Perhaps this can shead some lights on all the anti-warmonger feelings out there

[joshua43214]

I play on Emperor only indeed. and I've not talked once about Domination strategies in the whole thread. It was all about expansion via conquest. When you mostly or only go for the Capitals, warmonger penalties aren't so painful...
Before deciding to wage war to nearly destroy an AI's military I use spies to assess first the cities' current worth, and how much investment...

With respect, your not a warmonger.

Domination strategy is about taking all the caps. Expansion by domination has never been a good strategy in BNW - we did a lot of it in vanilla where you got great games from a sprawling puppet empire.

The AI is so ineffective on Emperor that I have won OCC total kill domination games on that level. You can just ignore the AI's complaints and go about killing them all off.

Before you right another huge wall of text about how fair and realistic the penalty is, go ahead and fire up an Immortal game and reroll until you get and militaristic expansionist as a neighbor. Come back and tell us how the game went after you tried your diplomatic approach...

 

[EK834]

With respect, your not a warmonger.

Domination strategy is about taking all the caps. Expansion by domination has never been a good strategy in BNW - we did a lot of it in vanilla where you got great games from a sprawling puppet empire.

I know all this. I never claimed otherwise. And I know I'm not a warmonger. I liked it in Civ II, III and IV, I've always hated in Civ V, though since BNW I find the new mechanics fun again and I go to war on purpose a lot more lately.

I know BNW made very wide "steam rolling" expansion by conquest a misery on unhappiness alone, and I understand quite welll the difference between that play style and a strategy to win by Domination. I've participated or read many threads where the increased difficulty for Domination victory with the BNW mechanics was the focus, so I have a fair idea of what those have done on Deity.

I don't like Immortal/Deity, I find the choices too limited and the game too punitive if you stray too much from an optimal strategy.

 

[Barghaest]

I don't like Immortal/Deity, I find the choices too limited and the game too punitive if you stray too much from an optimal strategy.

This is a good, valid point. I've played all difficulties (mainly to get the achievement) and I also find the higher difficulty levels are only really challenging if you stray from the proven strategy for your particular victory condition... because the AI is predictable and unimaginative so it's only through the advantages it is given over a human opponent that give it a fighting chance.

I play this game more for building/carving an empire than repeating the same walkthrough.

Most of the complaints about the changes to the warmongering system appear to come from those who mainly play Immortal/Deity - which was already fairly unforgiving - and I say this because inevitably in those threads someone says what amounts to "if you don't play on immortal/deity then your opinion isn't relevant to this discussion". While I can understand their complaints about losing some of the fun out of a game they played their way there are two factors to be considered:

1 - There are 6 other difficulty levels and many people who prefer to play them.
2 - There is probably an easy to follow strategy for Immortal/Deity with the new warmongering mechanics posted somewhere on the internet already...

 

[joshua43214]

1 - There are 6 other difficulty levels and many people who prefer to play them.
2 - There is probably an easy to follow strategy for Immortal/Deity with the new warmongering mechanics posted somewhere on the internet already...

The other 6 levels are super easy to beat - like I said, I can beat Emperor Total Kill Domination with the OCC box checked.

And no, there is no "easy to follow guide" out there on the internet. This is the place it would be posted since this forum attracts the top players. The easy to follow strat is the same old easy to follow strat - beeline to xcoms and kill all caps in 2 - 3 turns. In other words, boring for domination players.

 

[Barghaest]

The other 6 levels are super easy to beat - like I said, I can beat Emperor Total Kill Domination with the OCC box checked.

Yes, but not every other player plays this game just to beat it, some enjoy the gameplay along the way more than achieving a victory against advantaged AI. I'm not saying their style of play is better than yours just that yours is not the only style of play for which Civ V was designed (otherwise there'd only be Immortal/Deity as choices).

There's a lot of people out there who like the new warmonger mechanic because it makes the game more enjoyable for them by altering how the game flows (and I suspect there are Immortal/Deity players that fall in this category as well).

