order. A bad choice on a continent full of fascists

 

[ButSam]

DemonMaster made some good suggestions. Let me point out another -- in diplomacy, before choosing an option, hover over the choice and you may get a description of the impact.

For example, Pacal "apologized" for attacking a city-state (very lame apology, but asked us to overlook it). It was a city-state I had a protection pact with. The options were to overlook it, but that cost 20 influence and required us to revoke our protection pact with the city-state (while keeping relations with Pacal unharmed), or to harm relations with Pacal but keep relations with our city-state and keep the protection pact.

I found out about this tradeoff by hovering over the different diplo options, and a pop-up appeared. Usually I choose the less offensive option, but this time I made an exception because I already didn't have great relations with Pacal and yet did have great relations with the city-state.

Also, when you agree to do something, such as not convert any of their cities, they take it as a promise for awhile (the game will tell you when the promise is considered fulfilled). If you break the promise, there is a negative effect. (In fact, there may not just be a negative effect with that civ -- other civs may also come to distrust you.)

Diplomacy is a lot more meaningful, and gives interesting choices now -- you can't just lie to everyone to try to keep them happy.

 

[Khadroth]

The way I've always understood it, there's a few rarely mentioned rules about war diplomacy.

1.) Never be the one to DoW.
2.) Do not Raze cities, seems to make people angry (I mean I'm just burning down a few cities and killing off the population, right? )
3.) Do not wipe a civ off the face of the planet. If at all possible make sure you leave them with 1 city. This means it's generally best to take their best cities like their capital and leave them with that one horrible 2 pop city in the middle of solid desert. Nothing says "Don't **** with me" like stranding someone in a desert.

 

[kgoodrid]

TL;DR: There are lots of positive diplomacy modifiers, some passive, some active. These are more than enough to offset negatives.

Different games seem to lead to different results. I think a great deal of it is the AI Civs involved, and has been mentioned, the player actions. I think more experience with G&K will show us whether the AI diplomacy behavior is fairly consistent or variable.

In my current Emperor / Epic / Large Islands game as England, I spawned on a continent with Ethiopia and the Huns. Ethiopia was fairly close to me, the Huns were far away. Of course, the Huns tried an early rush, which I beat back. They would not sue for peace for a long, long time. I eventually settled a city between us, and then took 3 of their cities, leaving their capital alone. They were ready for peace once I started taking their cities. Since then, they have been super friendly, minus the odd incident of tech stealing (I can't blame them, they are way behind now), and they were apologetic about it. Been nice trading partners too, buying up some resources from me for some handy GPT.

Ethiopia, despite spreading Christinity to me, launched an attack, probably because of our close borders. I easily pushed it back and they immediatly sued for peace. Since then, they have been very friendly.

The rest of the world has been amazingly friendly to me. Every other world power has been friendly to me. Greece was friendly, but has become fairly hostile due to my friendship with their enemy, America.

Here is why things have ended up this way:

1) I didn't found a religion and haven't pushed it on anyone. I was beaten out on religions, but received Ethiopia's fairly early, and it has proven useful to me. This has helped me maintain relations with Ethiopia despite our close borders (the one border war aside), and helped me maintain relations with the rest of the world because I haven't been trying to convert them.

2) I didn't finish off Attila. He attacked me, and would not sue for peace for hundreds of years until I captured his cities. I don't know if I would have gotten a warmonger penalty for eliminating him, but I think that would have been likely. I would love to see a confirmation of what exactly causes a warmonger penalty, since it seems to varry so much.

3) I have stayed on my continent. There is room to expand, and I am starting to plan some colonies, but until now I have had zero border conflicts with anyone else.

4) I haven't competed for City States.

5) I am #2 in score. Right now Byzantium is #1 in score. Not sure how the AI views score now, but I suspect that not being on top helps.

6) I have maintained a reasonably sized military.

7) I have traded as often as possible, with as many other Civs as possible.

8) I have accepted DOF from lots of people. This has led to multiple 'friend of friends' bonuses, and only one negative (Greece, as mentioned earlier).

