One More Complaint About Warmongering and Diplomacy...

[ShinigamiKenji]

Which disingenuous examples does not do. One of history's greatest bullies using any excuse to take land does not counter my point, not that people living in India or Central Asia gave a crap about Rome anyway.

And Israel? We're leaning on THAT political climate as a counter-argument? Really? Even the USA itself would be a less ridiculous example .

Also 2 cities needs to be treated differently from 20 cities. Otherwise we're comparing South American wars in colonial times and relatively recent conflicts in Africa to the Mongol Empire. Those are not the same thing. The game treats them identically in practice. How are people not seeing this as an issue exactly?

That's why I said "In the old days". They also did that before they even threatened Carthage before the First Punic War by taking Etruscan lands. But we digress from the topic here.

Taking multiple cities already counts as more and more warmongering hatred. And defensive wars cease to be defensive after you overwhelm them enough that you actually went to the offensive and began taking their cities; it's not self-defense anymore, it's your retaliation.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's why I said "In the old days". They also did that before they even threatened Carthage before the First Punic War by taking Etruscan lands. But we digress from the topic here.

Taking multiple cities already counts as more and more warmongering hatred. And defensive wars cease to be defensive after you overwhelm them enough that you actually went to the offensive and began taking their cities; it's not self-defense anymore, it's your retaliation.

The point isn't that you should get no warmongering penalty for taking cities in retaliation.

The point is that the game's treatment of this behavior for a relatively small number of cities is patently absurd, and appears even more so if considering it before modern times.

From a gameplay perspective in a competitive environment, I care a lot more about that 15 city player picking up 2 cities than I would about a 5 city player getting to 10...though in game terms both actions would make the nations global pariahs anyway so it's not like you need to think carefully about whether to keep that next city, if you're choosing to take/keep any.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

The point isn't that you should get no warmongering penalty for taking cities in retaliation.

The point is that the game's treatment of this behavior for a relatively small number of cities is patently absurd, and appears even more so if considering it before modern times.

From a gameplay perspective in a competitive environment, I care a lot more about that 15 city player picking up 2 cities than I would about a 5 city player getting to 10...though in game terms both actions would make the nations global pariahs anyway so it's not like you need to think carefully about whether to keep that next city, if you're choosing to take/keep any.

If the point was about relative power, then I agree (and apologize for the misunderstanding). But people always bicker about who is the rightful owner of land ("Our people settled there 3000 years ago, but someone came and conquered it, then held it for 3000 years, now I want my land back" or something like that)

But then, you need to evaluated the loss of a city compared to themselves too. Having a 3-city empire conquer one city from another 2-city empire in the Ancient Era, for example. You just took half of their cities, which is a fatal blow so early in the game. Though this shouldn't mess too much your relationship with thid parties.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If the point was about relative power, then I agree (and apologize for the misunderstanding). But people always bicker about who is the rightful owner of land ("Our people settled there 3000 years ago, but someone came and conquered it, then held it for 3000 years, now I want my land back" or something like that)

But then, you need to evaluated the loss of a city compared to themselves too. Having a 3-city empire conquer one city from another 2-city empire in the Ancient Era, for example. You just took half of their cities, which is a fatal blow so early in the game. Though this shouldn't mess too much your relationship with thid parties.

I am 100% on board with anybody absolutely HATING anybody else that has a city they owned previously, regardless of other circumstances. Maybe they might attack someone else given the right circumstances, but cities that have changed hands should cause direct animosity between the two parties.

What doesn't make as much sense is distant third parties getting extremely upset over relatively small scale territory changing hands between nations they don't care about, to the point that it's treated almost identically to continent-wiping 2-3 nations off the board by said 3rd party. That's where civ 6 is being extremely unreasonable.

Rome, Mongols, Napoleonic France, these are examples of wide-scale existential threats to many nations where a far-reaching warmonger penalty would be appropriate, to model nations seeking to survive and not be "the next guy on the list" later (especially true in a game that doesn't model logistical limitations much if at all). Taking 2 cities on your own continent from a large nation using them to stage an invasion from another continent, and still being smaller than 2-3 nations in the game is a completely different scenario! Songhai breaking from Mali and taking their land should make Mali hate them, and others in West Africa nervous, but in game terms that's almost the same thing as T bagging all China as Korea and declaring into India!

To make matters worse, the actual consequences of warmonger hate are sufficiently limited that you don't need to care. So not only is it a mere on/off switch in terms of war hatred now, but you don't even need to give serious consideration on whether you flip that switch, because even THAT doesn't matter much in practice :/.

 

[Ryika]

Why is it not an excessive action? Because you decided it so?

Yes. By what other standard would I form my opinion? I explained why I think it's not an excessive action, you haven't given any explanation yourself.

If we talk about representing reality... cities are taken all the time during war. Take the invasion of Germany in WW2. Nobody thought the Allies are warmongers for making sure Nazi Germany is taken out by invading and occupying the country.