 

[EK834]

Most of the complaints about the changes to the warmongering system appear to come from those who mainly play Immortal/Deity - which was already fairly unforgiving - and I say this because inevitably in those threads someone says what amounts to "if you don't play on immortal/deity then your opinion isn't relevant to this discussion". While I can understand their complaints about losing some of the fun out of a game they played their way

I agree with this. Deity/Immortal players' complaints are more complex and a bit apart. They have valid points on what the new systems have done to those levels, but they don't much concern the King/Emperor level players where for many BNW made the game fun again.

But I've seen many complaints as well from those playing much lower than this (Prince or King), mostly from those who liked to play Civ to have wars on their terms, when they wanted and more often than not cherry picking their opponents until they were strong enough not to worry about that (the type who pick 2-3 civs from the start to be their "good friends" to abuse for deals until they're finally ready to wipe them out). The warmonger mechanics annoy these players a lot because the game already punished not well planned wide expansion (that became much tougher than Tall games, going wide is asking for a challenge now), and now if they get into "steam rolling" campaigns despite that, the warmongering penalties hit them, get them attacked from all sides and incapable of getting any deals with the AI, and make it near impossible to use the "peaceful" systems of the game (trade, diplomacy) they'd need to keep happiness at bearable levels. It's not only warmongering, the same people often complain about the removal of gold from tiles and the punitive unhappiness.

That's two very different sets of complaints, one from hyper strategic and analytical players who find the new mechanics ruined the highest levels and would need tweaks at least for Immortal/Deity, and one set about a play style that disregarded a lot of the strategic aspects to turn the game into a more or less pure military conquest game that used to be viable in previous versions of Civ but that Civ 5 never really encouraged in its design/philosophy - even changing the conquest victory to limit it to taking all the capitals (and in the sense that they never made any effort to balance things out for that "wide conquest" play style), and now BNW virtually made it obsolete.

I sympathize a lot with the complaints of the Deity players (though I don't enjoy playing the game as strategically as they do), but not as much with those who hate warmongering penalties on the level I play. I think BNW made Emperor/King much more fun and I wouldn't want them to simplify the new mechanics just to make "steam rolling" viable again, mostly because the same tweaks they ask for would remove what I think brought the fun back in my games.

 

[Polisurgist]

The other 6 levels are super easy to beat - like I said, I can beat Emperor Total Kill Domination with the OCC box checked.

And no, there is no "easy to follow guide" out there on the internet. This is the place it would be posted since this forum attracts the top players. The easy to follow strat is the same old easy to follow strat - beeline to xcoms and kill all caps in 2 - 3 turns. In other words, boring for domination players.

The problem is that there used to be an easy strategy to win on Deity and it typically was a domination victory. Now there isn't, so everyone who considered themselves a hardcore Deity player because they were good at following the steps of someone else's Let's Play video can't do it anymore.

It's the only possible explanation for the exact same person complaining in one thread about how the game is way too easy and in a hundred others about how THIS GAME CHEETS because they can't win on Deity.

 

[Dgodus]

For one this game isn't that hard so cut the "immortal/diety only have valued opinions" crap. On those difficulties the game becomes to "cookie cutter" for me. I don't care about simply winning, playing the game is what's fun (it's like if you only have sex just to get an orgasm....). Elitist attitudes and claiming "top players" about a video game is a joke when discussing single player.

Ok rant done. back on topic

Warmonger penalty doesn't hurt when I'm actually a warmonger (the expansion does more to curtail the conquest expansion than that penalty does). But it is a royal pain when just playing and warring more out of "necessity" (there are reasons, don't look at me like that!). It curtails my ability to have a nice complete game full of diplomacy, trading, bulding and conquest.

The penalty should be tweaked to represent that some wars are more understandable than others, and be able to recognize actual warmonger tendencies instead of someone who just used a little pointy stick expansion then put his sword down to rule peacefully for the majority of his reign.

