Is BNW anti warmongering?

[Vidszhite]

hold on--did they change this? i thought you only got a warmongering penalty for declaring war or for taking a civ's last city. now you get a penalty simply for doing well in war, even if you're the one who was attacked?

overall i quite like BNW, but seriously--do the civ 5 designers just sit around trying to come up with ways to discourage players from acquiring new cities? social policies, happiness, tech penalties, now this? this is civilization, right?

Cities you get from peace deals don't add to warmonger penalty, and liberation erases a portion of warmonger penalty. Naturally, you don't get warmonger penalty with your friends unless you go completely nuts, and if you have partners in that war, warmonger turns into a common foe bonus. There are ways around warmonger penalty.

The tech penalty is more a nerf to the AI, which loves to settle in that never grows past 4 pop, to prevent them from becoming unstoppable runaways (tech penalty also applies to puppets). Wide empires that got there legitimately and take the time to grow (i.e. 99% of player empires) still have more science than Tall empires, more than enough to counteract the penalty. Happiness is far easier to deal with through ideologies, especially in Order and Autocracy, and settling late is no longer a terrible idea because of trade ships. In some ways, wide empires are better than they've ever been, even if ICS has been nerfed into the ground.

Warmongering penalty was reworked to make it LESS stupid, and less exploitative -- in fact, the intention was to make it better than it was before, so that trading the AI one terrible city and then declaring war wouldn't be a thing anymore, and so you can't just goad the AI into declaring war, then take all their cities. Declarations of war are now worth very little. Unfortunately, it's far too strict, especially if you conquer from tall AIs. Fortunately, the devs are working on it, and one of the things being addressed in the Fall patch is the warmonger penalty.

 

[Polisurgist]

With the greatest respect, Total War games do NOT in any way prepare someone for military leadership. The games (seeing as they are games) too often encourage 'gamey', ahistorical approaches at every level of war. I've played Rome extensively, I could not lead a Legion across to Sicily or North Africa and fight a successful campaign.

That said, what sort of military history do you do? Where are you based (if you're willing to say on a public forum)?

With the greatest respect, unless you watch 23 hours of the History Channel per day, you don't have the right to question anyone's credentials as an Internet Military expert.

 

[Gregorovitch]

People who call Civilization a "wargame" have obviously never heard of, and even less likely played, Total War. Thats a Wargame. A real wargame. With military strategy and tactics unrivalled in the genre. As a military historian and analyst im mightily impressed with the realism and detail in Total War! If you can lead troops in total War, you could, theoretically, lead troops on a real battlefield. Compare that to Civilization if you dare and then call Civilization a wargame. Its an insult to wargames...

Civilization is about building a civilization (that stands the test of time...) and management of resources. Wars happen yes, but it doesn't even pretend to be a wargame. Its a relaxed game with a little bit of everything, and its very fun to play. Maybe a bit dumbed down with Civ 5 but the genre is highly successful and will hopefully live forever as a "Build a civilization"-game that will keep us entertained for many years to come.

Your having a laugh, surely? The TW games are fun until you learn how to play them (i.e. fight your armies in any sort of half decent way) at which point it becomes so easy to trounce the AI it's really boring. The original Shogun was stunning and fun in its time, and if you got into it at Med 2 TW you probably got the best one, but TW suffers from and has always suffered from a totally inadequate battle map AI that is as predictable as it is stupid. It's an ambition never properly realized. King Arthur does the idea much better from a challenge and a realism standpoint IMO if you can swallow the magic bit.

As far as authentic "military strategy and tactics" go TW games don't even come close to Hearts of Iron, March of the Eagles or venerable classics titles such as Operational Art of War, Steel Panthers and Combat Mission compared to which TW would be considered casual arcade games.

But back on topic, as far as I can see so far BNW does a pretty good job, even a stepwise improvement, in breaking the mold of most grand strategy games (including the Paradox titles, although EUIV is going in the right direction) where the optimum strategy to "win" is always build as many units as you can, clobber anything in range, build some more units with the proceeds, clobber the next victim and continue until there is none left to clobber.

 

[gps]

Your having a laugh, surely? The TW games are fun until you learn how to play them (i.e. fight your armies in any sort of half decent way) at which point it becomes so easy to trounce the AI it's really boring.

Well, if Napolen had had the chance to Computer-simulate 20 battels each weekend maybe he would have easily taken Moskow. That's what people sometimes forget: those real world leaders did a handfull of campaigns and major battles in their whole lifetime while a Civ- or TW-player does it hundreds of times over and over and over again. The experience a dedicated computer player can develope in his sandbox strategy game or racing game or flight simulator or whatever far exceeds the experience a real world commander or racing driver or fighter ace can aquire in a limited lifetime or carreer. Also there's no reload button in real life, so in the professions mentioned your first big error usually is also your last one...