What if there are other ways to show to the AI that you are in the dominant position?

Why would it matter if there are other ways?

You can extract a whole suite of resources as the victor in a peace deal without keeping a captured city.

So?

There's a lot of reverse-justification going on in this thread, I think. People are going on what they personally think makes sense; the developers have obviously chosen another subjective interpretation. It doesn't make any of the solutions (proposed or existing) any less valid, but it's something that comes down to that opinion rather than an objective slamming of the AI's behaviour.

Yeah, that's sort of the very basic of any discussion. People have opinions, and then they argue about why they think their opinions are better than other opinions. Nobody claimed to have an objectively right opinion, and you're the only one who even brought objectivity into the discussion, as if one would need to have some objective standard in a discussion about preferences. It's silly.

And overall you're just doing what you're always doing, which is defending a position for the sake of defending it, without actually having good reasons for defending that position.

There are much more obvious interactions to criticise

Yeah, and I can criticize them on top of my current criticism if I want to.

 

[Gorbles]

shrugs

I already gave reasoning as to why you don't need to take a city in a peace deal. The primary motivator here seems to be "I deserve the city", which is fair enough but this leaves you open to other factions thinking you're greedy or (in game terms) a warmonger.

There being other ways to extract resources from a defeated opponent means you winning the war still matters. You don't have to take a city to achieve a favourable winning position.

As for objectivity, I'm not the one saying the developers are categorically wrong. "the AI is bad" is an objective statement, you see. The AI does indeed suffer in a multitude of areas. But this isn't one of them, and if you want the AI to improve, I recommend you focus on more lucrative arguments wrt. AI deficiencies. If you don't like being called on making absolutes, maybe don't make absolutes. We've been over this before, and yet you can't stop making them. I'm not asking for "this is my opinion" on every post, but there's about a thousand variations of the words you're using in the English language to make a sentence not an absolute. And certainly, it seems to be a language you're pretty competent at. All you have to do is put some more thought into it, because otherwise the logical inference is that you mean the things you say to be 100% factual in any way that we're able to measure it.

You don't have to follow my advice, but that's all it is. There are things that actually need fixing vs. this kind of thing that people have already made up their minds about because it's a subjective thing rooted in player agency and - to be honest - simple greed wrt. exploiting gameplay mechanics.

[1] It was a disingenuous statement that ignored content from the same post it quoted. That's not a serious argument, it's not even an effective argument against what was posted.

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[2] The developers are self-inconsistent in this implementation (AI getting pissy because you did something it asked you to do and nothing other than that thing, poor scaling behavior, shoddy UI representation for allowing player to anticipate consequences aka "moderate" = "more than the vast majority of possible modifiers in the game").

Wanting a sensible mechanic is reasonable. Self-inconsistency is irrational. It's true, people don't like irrational mechanics that behave differently than anticipated. They like them even less than rational mechanics that behave differently than anticipated.

1. I responded to your reply to me. I did not respond to the post you directed at another poster because that involved context I wasn't aware of.

You made an objective statement of something being "broken", and you disliked being questioned on that front. This isn't UI, this isn't UX, this isn't the three-click rule, this is something that you most definitely do not have the authority to make an absolute statement about. Roll with the punches, or the debate, or whatever. Your first reply shouldn't be to invoke that incredibly tired Internet Pedantry 101 of a "strawman". It doesn't give me faith you actually want to debate this fairly.

2. To answer the logic you've provided, it doesn't trivialise anything. History is intrinsically imperialist and favours nation-states with an army capable of both defending itself and launching a counteroffensive. There are a multitude of examples that support all sides of this argument, but certainly while people aren't necessarily going to blame a victim for a retaliatory strike, the response has to be proportionate to the action.

Which makes Ryika's hilariously-predictable exaggeration of Nazi Germany even more trope-ish. It isn't every day most countries across the world unite to defeat a force that enacted genocide. That's an outlier, and also a situation where it's very hard to judge what was and wasn't a disproportionate response. Certainly, scholars have been studying the aftermath of both World Wars for decades and it isn't an unpopular view to say in both cases Germany got a very raw deal. History being written by the victors in popular terms, of course. I'd love to go into more detail, history being my second major choice after Computer Science (sadly never had the time to go further with it), but that might be off-topic

If you did not lose a city - in Civilisation terms, given that it doesn't model population loss or more abstract mechanics like slavery (effectively, anyhow) - then to take a city as reprisal is a disproportionate response.

This is not me defending the UI. This is not me defending whatever other issue you want to loop into your criticism of how the AI perceives warmongering to make that single issue seem bigger than it is. The lack of insight into arbitrary AI actions? Problematic. The UI? Problematic. And so on, and so forth.

The core issue here is "should I be perceived as a warmonger if I took a city during a defensive war".

Yes, yes you should.