I like the mechanic, I just find the penalty too harsh, and I haven't found it to affect me at all when I'm actually warmongering.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The problem is that there used to be an easy strategy to win on Deity and it typically was a domination victory. Now there isn't, so everyone who considered themselves a hardcore Deity player because they were good at following the steps of someone else's Let's Play video can't do it anymore.

The general pattern in civ is:

1. Good player finds a strategy that works over the AI on higher levels
2. Everyone copies it
3. Devs nerf it, often in a semi-nonsensical way since straight improvement to the AI itself is not easy.

Still, IMO it's a cheap shot to say "they were good at following the steps of someone else's Let's Play", and I say that as an LPer. The workable strategies on high levels are finite in every civ game I've seen, and that finite # isn't enormous.

Eventually, it gets to the point where out of all of your possible choices, the same patterns win time and again. In civ IV, that pattern was "tech to renaissance and then use the military advantage to run away". Other approaches existed and could work even on deity, but that was your cookie cutter approach to dominating maps.

What will the civ V version ultimately be? Changes between expansions have drastically altered the cookie cutter, but cookie cutter is still there . A simple look at social policy choice bias and how tall is functionally >> wide on a consistent basis tells us a lot by itself.

I'm torn on that. Having a massive empire IMO should be beneficial, but if you give it too much of an advantage, wide becomes the "only strategy", similar to how tall has become in most cases. How does one make conquering massive empires before the very end competitively viable without making it the single most powerful strategy? I applaud Civ V for trying to answer that, but they've instead simply made tall > wide rather than wide > tall .

Balance never was easy.

 

[Polisurgist]

Warmonger penalty doesn't hurt when I'm actually a warmonger (the expansion does more to curtail the conquest expansion than that penalty does). But it is a royal pain when just playing and warring more out of "necessity" (there are reasons, don't look at me like that!). It curtails my ability to have a nice complete game full of diplomacy, trading, bulding and conquest.

The penalty should be tweaked to represent that some wars are more understandable than others, and be able to recognize actual warmonger tendencies instead of someone who just used a little pointy stick expansion then put his sword down to rule peacefully for the majority of his reign.

I like the mechanic, I just find the penalty too harsh, and I haven't found it to affect me at all when I'm actually warmongering.

Yeah, but expanding via conquest in the pursuit of a victory condition other than Domination is still a matter of concern for other players in the game, and they'd still be fools to ignore you increasing the size and resources of your civ by force; every expansive war leaves you more able to expand further by similar means, not less. You have more cities with capacity for growth, possibly new wonders, culture buildings, great works, workable land, more units. Further, it makes future wars more attractive to you, since you're paying maintenance on units with promotions that I know you aren't going to disband just for more GPT.

Even if I'm on the other side of the map and you don't have Astronomy yet, you only don't have Astronomy yet. I have no reason to think I won't be a target, and I have no incentive to give you the resources you need to bring that to my doorstep.

All of this is aside from the fact that the game already includes many mechanisms for reducing the penalty for an expansive war if you have "good reason."

• Liberating cities
• Declarations of friendship
• Common enemies
• Retaking your own captured cities

The only problem here is that "but I waaaaaaaaaaaant it" isn't among those valid reasons.

 

[joshua43214]

For one this game isn't that hard so cut the "immortal/diety only have valued opinions" crap. On those difficulties the game becomes to "cookie cutter" for me. I don't care about simply winning, playing the game is what's fun (it's like if you only have sex just to get an orgasm....). Elitist attitudes and claiming "top players" about a video game is a joke when discussing single player.

Ok rant done. back on topic

Warmonger penalty doesn't hurt when I'm actually a warmonger (the expansion does more to curtail the conquest expansion than that penalty does)...

I like the mechanic, I just find the penalty too harsh, and I haven't found it to affect me at all when I'm actually warmongering.

You are actually quite mistaken. This has nothing to do with elitism, we all play at the level we most enjoy - for me this is Immortal because I find Deity un-fun though I win it when I bother to play it.