 

[Gregorovitch]

Well, if Napolen had had the chance to Computer-simulate 20 battels each weekend maybe he would have easily taken Moskow. That's what people sometimes forget: those real world leaders did a handfull of campaigns and major battles in their whole lifetime while a Civ- or TW-player does it hundreds of times over and over and over again. The experience a dedicated computer player can develope in his sandbox strategy game or racing game or flight simulator or whatever far exceeds the experience a real world commander or racing driver or fighter ace can aquire in a limited lifetime or carreer. Also there's no reload button in real life, so in the professions mentioned your first big error usually is also your last one...

There is no doubt truth in what you say, however I remain skeptical that even the thickest Rupert fresh out of Sandhurst would struggle even first time out against the TW AI except against overwhelming odds.

 

[bcaiko]

hold on--did they change this? i thought you only got a warmongering penalty for declaring war or for taking a civ's last city. now you get a penalty simply for doing well in war, even if you're the one who was attacked?

This was indeed changed. Now there's a per city captured penalty, though that calculation is based on the proportion of cities a Civ has (so capturing their last city is a major penalty, though capturing one of the 20 spammed by the AI isn't a big deal).

 

[Depravo]

Well, if Napolen had had the chance to Computer-simulate 20 battels each weekend maybe he would have easily taken Moskow. That's what people sometimes forget: those real world leaders did a handfull of campaigns and major battles in their whole lifetime while a Civ- or TW-player does it hundreds of times over and over and over again. The experience a dedicated computer player can develope in his sandbox strategy game or racing game or flight simulator or whatever far exceeds the experience a real world commander or racing driver or fighter ace can aquire in a limited lifetime or carreer. Also there's no reload button in real life, so in the professions mentioned your first big error usually is also your last one...

Battles of any era don't begin on a nice clearly demarked pitch where well-defined, discrete formations in good order, led by men with no political or personal objectives of their own, await one man's clearly expressed instructions with baited breath. Orders aren't made, communicated and acted upon instantaneously nor are they always clearly formulated, understood or obeyed. In terms of morale there are shades of grey between 'ready to die at your command SAH' and 'broken' and objectives to meet other than 'break the enemy' and 'stand on this patch of ground for 3 minutes'. And the information available to the player in any TW game, even at 'max realism', is immeasurably better and more reliable than any historical commander would have enjoyed.

And then there's that fighting set piece engagements was not the sole, or even the main preoccupation of a pre-modern campaigning general. Sieges, skirmishes, chevauchee - none of them are realistically represented in the TW series of games. To continue the example of Napoleon in Russia, he faced a mire of political and logistical issues that ETW represents in the most perfunctory way imaginable. I'm not claiming EA should even have tried to go much deeper, of course - they have a game to sell.

But anyone who thinks the TW series, or any published computer game, comes remotely near placing the player in the general's situation is misled. In the full on neckbeard world of tabletop gaming some games come closer - the best example I can think of that's actually playable is DBA and its derivatives, and even that lacks the political and personal dimension entirely (of course).

The idea that you could pluck some pasty millenial from his man cave and put him up against Hulegu Khan is hilarious, as I can only assume it was meant to be. Leadership will never be simulated using a point and click interface.

 

[gps]

There is no doubt truth in what you say, however I remain skeptical that even the thickest Rupert fresh out of Sandhurst would struggle even first time out against the TW AI except against overwhelming odds.

But that would prove the point of the other guy. If real world military training teaches you how to beat TW-games they must have gotten something fundamentally right about basic battlefield mechanics...

 

[gps]

But anyone who thinks the TW series, or any published computer game, comes remotely near placing the player in the general's situation is misled.

But anyone who thinks that a Civ-game teaches you more about real world battlefield mechanics than the TW-series does - from my point of view at lest, is also misled. And if I remember correctly that was the original statement that was disputed.
Yes there is a huge difference between real world and TW. But I think there's hardly a game the recreates battlefield tactics better than a TW-game. And even if so, then it surely is not game by Paradox or Firaxis...

 

[Polisurgist]

And if I remember correctly that was the original statement that was disputed.

The original statement that was disputed is that someone who can play Total War well is suited to (theoretically) lead troops in an actual wartime situation. That's insane, though pretty appropriately what I'd expect from someone who's a self-styled "military analyst" who claims in the same sentence to spend so much time playing Civ that I wonder where he finds time to eat and sleep, much less analyze anything.

