Initial warmonger penalty too high

[Prester John 2]

What're your opinions on that? I think the initial warmonger penalty for declaring a formal war is too high. 100 grievances. If you start a war maybe you got some grievances against the other civ your grievances are nullified. I get why'd you accumulate grievances for taking cities but just for starting a formal war they should be lowered in my estimation. Wars between civs are still too uncommon in my games. I guess that's because of the initial penalty. Wars for plunder purposes should be more common.

 

[Linklite]

I'm playing vanilla so don't have grievances per se, but it does seem like warmongering is punished a tad too heavily. It feels like if I ever declare a war, or if I ever capture a city (even if they started it) it becomes close to impossible to ever get into people's good books again. They keep denouncing me and even declaring war on me for my warmongering, causing a viscious cycle; they denounce me, get mad enough to declare war on me, I defend myself plus try to knock them out of the war so I can have a bit of peace, we declare peace, they get upset at me because I'm a warmonger...

I mean, sheesh, yeah I did declare war on some random guy to grab a city that was blocking any hopes of my Civ expanding, but that was 2,000 years ago now...and did I mention that the reason he's no longer around is because you killed him off?

It's a bit frustrating also because in real life even warmongering states can get allies. Eg the US has been at war for most of its existence (if you count the undeclared wars as welll) yet it has plenty of allies. This isn't meant to be a discussion about the US but if I did that in Civ I'd be lucky if I had one ally; that's only if i haven't knocked Alexander out...

 

[Abaxial]

It was even worse in Civ 5 ...

 

[BenitoChavez]

I agree that the grievances are too high to start a war. There should certainly be some since it is an aggressive action that will lead to destruction. However it is the taking of cities, killing/capturing units, and plundering that is what really makes a war so bad, yet we only get grievances during a war for capturing cities. I would lower the initial grievances for declaring a war and add grievances for killing/capturing units and plundering.

 

[kb27787]

I disagree... grievances should be sky-high for the initiator of the war...
Such that if I retaliate I should have the right to burn down all their cities without any grievances.

Otherwise, wars are too cheap. The AI doesn't care about diplomacy anyway so relationship points are quite meaningless unless you get a formal declaration of friendship (they will betray a friendly civ easily, and won't really attack an enemy like they did in Civ V).

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

It was even worse in Civ 5 ...

What needs to comeback is a civ-by-civ greviance scaling. Gandhi should get 200% more greviances against Alexander's 50% or 0%.

I think that would alleviate some of the gamey.

I do agree that the penalties are quite high though, 100 is very high, even at a standard -9 decay per turn, because for the most part, you're stuck with -100 for the next 10 turns before peace can even be made.

 

[leandrombraz]

I don't think it's too high. The main thing grievances tried to accomplish is to let people retaliate the AI, do the "offensive defensive war" that a lot of players like to do. 100 grievances let you conquer roughly two cities without getting grievances yourself, so it's good balance for when you're the target of the war. If you're declaring war yourself, 100 fade fast once you declare peace. What they could improve is how grievances generate the actual diplomatic penalties, so the penalties aren't as harsh as they're now.

 

[Victoria]

100 grievances is not enough to make everyone denounce you, 150 is getting that way. So if you formalise war and then take a city you hit denouncements unless you had some grievance against them to start with. So if they denounce you and you declare war it would only be 125 grievance. If they had broken promises or already had warred against someone else then it drops more.
The best I have found is a bait city. Settle a city with 6 tiles of their capital and they are pretty much guaranteed to declare a surprise war and take your city giving you 200 grievances against them. Now they are in a war with you 200 grievances is enough to take their 4 largest cities or more than that if some cities taken were smaller than the average.
Regardless, their 4 largest cities is often enough to make all the others flip, especially if you just threw victor out of one of them.
... and all for no grievances

 

[BenitoChavez]

I disagree... grievances should be sky-high for the initiator of the war...
Such that if I retaliate I should have the right to burn down all their cities without any grievances.

I disagree about you disagreeing

Imagine in the real world, country A formally declares war on country B. But country A doesn't actually attack country B. No bullets are fire, nobody dies, cities are still standing. Now is that so bad? Sure relations have deteriorated beyond repair which certainly isn't good, but the worst effects of war have been avoided. Now if country B decides to attack A, burn down its cities, enslaves its population, etc. that will get the international community upset and B is likely to get denounced.

 

[Victoria]

Imagine in the real world, country A formally declares war on country B. But country A doesn't actually attack country B.

You are giving the 2 extremes, you must also add .. a country that declares war on another, invades that country, wrecks its infrastructure, loots its wealth and resources and leaves it back in the dark ages after much death and suffering.
The game does not consider deaths beyond war weariness which affects the dead more than the living and is so ineffectual the only threads ever made about it are to discuss how it works.

 

[BenitoChavez]

The game does not consider deaths beyond war weariness which affects the dead more than the living.

Which is my original point. I think that the game should take into account unit deaths, civilian captures (enslavement), and pillaging by adding grievances for them and decreasing the initial war declaration grievance.

 

[Beaver79]

Did they change grievances with the patch?

I found a religion and I have it in my 5 cities. Poundmaker converts one with missionaries. I ask him to stop and he of course refuses. He converts 2 more cities and has 5 missionaries marching to my capital. I have to declare war now or I lose my religion. I don't have 50 grievances against him for some reason so I have to declare a surprise war.

I take 6 of his cities and make peace leaving him with 3. After a full era of getting chain denounced and demanded by everyone else I check the grievances and I'm at 1156 against Poundmaker... I'm on epic speed and it's decaying at 4 per turn and at this rate it will be even in 289 turns. I don't remember it being this high before, but I usually don't leave them alive.

It's showing 0 grievances against everyone else, so am I better off just finishing him off?

 

[Victoria]

1156 against Poundmaker...

0 grievances against everyone else,

Something is certainly askew... any mods?

The moment he converts and refuses, denounce, vital. Always been as you describe but 0 grievances, they should have lots. 6 cities surprise war = 600... a little less because of small cities. What era?

 

[Beaver79]

No mods and classic era. Immortal if difficulty matters.

There was an emergency declared against me that I beat. I converted his religion founding city but that was after I captured it. After I made peace with Poundmaker, Japan took one of his cities and I joined in the emergency against Japan and kept Poundmaker's city. All of that was shady and I'd accept grievances for that.

The only reason I made peace with Poundmaker in the first place is because a couple of my cities had -5 amenities and I was worried about barbs. That's higher than I've ever had before as well, but I was chopping a ton of rainforest and had 10 or so 10 pop cities.

A bigger hit to amenities for warmongering would be a welcome change, additional grievances would not imo. I'm going to spend the next 300 turns with my finger on the escape key turning down their pointless demands.

 

[Beaver79]

There is a grievances log.

So I took the initial Grievances for taking his cities and then double that for him ceding them. I have no idea if that is normal. Mistahi-Sipihk was Japan's city that I kept after an emergency was declared.

 

[Victoria]

I have no idea if that is normal.

So in my current game I have this. You do not get double grievances when ceding, just single. OK so no mods... was it started before the patch?
To be fair mine turned into an emergency against me so need to be cautious about what is what.
Immortal makes no difference.