Negative modifiers for defending yourself?

[PDMX]

I have just ragequit a france game on emperor, because it went terribly annoying.

I had three to six AI's declaring war at me simultanously atleast three times until modern age. Just because I destroyed a crazy forward settled German city and one close by city state during medieval age. That never happened in G&K to such an extreme.

It is absolutely impossible to get into a peaceful game anymore. It is a downwards war spiral in this game. To defend myself and get a fast peace treaty, I used to capture or burn a city from the AI. But when I do this, they all hate me even more for beating up the weak. Well declaring war at me with only 2 cities and units which are atleast one era behind IS stupid.

And who the hell did declare war? The AI should not hate me for fighting back other players forces, who declared war at me!! Its not me who started it! So dont cry when they are dying.

There should be no negative modifiers at all for defending yourself, if you did not start a war!

Not to mention that the complete trade system becomes useless, when your cargo ships get beaten up continuously. And they even managed to get an Embargo against me through the World Congress, because I had not enough money to buy CS allies... Tithe has now become my main gold income.

 

[Socratatus]

I have just ragequit a france game on emperor, because it went terribly annoying.

I had three to six AI's declaring war at me simultanously atleast three times until modern age. Just because I destroyed a crazy forward settled German city and one close by city state during medieval age. That never happened in G&K to such an extreme.

It is absolutely impossible to get into a peaceful game anymore. It is a downwards war spiral in this game. To defend myself and get a fast peace treaty, I used to capture or burn a city from the AI. But when I do this, they all hate me even more for beating up the weak. Well declaring war at me with only 2 cities and units which are atleast one era behind IS stupid.

And who the hell did declare war? The AI should not hate me for fighting back other players forces, who declared war at me!! Its not me who started it! So dont cry when they are dying.

There should be no negative modifiers at all for defending yourself, if you did not start a war!

Rage quit and rage post! But I`ll bite.

But you destroyed a German settler and a close by City State. Isn`t that a dangerous, war-like action? Wouldn`t that give you a negative modifier?

On Emperor it wouldn`t take much to set them off.

You can`t have your cake and eat it on Emperor you know.

 

[Kaigen]

There aren't any penalties for defending yourself. But conquering and burning a city is hardly a defensive action.

 

[Tachii]

^^^^^^^.

Taking a city-state is also a strong offense. It doesn't come close to "defending yourself", lol.

 

[Halcyan2]

I had three to six AI's declaring war at me simultanously atleast three times until modern age. Just because I destroyed a crazy forward settled German city and one close by city state during medieval age. That never happened in G&K to such an extreme.

1. Who started the war with Germany? And the war with the city state?

2. You took the German settle (warmonger penalty) and burned it down.

3. You took the city state (which carries a large penalty since it's their only and last city).

It is absolutely impossible to get into a peaceful game anymore.

Actually it's quite possible. Just avoid taking cities. Or find ways to defray the penalty.

In fact, the new system actually allows you to take a limited number of cities with little or no penalty. You just need to be selective about which cities to take. Instead of the Vanilla/G&K strategy of puppetting everything. In addition, you really want to liberate cities every now and then to counter the penalty.

It is a downwards war spiral in this game. To defend myself and get a fast peace treaty, I used to capture or burn a city from the AI. But when I do this, they all hate me even more for beating up the weak. Well declaring war at me with only 2 cities and units which are atleast one era behind IS stupid.

You're taking cities and burning them. That doesn't sound "peaceful" to me.

And who the hell did declare war? The AI should not hate me for fighting back other players forces, who declared war at me!! Its not me who started it! So dont cry when they are dying.

You can kill their troops all you like. But taking cities is a no-no.

There should be no negative modifiers at all for defending yourself, if you did not start a war!

Defending yourself means fighting off the invaders. When you start taking their cities, you have crossed the line from pure defense to something more aggressive. Regardless of who started it.

Not to mention that the complete trade system becomes useless, when your cargo ships get beaten up continuously. And they even managed to get an Embargo against me through the World Congress, because I had not enough money to buy CS allies... Tithe has now become my main gold income.

