Just remove war from the game

[Green_Power]

Yes, it is distressing the diplo when concerned with wars still has some broken and silly aspects however what the OP did to trigger 7 denouncements was to completely eliminate Denmark.

The AI's hate it when the human player genocides another civ. Replay it and leave Denmark with one lousy pillaged and starved city on poor ground and then make peace with him and I expect you won't harm relations with the others.

This. I played with Shaka in my last game and I could get away with capturing 4 capitals because I didn't wipe the Civs in question completely. I also had Cathy and Maria nearby, which tolerate warmongers. That helped a bit, I admit, but I didn't get denouncements from the other Civs either.

\Edit: Oh, I forgot to say. I was never attacked by the 4 Civs I took the capital from. They had reasonable empires in Modern Era but they NEVER attacked me once, even hating me all the way. I think that when you take their capital, the Civs are mostly finished.

 

[Anarchist]

I am finding that you need to pay a lot more attention to diplomacy when choosing who to attack. In my current game I stomped on my two continental neighbours before meeting the other civs. I was in still having a battle when they turned up, but did not get any diplo hits.

Some time later I get a request to attack one of them again from another civ, and I happily complied. Still no 'you are a warmongering menace to the world' hits, except from the two I've been stomping on.

What annoys me is that I have no chance to check the global diplomacy status when asked this question by other civs. That makes it very dicey. This is one of the few occasions I feel justified in using the 'time machine' to rectify a bad decision made without any information.

Denouncing before attacking helps, and making sure the target civ is not friends with anyone important. I don't think it has stopped war, but it has made it less easy to attack civs just because you don't like them, or covet their land/wonders. In that regard, it has improved the gameplay.

Sure, you can turtle, have a love-in (assuming no psychopaths are near you) and win, but I still find kicking butt is more fun! Oh yeah, OT, but being able to force my ideology and religion on the world ands watch the opponents squirm is a major plus!

 

[Polisurgist]

I am finding that you need to pay a lot more attention to diplomacy when choosing who to attack.

This, a million times. Every single complaint about how hard this game is on warmongers is actually someone complaining that they can't just ignore 2/3 of the game.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I am finding that you need to pay a lot more attention to diplomacy when choosing who to attack. In my current game I stomped on my two continental neighbours before meeting the other civs. I was in still having a battle when they turned up, but did not get any diplo hits.

Some time later I get a request to attack one of them again from another civ, and I happily complied. Still no 'you are a warmongering menace to the world' hits, except from the two I've been stomping on.

What annoys me is that I have no chance to check the global diplomacy status when asked this question by other civs. That makes it very dicey. This is one of the few occasions I feel justified in using the 'time machine' to rectify a bad decision made without any information.

Denouncing before attacking helps, and making sure the target civ is not friends with anyone important. I don't think it has stopped war, but it has made it less easy to attack civs just because you don't like them, or covet their land/wonders. In that regard, it has improved the gameplay.

Sure, you can turtle, have a love-in (assuming no psychopaths are near you) and win, but I still find kicking butt is more fun! Oh yeah, OT, but being able to force my ideology and religion on the world ands watch the opponents squirm is a major plus!

This times 1000.

Those who say that warfare is dead just need to bump up the difficulty a bit. On Immortal as portugal, I took advantage of the Shoshone who was at war with Russia, and they even had the great wall. Took one city, sued for peace. Built up until I had long swords, attacked again, this time with an ally, Songhai. Let him deal the final blow, by this time brazil got mad at Songhai and declared war, took his capital. I then tried to attack brazil, failed, waited until I had muskets and cannons, left him with one city. Russia and Songhai were my allies for most of the game after that until ideologies came along at least.

 

[PhilBowles]

The problem boils down to CiV's complete lack of a casus belli system. This has always been strange, but I agree that it's worse with BNW.

Not that strange when you consider the game's antecedents and indeed competitors generally. Very few strategy games have anything resembling a cassus belli system, and no Civ game is among them. Paradox games do because they're focused on simulation (although in Crusader Kings II at least it's handled rather oddly - yes, you need cassus belli but never mind! You can get it automatically just by fabricating claims against anyone you want to go to war with! Not to mention that that claims to territory, real or fabricated, appear to be the only cassus belli allowable. Which is bizarrely ahistorical as well as making the whole system somewhat pointless).

So when the available options are between a nonexistent cassus belli system and a badly-implemented one only found in a minority of recent games, it's not at all strange. It's unfortunate, and I agree it's a feature that should be added

The problem is compounded by the fact that the UI (the diplomatic screens) strongly implies that you get a free DoW or reduced-cost DoW's for declaring war after you catch a spy and defending CS's that you've sworn to defend. You’re given these special options for declaring war in the spy diplo screen and protecting a CS, but they’re meaningless!

Haven't tried this in BNW, but in G&K it did make a difference - you'd be less likely to get a warmonger penalty for declaring war on someone who bullied a CS under your protection if you told them "You'll pay for this" (as long as the war was more or less immediately after the bullying).