Can the balance of this be refined? Absolutely. Relative power should be being considered. If you lost any cities, that should also be considered. But the core mechanic of being perceived as a warmonger should remain, because you took something that you did not lose. And you probably lost less units in the bargain as well.

 

[Ryika]

I already gave reasoning as to why you don't need to take a city in a peace deal.

No, you didn't. All you said boils down to "The status quo is the status quo.", without giving any reasons for why the status quo is better than the alternatives.

There being other ways to extract resources from a defeated opponent means you winning the war still matters. You don't have to take a city to achieve a favourable winning position.

You're mixing topics here. I was talking about how one uses dominance to end a war efficiently, you're now talking about the outcome of a peace deal.

The fact that I can have a defensive war that lasts 80 turns and ends up being a relatively positive thing for me has no influence over the fact that I think I should be able to go into the offense, show the opponent that they don't stand a chance and end the war in 30 turns, without being considered a warmonger over it.

Again, you're simply not making an argument for why that should not be possible, you're just saying stuff that is at best vaguely related.

As for objectivity, I'm not the one saying the developers are categorically wrong. "the AI is bad" is an objective statement, you see.

(ect.)

Here's where you start getting ff the rails completely. This whole issue doesn't even have anything to do with "bad AI", this is simply a matter of a ruleset that I don't like. All I want is for cities that are taken during a defensive war while the opponent is not willing to make peace yet to have only a minor, if any, impact on AIs who are not part of the war.

The fact that I think the AI in general is not just bad, but terrible has absolutely nothing to do with the actual discussion.

 

[UWHabs]

I am 100% on board with anybody absolutely HATING anybody else that has a city they owned previously, regardless of other circumstances. Maybe they might attack someone else given the right circumstances, but cities that have changed hands should cause direct animosity between the two parties.

What doesn't make as much sense is distant third parties getting extremely upset over relatively small scale territory changing hands between nations they don't care about, to the point that it's treated almost identically to continent-wiping 2-3 nations off the board by said 3rd party. That's where civ 6 is being extremely unreasonable.

Rome, Mongols, Napoleonic France, these are examples of wide-scale existential threats to many nations where a far-reaching warmonger penalty would be appropriate, to model nations seeking to survive and not be "the next guy on the list" later (especially true in a game that doesn't model logistical limitations much if at all). Taking 2 cities on your own continent from a large nation using them to stage an invasion from another continent, and still being smaller than 2-3 nations in the game is a completely different scenario! Songhai breaking from Mali and taking their land should make Mali hate them, and others in West Africa nervous, but in game terms that's almost the same thing as T bagging all China as Korea and declaring into India!

To make matters worse, the actual consequences of warmonger hate are sufficiently limited that you don't need to care. So not only is it a mere on/off switch in terms of war hatred now, but you don't even need to give serious consideration on whether you flip that switch, because even THAT doesn't matter much in practice :/.

It's at the point right now where if you declare war, take any 2 cities, then everyone will absolutely detest you like you had just killed their entire family, even if they also happen to be at war with who you took the cities from.

They really do need to fix it so that it scales exponentially, but starts out small. So capturing one or two cities should make some people angry, but in general not be a huge deal. But yeah, wiping out a civ should obviously have consequences. And if they combined that with more benefits for being friendly, that would be a welcome change.

 

[Gorbles]

Here's where you start getting ff the rails completely. This whole issue doesn't even have anything to do with "bad AI", this is simply a matter of a ruleset that I don't like. All I want is for cities that are taken during a defensive war while the opponent is not willing to make peace yet to have only a minor, if any, impact on AIs who are not part of the war.

The fact that I think the AI in general is not just bad, but terrible has absolutely nothing to do with the actual discussion.

Alright then, glad we cleared that up.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Your first reply shouldn't be to invoke that incredibly tired Internet Pedantry 101 of a "strawman". It doesn't give me faith you actually want to debate this fairly.

My argument was related to both your statement and his, so I worked it in sequence. The reason you put down a strawman is that you missed that, and that's not entirely unreasonable, but it's still a strawman to first quote me, then say that "just because it's a defensive war doesn't mean you're not a warmonger when taking actions in excess of defending". The implication of that answer is that I made an argument that a defensive war should block the warmonger penalties.

I never made that case, but you said that while quoting me. How is that not a strawman? Even if you felt I didn't make an argument because you missed what I said, that doesn't mean it's reasonable to infer an argument from me in order to refute it .

An antagonized nation probably should take reduced penalties, but not have no penalties. That said, the penalties have to be sane or it doesn't matter.

BTW: I don't recall saying it was "objectively broken". I said it was broken, not that it was broken beyond dispute or that I couldn't possibly be wrong about that one or something. I have given reasons I believe that, and should I wake up tomorrow to discover nations in the world behaving like Civ AI or that this is actually the PvP meta too or something I could change my mind. Let's not pretend I said something I didn't though.