Internal trade routes are great. Food + Production. Right now I'm not even bothering to trade with other civs, because I like the internal bonuses too much!

 

[Socratatus]

In my view if anyone attacks and kills settled city they should suffer an additional modifier since you are in effect killing defenceless Human beings. In most cases a Civ doing that would be branded murderers and start a major reaction war.

 

[PDMX]

I seems you get me wrong a little bit here. I just took one city and CS in the beginning, which was the reason the AI became angry. Then everybody was at peace again and it was fine. But multiple AI's were ganging up on me and DoWed me soon after. Not only once. They did it in Renaissance, they did it in Industrial and now again six AI's do it in Modern age. All future wars were not started by me, but by the AI. And to get good and fast peace treaties I took some of their cities too. This is the way a war is done. You usually beat of the enemy until he wants peace with you, and you do not stop at their border while doing so, if the enemy is neglecting your peace proposal. If it involves taking their land, its their fault. So why is there a negative modifier if I take a city in a war, which was not started by me. Even though I was a former warmongerer. That is highly unrealistic.

(I am not really losing, in fact I am still second place in points and science despite the circumstances, but it has become annoying as hell, because the economy sucks)

And to be honest, Caravans are not nearly as powerful, really, especially in later eras.

 

[Kaigen]

All future wars were not started by me, but by the AI. And to get good and fast peace treaties I took some of their cities too. This is the way a war is done. You usually beat of the enemy until he wants peace with you, and you do not stop at their border while doing so, if the enemy is neglecting your peace proposal. If it involves taking their land, its their fault. So why is there a negative modifier if I take a city in a war, which was not started by me. Even though I was a former warmongerer. That is highly unrealistic.

Because you're conquering cities. Once you start opportunistically taking cities, subjugating the local populace and carving out additional territory in the process, you've moved beyond defensive war. At that point, nobody cares who started the war because you're obviously on the offensive. If you want to fight defensively and avoid warmonger penalties while getting favorable peace deals, all you have to do is smash their army and maybe pillage some improvements; taking cities isn't necessary.

 

[Lochlann]

And to get good and fast peace treaties I took some of their cities too. This is the way a war is done. You usually beat of the enemy until he wants peace with you, and you do not stop at their border while doing so, if the enemy is neglecting your peace proposal. If it involves taking their land, its their fault.

This is the way war is done, yes. This is not the way that "defending yourself" is done.

If you have beaten back all of their forces, such that you have a clear shot at their territory, well...you have successfully defended yourself. There is no penalty for that. But the minute you start moving into their territory and sacking their cities, well...that's not "defending yourself". That's going on the offensive. That's where the diplo penalties come in, and rightly so.

If you want to avoid being labeled a warmonger, then just sit tight after you've defeated the AI's invasion. Even if they refuse a peace treaty with you, so what? There is no war weariness, and clearly they aren't powerful enough to defeat your defenses.

 

[PhilBowles]

I have just ragequit a france game on emperor, because it went terribly annoying.

I had three to six AI's declaring war at me simultanously atleast three times until modern age. Just because I destroyed a crazy forward settled German city and one close by city state during medieval age. That never happened in G&K to such an extreme.

They've changed the way the warmonger penalty triggers. You no longer get a penalty for declaring war, only for capturing cities (the more cities, the more the penalty). So you can get it if you are the victim of a war declaration - however I'd question whether you can really call it defending yourself when you destroy other players' cities. I have mainly peaceful games, and very rarely capture cities - I'll only do so if I actually want the land or they have a Wonder I want.

Even with the warmonger penalty I've very rarely been attacked or even denounced after taking an enemy city, and it wears off fairly quickly. You also tend not to get it with every civ now. Having good relations, particularly DoFs, with other civs is a helpful buffer - sometimes you won't get the warmonger penalty, but if you do it will usually be mitigated by your good relations to a degree that you won't face a war.

It is absolutely impossible to get into a peaceful game anymore. It is a downwards war spiral in this game. To defend myself and get a fast peace treaty, I used to capture or burn a city from the AI. But when I do this, they all hate me even more for beating up the weak. Well declaring war at me with only 2 cities and units which are atleast one era behind IS stupid.