The game is much more "cookie cutter" on high difficulty that in the past. In both Vanilla and G&K you stood a real chance of losing the game when playing domination, you really had to get the job done early or a run-away would launch spaceships. There was sword rush's, horse rush's, stealth arc's, cavalry rush's, viable ways to mix tradition with liberty and even opening honor. Now, almost all the different variations of domination will not work, and now we have basically 2 methods of doing it. With the added penalty, pulling off early domination that leads to a steady push to victory is as much luck of the map as skill. Entire civs have been made obsolete, and yet people insist that it is more fun, and has more "flavor."

Domination is not the only thing that got hammered, OCC got beat hard by G&K and is even worse in BNW - but we have more "realism" and "flavor" than ever before...

I would never dream of saying that people who do not play on high difficulty have no valid opinion. The changes honestly made no real difference below Emperor to the player, but made huge changes above emperor. So why the change? It only affects the "elite" player, the OP is dead right about this being more about "good" morals (for the children I assume), than about balancing the game.

 

[Dgodus]

Yeah, but expanding via conquest in the pursuit of a victory condition other than Domination is still a matter of concern for other players in the game, and they'd still be fools to ignore you increasing the size and resources of your civ by force; every expansive war leaves you more able to expand further by similar means, not less. You have more cities with capacity for growth, possibly new wonders, culture buildings, great works, workable land, more units. Further, it makes future wars more attractive to you, since you're paying maintenance on units with promotions that I know you aren't going to disband just for more GPT.

Even if I'm on the other side of the map and you don't have Astronomy yet, you only don't have Astronomy yet. I have no reason to think I won't be a target, and I have no incentive to give you the resources you need to bring that to my doorstep.

All of this is aside from the fact that the game already includes many mechanisms for reducing the penalty for an expansive war if you have "good reason."

• Liberating cities
• Declarations of friendship
• Common enemies
• Retaking your own captured cities

The only problem here is that "but I waaaaaaaaaaaant it" isn't among those valid reasons.

I'm sorry but no it isn't an "I want it because I want it" situation.

I'm also not talking about expansion through conquest when there is a choice to do otherwise. Recently played Aztecs and gee japan had a nice Capitol in my jungle too so instead of founding a lesser city to his Capitol my barb fed jags went to work on Oda (and of course my altars needed blood). So yes a penalty for that decision is warranted and I played through it. However playing as Poland and being pinned on both sides by morocco and the Shoshone (morocco effectively blocking off the chockpoint to the rest of the fractal map, and the Shoshone expanding towards me blocking me off from normal expansion - and taking prime real estate). War expansion was basically the choice. This takes place early with archers and wars (I'll use unlimited xp from barbs from time to time - so they had logistics). A penalty is fine, but when then penalty persists through another 200-300 turns of peace (marathon) it's going too far. Can't gain dof's when you're being chained denounced, there was nobody to liberate, I had nothing to recapture.

Can provide similar examples. Playing large islands as japan an everyone has there own except Monty and myself.... Obviously there is going to be quarrels, then a fight, and one of us is getting absorbed. When the obvious takes place my dof's shouldn't turn to denounce and my trades go unrenewed with said friends because "someone we like more denounced you".

On the whole BNW is awesome, playing wide isn't sure fire win, trade routes, AI trading is so much better. But the warmonger mechanic needs tweaked for more situations other than "you annexed or razed a city or two, so you are foreve a pariah"

Again. The mechanics to improve standing aren always available (much like situational starts). There aren't always cities to liberate, dof's turn to denounce, and common enemies aren't always "convenient". When they aren't, simply being Pearson for extended periods should appease others, but I'm not finding it does.

Claiming that someone just "wants it a certain way" is an easy cop out to discrediting someone's pov and is the same as just. Flinging an insult.

 

[Polisurgist]

War expansion was basically the choice. This takes place early with archers and wars (I'll use unlimited xp from barbs from time to time - so they had logistics). A penalty is fine, but when then penalty persists through another 200-300 turns of peace (marathon) it's going too far.