To answer the logic you've provided, it doesn't trivialise anything.

This one *is* objectively false though. When taking 2 cities has identical practical in-game consequences as taking 20 cities (the result is close enough to that), you have no reason to consider the diplomatic consequences of taking or attempting to take 20 cities if you're taken 2 cities. So long as the penalty is identical or so close that it's difficult to measure the difference, the difference is trivial by definition.

If you take cities in any circumstance, you're a warmonger. Very quickly, you're a worldwide hated warmonger. So rather than evaluating the marginal value vs marginal risk of additional conquest on the world diplomatic stage (less trivial), you are instead evaluating whether you want to take cities at all (more trivial). Given the AI's general inability to actually do anything with warmonger hate, you get a 2nd hit of trivialization, but that's only partially relevant in this thread.

then to take a city as reprisal is a disproportionate response.

Yes it is, but if we're talking about disproportionate responses, the reaction to it is egregious and doesn't fit history or any plausible model of gameplay agents attempting to win the game. It doesn't even fit the leader personalities very well. It also doesn't effectively differentiate between what Napoleon did and what Mansa Musa did, a point that somehow got lost in your response but is crucial to the entire OP complaint about this broken mechanic in the first place.

Remember, your response wasn't to worldwide hatred over taking numerous cities or wiping someone out in a defensive war. You response was that it's appropriate for multiple 3rd party nations to get upset over a single city. You straight up told OP "yeah, being denounced by multiple nations for taking a single city in a defensive war after being peaceful all game isn't a problem".

This is not me defending the UI. This is not me defending whatever other issue you want to loop into your criticism of how the AI perceives warmongering to make that single issue seem bigger than it is.

The only UI element I mentioned was the "moderate" implication by the game, which is relevant because it can mislead you into believing that what you're doing in the game won't incur what the OP is complaining about. And, reasonably speaking, taking one city in a defensive war is something that should generally be perceived mildly in principle, unless the nation doing it is already extremely powerful.

But you stated otherwise, that this really should be treated on the order of major offensive conquest, when you said the outcome described in the OP wasn't a problem.

 

[Gorbles]

My argument was related to both your statement and his, so I worked it in sequence. The reason you put down a strawman is that you missed that, and that's not entirely unreasonable, but it's still a strawman to first quote me, then say that "just because it's a defensive war doesn't mean you're not a warmonger when taking actions in excess of defending". The implication of that answer is that I made an argument that a defensive war should block the warmonger penalties.

I never made that case, but you said that while quoting me. How is that not a strawman? Even if you felt I didn't make an argument because you missed what I said, that doesn't mean it's reasonable to infer an argument from me in order to refute it .

An antagonized nation probably should take reduced penalties, but not have no penalties. That said, the penalties have to be sane or it doesn't matter.

BTW: I don't recall saying it was "objectively broken". I said it was broken, not that it was broken beyond dispute or that I couldn't possibly be wrong about that one or something. I have given reasons I believe that, and should I wake up tomorrow to discover nations in the world behaving like Civ AI or that this is actually the PvP meta too or something I could change my mind. Let's not pretend I said something I didn't though.

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This one *is* objectively false though. When taking 2 cities has identical practical in-game consequences as taking 20 cities (the result is close enough to that), you have no reason to consider the diplomatic consequences of taking or attempting to take 20 cities if you're taken 2 cities. So long as the penalty is identical or so close that it's difficult to measure the difference, the difference is trivial by definition.

If you take cities in any circumstance, you're a warmonger. Very quickly, you're a worldwide hated warmonger. So rather than evaluating the marginal value vs marginal risk of additional conquest on the world diplomatic stage (less trivial), you are instead evaluating whether you want to take cities at all (more trivial). Given the AI's general inability to actually do anything with warmonger hate, you get a 2nd hit of trivialization, but that's only partially relevant in this thread.

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Yes it is, but if we're talking about disproportionate responses, the reaction to it is egregious and doesn't fit history or any plausible model of gameplay agents attempting to win the game. It doesn't even fit the leader personalities very well. It also doesn't effectively differentiate between what Napoleon did and what Mansa Musa did, a point that somehow got lost in your response but is crucial to the entire OP complaint about this broken mechanic in the first place.

Remember, your response wasn't to worldwide hatred over taking numerous cities or wiping someone out in a defensive war. You response was that it's appropriate for multiple 3rd party nations to get upset over a single city. You straight up told OP "yeah, being denounced by multiple nations for taking a single city in a defensive war after being peaceful all game isn't a problem".

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The only UI element I mentioned was the "moderate" implication by the game, which is relevant because it can mislead you into believing that what you're doing in the game won't incur what the OP is complaining about. And, reasonably speaking, taking one city in a defensive war is something that should generally be perceived mildly in principle, unless the nation doing it is already extremely powerful.

But you stated otherwise, that this really should be treated on the order of major offensive conquest, when you said the outcome described in the OP wasn't a problem.