You hardly need to take out their cities if they aren't a threat. Let the war go on and ignore them, other than making sure they can't pillage anything you want. Besides which AIs usually will now accept peace if they can't capture the city they went to war to take.

And who the hell did declare war? The AI should not hate me for fighting back other players forces, who declared war at me!! Its not me who started it! So dont cry when they are dying.

Take a real-world example: when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 the world denounced them for it - despite the fact that Georgia was the original aggressor. No one disputed that Russia had the right to defend its peacekeeping forces from attack, which it originally did, however once this was done and there was no further risk to the peacekeepers, the international mood at the time (and the finding of independent UN observers after the event) was that Russia had no authority to respond with aggression.

Not to mention that the complete trade system becomes useless, when your cargo ships get beaten up continuously. And they even managed to get an Embargo against me through the World Congress, because I had not enough money to buy CS allies... Tithe has now become my main gold income.

That just sounds like poor planning. Past the early game you should usually have greater income from city connections and banks than from trade. And losing a WC vote is due to not having CS allies - bribery is not a good approach, and you found out one of the reasons here.

Some people like to win diplo victory with last-minute bribery of CSes for the World Leader vote, but this is for one vote and I question its value as a strategy even there. Even people who take that route to diplo victory are not going to be bribing CSes to help them defend against or push through resolutions (if only because they're hoarding their gold to buy CSes later in the game). A combination of spies and quests are your best friends here.

I seems you get me wrong a little bit here. I just took one city and CS in the beginning, which was the reason the AI became angry. Then everybody was at peace again and it was fine. But multiple AI's were ganging up on me and DoWed me soon after.

Yes, that's working as intended. They aren't going to attack until they've built up an army close to your borders, and they aren't going to have an army close to your borders most of the time if they weren't originally planning to attack. Plus they may be under "wait 10 turns" war deals with other AIs. So there's usually a lag between an event that prompts a war and the eventual declaration.

Not only once. They did it in Renaissance, they did it in Industrial and now again six AI's do it in Modern age.

You've already been at war with them. That gives a penalty for the rest of the game (regardless of whether the tooltip says "they don't hold a grudge" - that means the positives outweigh the negatives for the time being, but the penalty's still there). And if you're taking cities every time you're becoming more and more unpopular with the remaining neutral AIs.

The BNW system is actually a great improvement over the G&K one, but it's not designed to be played the way the G&K one was, and you rarely need to take cities to secure peace.

 

[Crashonly]

I sometimes wish that the bastard who starts a war would get a bigger warmongering modifier even if they don't take any cities. Still, it's pretty clear you're not defending anymore when you take their stuff and burn their citizens

It's perfectly possible to have peaceful games. Like, it can be a good thing an AI expands toward you in the beginning (except if it's Shaka, he has come to take all your lands!). Usually they just want trade routes, and it lets you get some very early caravans to them also. 2 way trade routes work as a big deterrent to hostilities, and chances are they'll want to be your friend soon after that happens which lets you make some nice deals for gold with them.

If you feel like that land was YOURS, well, I'd still trade with them a short while and start plotting to take the city later on. Be aggressive about making -other- AIs your friends first, don't accept friend requests from the forward settler, or be sure to let it wear off before you denounce them; and denounce them before attacking. If you have a good enough economy, try bribing another AI to attack the target before you attack yourself.

I almost never take City States by the way, so I can't give advice on that.. But as others said, it can be a big minus if you kill one or two off. I remember one game I had where Korea conquered a nearby city state, and as soon as I denounced them, the whole world denounced them I was planning to kill them, but before I had time to declare war on them, Dido actually asked me to join her for a war against Korea. I graciously accepted.

(I play on Emperor too.)

 

[PhilBowles]

If you feel like that land was YOURS, well, I'd still trade with them a short while and start plotting to take the city later on.

Exactly what I'm doing in my just-started game (Immortal, Byzantium) - Kamehameha plonked Samoa near my ideal second city spot (awkwardly, in the wrong place, but a bit of razing will fix that), so I'm heading down a military tech path to take it from him - however he's also my current trading partner. I refused a DoF with him, but have one with the Shoshone, and Korea - just met - will probably join the alliance when I've known them long enough, since I had a "We have made DoFs with the same leader" positive from our first meeting. Ideally I'll bring one or both of them into the war - neither is close enough to be either valuable as an ally or at risk of taking the city spot, but that would mitigate any negative I get for burning Samoa.