Thanks, this actually helps me understand the position some people find themselves in, and a little bit more about why it doesn't seem to happen to me. In the position you're talking about here, I probably would've done the same thing you did, but I wouldn't necessarily try afterward to shift back to a peaceful footing. My philosophy is that I can start a game thinking I'm going to play it one way, but the circumstances I find myself in may end up pushing me toward a different strategy, and that unpredictability is one of the things I really like.

So yeah, maybe I'm stuck in the jungle with the bastards closing in and I have to murder a few cities if I'm to have any chance at surviving. But from that point on, if that's how the map has dictated that I play, that's how I play. Won't trade one of your three cottons to me, fine, I'm gonna come knocking on your door.

I don't find the game forcing me in that direction all that often, and when it does happen, it's often midgame or later when I've had the ability to build up friends, but some of the most fun warmongery games I've played have been those I started out trying to go peacefully into.

I still don't think the game is wrong to have the AI be wary of someone who's forced (or even "forced") into conquest, but this does help me see why it might not play all that great with some people.

 

[Moriarte]

Thanks, this actually helps me understand the position some people find themselves in, and a little bit more about why it doesn't seem to happen to me. In the position you're talking about here, I probably would've done the same thing you did, but I wouldn't necessarily try afterward to shift back to a peaceful footing. My philosophy is that I can start a game thinking I'm going to play it one way, but the circumstances I find myself in may end up pushing me toward a different strategy, and that unpredictability is one of the things I really like.

So yeah, maybe I'm stuck in the jungle with the bastards closing in and I have to murder a few cities if I'm to have any chance at surviving. But from that point on, if that's how the map has dictated that I play, that's how I play. Won't trade one of your three cottons to me, fine, I'm gonna come knocking on your door.

I don't find the game forcing me in that direction all that often, and when it does happen, it's often midgame or later when I've had the ability to build up friends, but some of the most fun warmongery games I've played have been those I started out trying to go peacefully into.

I still don't think the game is wrong to have the AI be wary of someone who's forced (or even "forced") into conquest, but this does help me see why it might not play all that great with some people.

I think there can be more depth to it in future to help balance things out. Right now , if you pass the certain point of hate, there is no coming back. Which is, understandably, discouraging to some. What if some reverse actions were introduced to effectively reset your relations with a civ? Like Monty approaching you, saying: "Look, i know we had our differences in the past, but hey, let's go kill Genghis together and our people will forget all the differences we had in the past". (effectively removing all prior negative modifiers). That way you can at least regain one solid friend. Not that the current mechanic bothers me much, yet i can see where my games gone too far on that aspect with everyone hating everyone else to the point there is no forgiveness .. ever.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

High level box-in plus "relative warmonger hate to total #cities" is a problem unto itself. Capturing cities should be comparable in any era, if you're not wiping someone out.

Also, to some extent it would be rational to pair hatred to some extent with overall success rate - IE it's sensible to hate all warmongers, but you'd naturally hate one that's doing well and threatening to flatten everybody outright significantly more.

 

[Dgodus]

The basic issue is the AI doesn't differentiate between an occuance and an actual pattern of behavior. The game potentially spans 6k years, the amount of personalities that would govern a Civ through that timeframe and the variances of behavior are not accounted for, what My Civ did 2500 years ago doesn't necessarily dictate my behavior now, especially if it was a "one off" event and not a repeated pattern. that, imo is where the tweaking needs to occur.

Also it would be nice to have some extra diplomacy mechanics added for warmongers (in all truthfulness I'm a builder, and a hoarder; gpt cost be damned), such as being able to threaten cubs with your army/war, having more civs afraid of you instead o just hostile, having them offer tribute, etc. There are benefits to being able to stomp everyone into the dirt beyond just vein able to stomp everyone into the dirt.

 

[Polisurgist]

I think there can be more depth to it in future to help balance things out. Right now , if you pass the certain point of hate, there is no coming back. Which is, understandably, discouraging to some.

That's chain denunciations biting people, which is a very real problem and actually a separate issue from warmonger penalties. But yeah, that sucks.

High level box-in plus "relative warmonger hate to total #cities" is a problem unto itself. Capturing cities should be comparable in any era, if you're not wiping someone out.