1. You worked it in sequence, I didn't read it in sequence. That's not on me (or on you, really). Your declaration of a strawman is completely asinine, my actual argument was "why". Your implication is completely mistaken, and a problem with assuming implications - particularly ones that suit your own later accusations of fallacy. It's 11.20pm, I really have little patience for semantic games on Internet forums. Debating the point? Sure, I never get tired of that. But attempts to pull a gotcha and use that as pretext for dismissal (hint: the fallacy fallacy) really bores me.

Working backwards from my last line, my comment about you being a warmonger was a response to you complaining about multiple denunciations. Because that's why you're denounced. Because multiple factions consider you a warmonger. The statements are directly linked, and require no implications or assumptions about arguments you never made. If I can prove the necessity of the warmongering status, then the denouements are proven as a matter of sequence. One depends on the other. Now, if you want to make another argument, say, that an unconnected AI considers you a warmonger for something they shouldn't know about? Then that's a separate argument (and has been a longstanding issue with AI perception in Civ. games in general - one that I hope the new system in Civ 6 can be modified from, to consider more nuance than was possible before). But that is an argument you haven't made.

And again (r.e. what I said to Ryika), you don't have to call something explicitly objective to phrase it in a manner that presents it as such. These are all word games; all debates are. Words have power, they have meaning. "I think" automatically opens a line with the pretext that you're not sure. "This is" is a statement that brooks no counterargument; it's a statement of what is. Of course you could change your mind, as could I, but how we phrase these things decides how they're perceived in general. Two people saying absolutes to one another gives the general indication neither are going to change their minds. That is also an assumption, but one borne of years doing this particular online dance, and one that has consequences that eventually relate to moderation r.e. user vs. user agendas. I'd rather not go anywhere near that kind of cultural assocation. I just like to convince people that how you say things is just as important as what you're actually saying - especially when it comes to concerned gamers (or end users of any product) giving feedback.

2. Calling my argument objectively false while making paragraphs based on the principle you're not making objective statements is . . . fast-moving logic, to say the least. You're arguing against me; if things I say are objectively wrong then you are objectively saying so, and given our opinions have been opposed since you started this chain by replying to me (by calling something "broken" in no uncertain terms) . . . well, yeah. Anyhow, enough semantics, sorry

What you consider to be trivial, or trivialised, is a personal qualifier because it depends greatly on both the level of immersion you feel the game presents, and how it matches up with established mechanics that you personally value or engage with. You are right about how quickly you become a warmongerer in this game, but I was only ever arguing that that is justified in context, particularly in the context of defensive wars. Could the stacking of warmongering be reduced? Sure. Could other factors be taken into account? I've already agreed that this could or should happen depending on context.

So what are we really arguing here? Is the problem the warmongering accrued from not ceding cities back in a peace deal? Is the problem how quickly warmongering is accrued by a player? Is the problem how AI factions perceive you based on wars they were never a part of and shouldn't always care about? Again, I come to the "why" in "why is this broken diplomacy". The diplomacy is working exactly as intended with regards to how much of a warmonger the AI thinks the player is.

Therefore, your objection is with how much of a warmonger they think you are. Not the multiple denouements themselves, surely?

3. / 4. Yes, I think it's perfectly reasonable that a lot of people get mad at the player for overreaching. Overreaching in peace deals is a historic way for the player to make rather biased gains by exploiting common AI logic and behaviour patterns. This curbs that by incentivising returning cities to the defeated as a gesture of both goodwill and the actual mechanical nature of weighting a peace deal in your favour for other things like Strategic and Luxury resources.

But given that I've already said I think the system could be more nuanced, again, I'm at a loss as to why you're riding on my initial post when I've already given more details on my specific views of the systems in general. The system is consistent; AI factions regularly denounce each other for the same kinds of transgressions. The problem is the general lack of action on these transgressions, which you highlighted I think. Well, one of the problems. But the logic of "take more cities than you need to > be counted as a warmonger" is sound, in my opinion.

If you remove or mitigate that mechanic in any way, if you take any part of it out the equation, the dependencies fail. If you're not arguing that the warmongering is a problem (because you didn't like me going near that assumption, evidently), then you need to say what is the problem to your eyes (and preferably what you'd change to address this). Basically, what I said at the end of my answer to 2.

 

[Art Morte]

Definitely prefer diplomacy in 6 to what it was in 5.

In Civ5 you could basically stay friendly as long as you weren't neighbours with the AI. The moment you started to share border, the AI would want to attack you if it considered itself strong enough.

Coming from that, Civ6's diplomacy feels a breath of fresh air. You can actually be friends & allies even with your neighbours. The diplomacy in 6 is way more unpredictable and varied than in 5 and it gets a big thumbs up from me for that alone.