 

[Gregorovitch]

But anyone who thinks that a Civ-game teaches you more about real world battlefield mechanics than the TW-series does - from my point of view at lest, is also misled. And if I remember correctly that was the original statement that was disputed.
Yes there is a huge difference between real world and TW. But I think there's hardly a game the recreates battlefield tactics better than a TW-game. And even if so, then it surely is not game by Paradox or Firaxis...

Neither Paradox or Firaxis do battlefield tactics. The direct modern comparisons are King Arthur, and that is significantly more challenging than TW although it is not realistic, and ARMA2/3 which is very realistic but more FPS orientated.

Unfortunately serious battle field tactical simulation games (outside of ARMA) are not in the ascendancy at the moment. The two classics in living memory are Steel Panthers and Combat Mission, particularly Steel Panthers. Both make TW look stupid and the reason is partly that neither claimed to have an "AI" as such, rather a "PO" (for Programmed Opponent). The scenario (map) designer would carefully place and organize enemy forces and the engines had a system of triggers and scripts so the designer could trigger specific attack or defense maneuvers according to what the player did. Played blind, these scenarios were both challenging and educational from a mil hist point of view.

The TW battles are undoubtedly spectacular and fun to play (for a while) but the TW battlefield AI is incapable of matching what the Steel Panthers/Combat Mission scenario designers did as it tries to figure out what to do in each battle itself on the fly and it fails because such a task is currently beyond AI programming capabilities, even if sufficiently powerful hardware was available.

 

[apotheoser]

As a military historian and analyst im mightily impressed with the realism and detail in Total War! If you can lead troops in total War, you could, theoretically, lead troops on a real battlefield.

 

[Polisurgist]

Yeah, the word "theoretically" is a great cop out as long as you assume it means "maybe, maybe not, not really at all, and really I shouldn't even be saying anything in this sentence after this point."

 

[civ54lyfe]

well hey maybe you can't theoretically lead troops anywhere, but after enough PC gaming, theoretically you could be one of those generals who sit in the TOC moving pieces on the war screen.

 

[standingwolf]

This was indeed changed. Now there's a per city captured penalty, though that calculation is based on the proportion of cities a Civ has (so capturing their last city is a major penalty, though capturing one of the 20 spammed by the AI isn't a big deal).

do you know if this scales? i.e., each city you take gives a larger penalty because the empire is now smaller? or does it calculate from the number of cities the AI had at the start of the war?

also, is the DoW penalty still active?

i would hold that a "warmonger" is someone who wages war routinely, and so to label anyone who fights at all a warmonger is a misuse of the term. i think every civ should get at least one free war (except perhaps with people like gandhi), and the penalty should start to appear as the bodycount rises.

 

[gps]

The original statement that was disputed is that someone who can play Total War well is suited to (theoretically) lead troops in an actual wartime situation.

The original statement was that if you want to play a wargame then Total War is the much better choice - and the reason for that has been explained perfectly in this post:

Neither Paradox or Firaxis do battlefield tactics.

Playing a game with the main focus on battlefield tactics teaches you a lot more about battlefield tactics than a game that does not include battlefield tactics (but instead artificial board game rules including hexes and 1upt). It's the same with somebody who has played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator is "theoretically" much better suited to fly a real aircraft than somebody who flew a plane or a helicopter in - let's say in a GTA. If that kind of reasoing is really beyond your comprehension, then I give up the discussion...

 

[Depravo]

... It's the same with somebody who has played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator is "theoretically" much better suited to fly a real aircraft than somebody who flew a plane or a helicopter in - let's say in a GTA. If that kind of reasoing is really beyond your comprehension, then I give up the discussion...

His exact words were: "If you can lead troops in total War, you could, theoretically, lead troops on a real battlefield."

'Theoretically' gives him a bit of an out, but the statement is still outlandish. I suppose you might be microcosmically better adapted to real battlefield tactics after a session of Rome 2 than of Civ, but he was claiming far more than that. Anyway, it's all by the by.

 

[Moriarte]

BNW favors warmongering much more than GK and Vanilla, since happiness is much more abundant. It is somewhat taxing to start wars from the get go, but when you get access to ideologies you can have as many cities as you like.

 

[Aaron90495]

BNW favors warmongering much more than GK and Vanilla, since happiness is much more abundant. It is somewhat taxing to start wars from the get go, but when you get access to ideologies you can have as many cities as you like.

How is happiness more abundant in BNW? IMO, if anything, there's less since it got moved out of Honor.

 

[killmeplease]

You havent to occupy every city on your way, just raze them (or even give back to owner, and dont forget to sell buildings) and pillage improvements. War can be very profitable if you dont keep cities. Also you get gold from racketing city states and from peace deals (plus alot of luxes normally you wont get through peaceful trade). Trade routes you also can always have, with city states (unless they're banned by WC).