 

[Pembroke]

other civs decide I am a warmonger, despite never having declared war on anyone.

Even if you don't DOW you can get that penalty by killing civs (including city-states). This was so before GAK, too. If you need your diplo rep never-ever conquer someone's last city!

About the changes to the diplomatic system: Are the warmonger penalties still forever? I don't mind there being diplo penalties for warmongering, because you are, indeed, warmongering but it was always a bit silly that the effect never wore off even after thousands of years. Not to mention the game mechanics side effect that eventually results in everyone hating everyone as the DOWs and their associated penalties accumulate over the course of the game.

I'd hoped that they'd add some kind of mechanism that would heal diplo hits with the passing of enough turns. Should take a long time but the effect should be there. Maybe similar to the friendship and denounciation thing that each individual event lasts only a set number of turns, or maybe a slow burn off that reduces the effect a bit every turn or something.

 

[Barghaest]

About the changes to the diplomatic system: Are the warmonger penalties still forever?

No, they do not appear to be. I declared war on the Aztecs to raze one of their cities (they cut off my eastward expansion - which was my only remaining route due to Polynesia's ever-expanding mass to my west and Aztecs having the north) so I could grab a coastal site with access to iron. Both other civs (Polynesia and Inca) considered me a warmonger - Kamehameha even denounced me - but after I captured the city, the Aztecs asked for peace and I agreed. The "Believes you are a warmongering threat to the world" went away after many turns (believe it was gone by the time the denouncement wore off).

Although I have since reacquired that moniker by obliterating the Aztec empire, razing half of Polynesia and declaring war on the Inca (It's MY island!).

 

[nefloyd]

Nothing says "Don't **** with me" like stranding someone in a desert.

Or Ice!

Or that 1-tile hill island off the coast!

 

[gunslinger6792]

I've had it occur several times where i was declared a warmonger after being attacked by the same civ twice and then once declared war.

 

[pwoz]

Yeah, I never had any problems with warmongering in vanilla Civ 5. I knew how to avoid the label and I knew when it was coming. This expac seems a lot more arbitrary. I don't see how being declared on twice and taking 2 cities (no genocides) results in me being a warmonger. At least it does seem to go away now, but it feels a bit odd to me. Never having declared war, I shouldn't get a warmonger penalty, especially when I intentionally avoid wiping them off the map.

 

[Khadroth]

Yeah, I never had any problems with warmongering in vanilla Civ 5. I knew how to avoid the label and I knew when it was coming. This expac seems a lot more arbitrary. I don't see how being declared on twice and taking 2 cities (no genocides) results in me being a warmonger. At least it does seem to go away now, but it feels a bit odd to me. Never having declared war, I shouldn't get a warmonger penalty, especially when I intentionally avoid wiping them off the map.

I have noticed that Warmonger appears to be very opinionated in G&K at least thankfully. Good friends don't tend to ever consider you a warmonger (unless you're quickly becoming a threat to them by way of their being one of the last unconquered civs left), where as AI's who hate you/have gone to war with you in the past/don't like that warred with one of their friends tend to gain that mongerer bullet point faster.

 

[Sporaticus]

Dang, this is all too complicated for old <snippers> like me to keep track of. It's much easier for me to actually *be* a warmonger. Like a famous man once said "...enough talk, lets git t' the killin"!

 

[AbenHumeya]

I have noticed that Warmonger appears to be very opinionated in G&K at least thankfully. Good friends don't tend to ever consider you a warmonger (unless you're quickly becoming a threat to them by way of their being one of the last unconquered civs left), where as AI's who hate you/have gone to war with you in the past/don't like that warred with one of their friends tend to gain that mongerer bullet point faster.

That's largely true, yeah. If a Civ likes you, generally you can do most anything to civs they hate (bar really eliminating them outright) and they won't consider you a warmonger. Where a Civ who hates you will consider self-defence to be warmongering. The penalty for killing a Civ or CS outright does appear to be big though.