However, in their attempt to make diplomacy have more depth, it's also become a bit chaotic. All these wildly different agendas make diplomacy at times feel like it's based on melodramatic mood swings of a 15-year-old boy (or a woman of any age).
90% of the time my "diplomacy" is only based on chance; something I just happened to naturally do either pleases or displeases other civs. It rarely feels worth it to try and make decisions in the game based on others' agendas. But still, I do enjoy the fact that there's now the chance to do that if you feel like it.

Kinda agree, though, that warmongering penalties in some scenarios seem a bit too heavy. On the other hand, war should be the topmost thing to affect diplomatic relations. Meh. Overall I'm enjoying this diplomacy way more than anything seen before in the franchise.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

declaration of a strawman is completely asinine, my actual argument was "why".

"Why" is not an argument or a case being made! If that was the only thing you wrote, my response would understandably have been different.

Your implication is completely mistaken, and a problem with assuming implications - particularly ones that suit your own later accusations of fallacy.

No, you made a non-quoted response to the opening post stating the situation he described as "yeah, this isn't a problem". The OP's complaint was clearly a combination of a defensive war *and* the fact he took a single city. Your response at that time is clearly stating that it's not a problem, and that the fact that he kept the city is the problem.

Whatever it is you meant to say, what you actually said is that it is reasonable to get multiple denunciations over keeping 1 city you take in a defensive war. I refuted that, pointing out that it has no consistent historical basis (not that the game cares much for historical basis) and is clearly not plausible as a gameplay/winning position consideration from other agents.

If you really wanted to bypass semantic arguments, you wouldn't use them yourself, try to call me out as "stating something as objective fact" when I didn't, or pull stuff like this:

because otherwise the logical inference is that you mean the things you say to be 100% factual in any way that we're able to measure it.

I'm not the one trying to derail this with semantics. No, "logic" does not dictate that I mean something as objective fact when I don't say it's objective fact. It does dictate, however, that if someone complains about an issue and you say it isn't a problem, that you have concluded that the incident as-described is acceptable. That is the statement I argued against in the first place. And while perhaps some of the case I made was missed the first time, we've still gone several posts since where a chunk of the case I made has been ignored in favor of semantic arguments, all while telling me that they're tiresome.

c'mon man.

Calling my argument objectively false while making paragraphs based on the principle you're not making objective statements is . . . fast-moving logic, to say the least.

Within the framework of the accepted meaning of the word "trivial", having fewer possible states and fewer meaningful decisions is clear cut. Unless you're unwilling to concede that the current state of the game is an on/off switch (or very close) when it comes to warmongering, trivialization is the conclusion. I also took the effort to call it objectively false in that paragraph, just for clarity !

I did not do that when I called the mechanic broken. I implied your position was wrong, yes. You are also using to strict an interpretation of the word "broken", as the arguments made since that point lead me to believe you took it to mean something I didn't.

So what are we really arguing here? Is the problem the warmongering accrued from not ceding cities back in a peace deal? Is the problem how quickly warmongering is accrued by a player? Is the problem how AI factions perceive you based on wars they were never a part of and shouldn't always care about?

Using the context of the opening post as the reasonable guide, the answer is these two, and especially the "how quickly". He is talking about restraining himself from taking more cities, and complaining about the diplomatic response over 1 city in a defensive war after playing peacefully the entire game. That is a complaint about the rate the warmongering penalty is accrued. It is roughly the minimum possible aggression you can possibly do while still taking a city, awkward "workaround" of taking unoccupied cities in a peace deal w/o penalty excepted (which is another issue entirely and more fake difficulty).

Both the warmonger penalty on this scale *and* the multiple denunciations are problematic. The latter directly influences behaviors long term, and as such should be made in situations where those behaviors in response are plausible/reasonable (depending on if we're role playing or treating these as agents trying to win).

If you're not arguing that the warmongering is a problem (because you didn't like me going near that assumption, evidently)

I didn't go near that very much because I don't disagree there. My argument is that you should be getting some warmongering penalty, but that the world reaction to 1 city taken in a defensive war should not be serious. I already pointed this out in post #50 (disproportionate response), but also said that I'd like to see a progression in post #44 (I've stated multiple times what *is* the problem...that the game doesn't scale warmongering in any meaningful way. You're not at all or you're a huge one). That should be obvious when I'm making examples comparing Napoleon and Mali, and how the game would handle their actions nearly identically on the world stage in practice.

As for what fixes it? Relative power consideration as a multiplier, non-linear scaling in terms of taking cities in a given conflict, and meaningful consequences for actually being Genghis Khan so that the player has passable incentive to care.

 

[Gorbles]

I take broken seriously, as a software developer, engineer, whatever you want to call me, broken has a very specific definition when it comes to a mechanic in a video game. I can accept "skins" or "reskin" has taken on a meaning of its own, but I will stick to my guns on "broken" because that means something and I shouldn't have to get people to clarify what is a very simple term in software development if they mean something a bit more subtle. And that's the only semantic point I'll carry on here, and mainly because it's more of an explanation than an argument!