Be aggressive about making -other- AIs your friends first, don't accept friend requests from the forward settler, or be sure to let it wear off before you denounce them; and denounce them before attacking.

I'd advise not making DoFs with the 'forward settler' at all, since that will improve their relations with your other allies ("We have DoFs with the same leaders") and so increase the hit you take with your friends for attacking their friend.

If you have a good enough economy, try bribing another AI to attack the target before you attack yourself.

Better yet, make sure the other AI dislikes them (with denouncements etc.) so that they either take little bribing or will agree to a joint attack.

 

[Keirador]

Lemme get this straight. . . you started two offensive wars (Germany and a City-State) with no provocation, took two cities, and burnt them to the ground. . . and then you whine when the AI starts offensive wars against you with no provocation?

And then after you beat the powers who attacked you, you humiliate them and take their territory. . . and you're surprised they hold a grudge and try to attack you again later? How is this unrealistic? Countries go to war to take back territory they perceive as being wrongfully taken from them all the time, even if they lost it in an offensive war. Germany started WW2 to take back all the territory they lost in WW1, even though they started that war too. Nobody's just like "well, I did start that war and I deserve my punishment, fair's fair."

 

[Yzman]

Imagine if North Korea declared war on the US but did not initiate any credible assault. The US then went and conquered North Korea totally.

Who do you think the international community would say is a warmonger?

I mean theoretically we are still at war with North Korea, but no one fires a shot. The second one of the countries tried to conquer the other one though, there would be outrage.

 

[Crashonly]

I'd advise not making DoFs with the 'forward settler' at all, since that will improve their relations with your other allies ("We have DoFs with the same leaders") and so increase the hit you take with your friends for attacking their friend.

Ahh, yes. That makes perfect sense, guess I just hadn't tought about it that far ^^

 

[Denounced]

Interesting thread. I have never had a peaceful game and I always get denounced as a warmonger. I'll have to try to refrain from conquering cities and see if I can one day have a completely peaceful game.

What about when a friend asks you to help them fight another civ though? Won't it be a negative hit on your friendship if you refuse them? Won't that lead to war and being called a warmonger?

 

[Lochlann]

What about when a friend asks you to help them fight another civ though? Won't it be a negative hit on your friendship if you refuse them? Won't that lead to war and being called a warmonger?

See Phil's reply above. Warmonger status is no longer conferred as a result of declaring war. Supporting your buddy in a war by sniping enemy units only, without capturing cities, will not result in the Warmonger penalty. You could even assist in besieging cities, as long as you're not the one to capture them.

 

[Kaigen]

What about when a friend asks you to help them fight another civ though? Won't it be a negative hit on your friendship if you refuse them? Won't that lead to war and being called a warmonger?

I've never gotten a diplomatic hit from not joining in a war when someone asked me (unless I promised to in 10 turns and later reneged). They don't seem to care if you join them and do absolutely nothing to attack the target either.

 

[Anarchist]

Interesting thread. I have never had a peaceful game and I always get denounced as a warmonger. I'll have to try to refrain from conquering cities and see if I can one day have a completely peaceful game.

What about when a friend asks you to help them fight another civ though? Won't it be a negative hit on your friendship if you refuse them? Won't that lead to war and being called a warmonger?

I've been stomping on two Civs in my current game, and only have diplo hits with them. I've taken a number of cities too, and razed a couple.

I think it is quite possible to manage, but you have to pay attention to the current friendships. In G&K, it was all-out aggression. Now it is more balanced IMO.

 

[Polisurgist]

Interesting thread. I have never had a peaceful game and I always get denounced as a warmonger. I'll have to try to refrain from conquering cities and see if I can one day have a completely peaceful game.

Don't count on a 100% peaceful game just by virtue of not taking cities. There's a million reasons an AI might declare war on you, and thinking you're a warmonger is toward the bottom of that list.