I can see why that wouldn't work the same way in BNW since you now only get warmonger penalties for capturing cities, not for declaring war, but if they haven't done something to make "You'll pay for this!" relevant it seems like an oversight.

In your case, Denmark was being a warmonger and an untrustworthy lout.

From the description Harald's behaviour seems pretty trustworthy, which is typical - he's a warmonger and a lout, but he's not at all subtle or dishonest about his intentions. He's always been one of my favourite personalities.

In most games other civs would understand that you’re addressing a threat; in BNW you’re treated no differently than a vicious war addict who randomly conquers a peaceful civilization.

I haven't encountered a scenario like the one described, so I don't know how typical it is, but it surprises me that Harald would earn no approbation for conquering Sofia.

 

[PhilBowles]

This

Some people fear the game will try to be a Paradox game if it implements a casus belli system, but Civ could really make great use of it if implemented in a very simple way.

In at least the one Paradox game I'm familiar with, it is implemented in a very simple way. I think Civ V as it is has the tools to do a considerably better job with the concept, because it does have the denouncement system and context-specific "You'll pay for this" options already encoded.

If this were true, you'd get a warmonger penalty for teching up and peaceful expansion. Nowadays, the AI seems strangely unconcerned that you're an era ahead and building ship components, but it freaks out when you actually protect that CS you promised to protect.

The AI can get very upset by "peaceful expansion" - I got strong "You're building cities too aggressively" penalties in a recent game, and most of the civs complaining declared war while this was the key negative they had with me. There's no particular reason for them to be concerned about teching if you aren't appearing likely to dominate them.

The really annoying thing about war is how if you have a defensive pact with someone, and a friend of yours declares war on him/her and you automatically join in, then you get the negatives for declaring war on him! Needs to be fixed.

It has been fixed. There's no warmonger penalty for declaring war any more, only for taking cities. So if you're pulled into a war you don't incur any penalty except with the aggressor unless you start taking cities.

 

[Callonia]

Well I can put in my experiences today on bnw.

Me as germany and Greece was teh world's major aggressors.

Greece conquered Venice in classical era, venice only lasted like 3 turns.

I went nuts in my war for lake victoria against ethopia and squeezed tons of tributes continually from lots of surrounding city states even when they have pledge of protection.

I particpated in like 4 wars and greeks did the same.

For me, I paid attention to the power bloc forming there was lots of DoFs being made in one large bloc composing of like six or eight civs.

Me and Greece was pretty much hated by everyone.. AI's visible attitude towards me was neutral/guarded.

There wasn't a single denouncement thrown in anger until late renaissance/ early industrial era. . . And the guy who started it was the Mayans in the DOF Bloc, I saw that happen and Immediately joined Maya in the denouncement of Greeks. I agree with them that they dirty and evil for wiping out venice. >.>

Then lots people inside the bloc decided that Maya and germany probably have the right idea and denounced together with us that greece sucks.

And with the blessing of the power bloc me and Japan dowed Greece together with japan at east and me at west, we is in process of tearing greece apart slowly while the power bloc stole like 7 out of 10 greece city state allies. 150+ Influence? Gone, say good bye to them greece for they buy them up xD

That was the first time I ever saw runaway Greece got neutralized so easy.

Japan took Venice and I took five random cities with the intention of taking the greece's capital in next war.

i didn't attract the bloc's Ire because i'm much more of a nicer warmonger than greeks was xD

Coz u see, Cahokia, me and greeks was arguing over whom pet this is. Ive been allied with it since classical era, and greeks never been allied with it before and they couped it from me.

I rage couped and he rage couped repeatedly then I had enough and dumped enough gold to keep it just enough for me and dowed Greece immediately and then marched my troops into yerevan and pillaged all of it's hexs and left. Yerevan was my friend but is under protection of greece. I just wanted to show greece that he can't protect it. Greeks being stubborn and didnt' take back the protection promise xD

I killed several yerevan units as well.

The bloc adopted my ideology of Autocracy. Most of them anyways. India took freedom.

I think I confirmed one of the major leaders in the bloc which is the Byzantines cuz when she adopted autocracy, 4 or so immediately adopted autocracy in following turn.

I have to say diplomacy seems to be more improved over gods n kings and vanilla.

Greece managed to found the world congress, I proposed a embargo on Greece and Greece immediately proposed a embargo on Japan xD First world congress and there's talk of embargos lols.

If the dof bloc does decide to backstab me, They still have to try and kill my soldiers if they want me dead. Which is quite a tall order for an AI.

I'll be continuing this tmw.

 

[NukeAJS]

I really haven't had too much of a problem with anti-war attitudes.

By the time most of the civs hate me for mongering, I usually have a comfortable lead so screw them.

 

[greygamer]

Do you get bigger diplo hits for taking cities/capitals/DoWs at the higher levels (current on King). As I find I can manage the level of hatred towards me when going for a domination victory.