With regards to how quickly warmongering points are accrued, I still disagree. I mean perhaps the amount is too much (i.e. for how long they persist, etc), but I think taking a city should be a serious act nomatter the circumstance (barring some extension of diplomatic options that allows you to gift a city with no strings attached and no intimidation required). Even in a defensive war. But now I know what is being argued, and I maintain my argument that if you make the penalty less harsh, then there is no incentive not to take a city. Or a lesser incentive.

I would consider an exception to be one you've stated - relative to the power of the factions involved. But that's the only modification I would make to the allocating of warmongering "points" (however they're represented in the game code). More meaningful consequences of the system in general I'd be in-favour of too, but I consider that a layer on top - I'm trying to keep my arguments focused on specifically the giving of warmongering points (and how long they persist for). A city is a very important object in game terms, arguably moreso than before with regards to the importance of Districts (and Wonders). Maybe the penalty should also factor into account the relative advances ties to that city (this could unfortunately only be measured in objective terms; improvements allocated to tiles, Districts built, etc, and not geographical factors per see).

Should the reception of your Warmongering be equally as-severe the world over? Perhaps not. But I don't know how Eras affect this either (in the Modern Era, you could make the argument that due to visibility all leaders across the world would be affected in a similar fashion, depending on the influence of their Agendas. In the Ancient Era, not so much - but I believe that there are already inherent modifiers to how much Warmongering you accrue in the earlier Eras anyhow. This point is already being accounted for by the game code, basically - if I'm right).

 

[Lanthar]

Personally, I think their diplomacy system has a huge amount of potential.

However, the way it is implemented leaves much to be desired. We can endlessly debate about historical accuracy vs hating warmongers, but it's a sideshow - Civilization is a history themed game, not a historical simulator. Also, since the time of human history is so long, we all can find an endless parade of examples of human behavior to fit our argument.

Here's what I don't like about the current diplomacy system used in Civ6:

1) Warmonger penalties are too severe. In order to capture territory (cities), you are forced to take massive warmonger penalties, regardless of aggressor or defender status. Sure, you can fight very game-y wars - only pillage and only capture the capital. I feel that penalties for capturing territory are too harsh, and lead to spiral of hate amongst all AI players that it just isn't worth trying to dig out of.
2) Not enough credit for diplomatic history. I can be very friendly with someone for a thousand years, but get involved in a war with someone else and do well, and it's tossed out and I am denounced. Allies in joint war also have the warmonger applied to my relationship with them, which doesn't make any sense to me.
3) The Agenda system to me seems little different from the personalities of 5. Diplomatic penalties for arbitrary agendas seem to harsh. I think there should be an effect, just not as much of one.
4) All positive diplomatic actions are unbalanced vs negative actions. It's too easy for players and the AI's to get into hate holes and not be able to climb back out without a disproportionate effort.

For the reasons above, I think the Diplomacy system in Civ6 needs to be overhauled. Mostly with adjusting positive and negative values, but also looking at how and when those values are applied. In it's current state, I consider Diplomacy a broken system (Yes, both gameplay and as software). In order to maintain friendly relationships, you have to put in so much effort, and restrict your play to certain styles, that it interferes with the ability to try different strategies, or adapt to situations, to win the game.

There are games I am happy to play a warmonger, and games I want to try and play peacefully. In the peace games, keeping friendly relations with some AI is too difficult, especially if you're involved in any kind of war, or trying to clear out some annoying city placement by the AI (another issue for another thread, unhappy with the ICS city placement of the AI). Most games I want to take it as it comes, and play the world - not start out playing as "warmonger" or "peaceguy".

So, when I play, I largely ignore Diplomacy. It's nearly impossible to maintain friendly states in a "generic" game (where you don't specifically play to be AI friendly), and way too easy to turn the world into a hate hole. I hope the Diplomacy system will get adjusted like Civ5's was - that wasn't great at the beginning either.

 

[fjordan]

When I started this thread it was mainly to venture my frustration. It was not meant as a general bashing of Civ 6 as some threads seem to be, I am still playing the game, I only think it could be so much better with not too much effort.

But I had not imagined that there would be people who would actually defend this mechanism. And I still cannot get my head around the fact that someone thinks that it is normal gameplay that taking one small city after being attacked has the same consequence as razing all cities of that enemy. Gorbles is entitled to his opinion but we must be from a different planet.

Apart from getting more reasonable penalties the casus belli also seems broken to me, if you actually get lesser penalties from starting the war than from getting declared upon. But some will probably find a historical context for that too.

 

[Lanthar]

As I stated, we have thousands of years of history to find context in. Easily done, no matter what argument you are putting forward.

The Diplomacy system is broken in that it is not flexible. In a game promoted as being flexible, ie, you choose your playstyle, it's not fun. You either have to severely restrict playstyle and put forth quite a bit of effort for a somewhat friendly game, or live with being a warmonger and hated past the Classical era. There is little opportunity to play a game with multiple levels of friend/enemy states with different AIs.

It's purely a gameplay issue. Personally, I think it has great potential, but needs to be refined and redone, and seriously tested past the Classical Era.

 

[c4c6]

the fact that someone thinks that it is normal gameplay that taking one small city after being attacked has the same consequence as razing all cities of that enemy.

So you want to say, that it doesn't make a quantitative difference in warmonger penalty to conquer one city OR conquer two cities?
That it doesn't make a quantitative difference in warmonger penalty to conquer & keep one city OR conquer & raze one city?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I take broken seriously, as a software developer, engineer, whatever you want to call me, broken has a very specific definition when it comes to a mechanic in a video game. I can accept "skins" or "reskin" has taken on a meaning of its own, but I will stick to my guns on "broken" because that means something and I shouldn't have to get people to clarify what is a very simple term in software development if they mean something a bit more subtle. And that's the only semantic point I'll carry on here, and mainly because it's more of an explanation than an argument!

And yet if you are willing to look at more common usage definitions, including a mere estimation that "something is too powerful" that occasionally gets used in the gaming sense (a less strict standard than even I used it earlier), you will find that there is no question that what I said fits at least SOME accepted usages of it, and in fact not even the least strict ones.

That is important, because we're talking about the mechanic from an end user perspective. That said, given that the game misrepresents the mechanic's consequences on several levels (not just how much you get, but what it means to get it), it could be broken even in the sense you're thinking. I don't have inside knowledge nor care to delve into that one though.

For example, as it stands CB basically doesn't matter, because of how the warmonger points apply, which means this gameplay mechanic renders an entirely new design system *completely irrelevant* in practice, despite that the player is expected to invest resources into getting these CBs to become available... Unless it influences WW or something and they hide that from us, but that's for another thread .

With regards to how quickly warmongering points are accrued, I still disagree. I mean perhaps the amount is too much (i.e. for how long they persist, etc), but I think taking a city should be a serious act nomatter the circumstance (barring some extension of diplomatic options that allows you to gift a city with no strings attached and no intimidation required). Even in a defensive war. But now I know what is being argued, and I maintain my argument that if you make the penalty less harsh, then there is no incentive not to take a city. Or a lesser incentive.

As it stands, taking more than 1-2 cities is meaningless compared to taking 1-2 cities in practice in the game (depending on CB and era). Do you refute this? If not, what explanation do you have to offer that AI agents treat small conquests and enormous, continent-spanning conquests that run away with a game as nearly equitable actions is a desirable outcome from a gameplay perspective?

There is almost always incentive to take a city (this could change of course, but it's true for now). The point is to make taking more cities than fewer cities have a variable diplomatic cost, so that you have to actually consider how *many* cities you can get away with. The case you make leaves the game in a state where you don't have to think about it any more after 1-2 cities. You're a warmonger, so it's pants off dance off time, where it quickly becomes obvious that the AI has no pants. Even if it had them, however, it's still an "on/off" switch, nothing further to consider.

Should the reception of your Warmongering be equally as-severe the world over? Perhaps not.

Definitely not!

Take the example of a 6 civ free for all, split on two continents. Is a warmonger succeeding on your own continent more threatening, or one on the other continent? How successful would someone have to be on the other continent before you'd remove forces from a competitor next to you to shut him down, risking your own survival? Are you willing to sail halfway around the world because Civ X took 4 more cities than Civ Y, despite that Civ Y took 2 that are right next to you?

The AI is bad enough without such artificial factors further causing it to toss resources on something it can't utilize. Distance (or some better replacement of threat perception, if someone has one) needs to be a factor or you'll get some truly silly stuff (Japan took 3 cities and this warmonger took 2 nearby, let's go for the bigger warmonger Japan even if it will take 20 turns to get there etc).

So you want to say, that it doesn't make a quantitative difference in warmonger penalty to conquer one city OR conquer two cities?
That it doesn't make a quantitative difference in warmonger penalty to conquer & keep one city OR conquer & raze one city?

10000 is greater than 100.

However, when the sum of all other factors is 40, why should the player care between -100 and -10000?

That's the kind of scale OP is complaining about. That there is a quantitative difference is *irrelevant*. It's like trying to say someone is more pregnant or something.

 

[c4c6]

10000 is greater than 100. // However, when the sum of all other factors is 40, why should the player care between -100 and -10000?
That's the kind of scale OP is complaining about. That there is a quantitative difference is *irrelevant*. It's like trying to say someone is more pregnant or something.

What happens to your numbers, if that civ declares war again & you conquer again one city and than give it back in peace treaty (altogether 30 turns later, so also time comes into play)?

[Still "taking one small city after being attacked has the same consequence as razing all cities"?]