The relative factor is necessary when assessing how much of a military threat someone is. Taking one city in the ancient era is actually going to have huge impacts down the line, while taking one city in the modern, not so much.

Counting each city-state as a civ-of-one is dumb, though.

The basic issue is the AI doesn't differentiate between an occuance and an actual pattern of behavior. The game potentially spans 6k years, the amount of personalities that would govern a Civ through that timeframe and the variances of behavior are not accounted for, what My Civ did 2500 years ago doesn't necessarily dictate my behavior now, especially if it was a "one off" event and not a repeated pattern. that, imo is where the tweaking needs to occur.

Also it would be nice to have some extra diplomacy mechanics added for warmongers (in all truthfulness I'm a builder, and a hoarder; gpt cost be damned), such as being able to threaten cubs with your army/war, having more civs afraid of you instead o just hostile, having them offer tribute, etc. There are benefits to being able to stomp everyone into the dirt beyond just vein able to stomp everyone into the dirt.

1. How many personalities do you have that you playing in 1961 AD is a fundamentally different leader than you playing in 1961 BC?
2. The AI does determine patterns of behavior, since contrary to popular opinion, there are degrees of warmonger penalty; taking two cities is worse than taking one, and taking three is worse than that.
3. If other civs are hostile with you and not afraid, clearly you need to push them around more.

 

[EK834]

Can't gain dof's when you're being chained denounced, there was nobody to liberate, I had nothing to recapture.

The problem is really with the impact of denoucements, and even more in the early game.

It undermines and trivializes the WarmongerHate factor. Leaders who are supposed to overlook minor warmongering often won't in practice because the effects of being denounced by all those with a higher level or other issues with you stack with the warmongering penalty and triggers a denoucement in turn. The warmongering penalty itself vanish in time, but you don't feel it because you're caught in a loop of denouncements.

If they reduced the effects of denoucements on other leaders, and limited those reduced effects to Civs who are friendly and have DoFs with the denouncer only (halved, if also having a DoF with the denounced), it might help solve the problem. Perhaps it would make it too easy to keep friends, but they could increase a bit the value of other modifiers to compensate.

Eg: if you seized three Polish cities with a warmonger-hater like Maria Theresa nearby, you would get denounced by her for it unless you manage to bring her into the war as well (and even then). However, you might very well maintain your DoF with Bismarck or Suleiman who would, furthermore, get displeased by Maria Theresa's denouncement that they didn't follow.

It would take more ambitious warmongering before you find yourself isolated, while still making it very difficult to keep friendships with the big warmonger-haters.

The effects of denouncements could also be low in the early game and raise with the creation of the WC and increase a bit with each era after that. You could still get chained denounced if you are over ambitious and in the later game, but the risk would be much lower it happens early for taking a few cities as in your examples. Severe/extreme threat levels would still have exactly the same effects as they have now.

 

[Polisurgist]

The problem is really with the impact of denoucements, and even more in the early game.

It undermines and trivializes the WarmongerHate factor. Leaders who are supposed to overlook minor warmongering often won't in practice because the effects of being denounced by all those with a higher level or other issues with you stack with the warmongering penalty and triggers a denoucement in turn. The warmongering penalty itself vanish in time, but you don't feel it because you're caught in a loop of denouncements.

If they reduced the effects of denoucements on other leaders, and limited those reduced effects to Civs who are friendly and have DoFs with the denouncer only (halved, if also having a DoF with the denounced), it might help solve the problem. Perhaps it would make it too easy to keep friends, but they could increase a bit the value of other modifiers to compensate.

Eg: if you seized three Polish cities with a warmonger-hater like Maria Theresa nearby, you would get denounced by her for it unless you manage to bring her into the war as well (and even then). However, you might very well maintain your DoF with Bismarck or Suleiman who would, furthermore, get displeased by Maria Theresa's denouncement that they didn't follow.

It would take more ambitious warmongering before you find yourself isolated, while still making it very difficult to keep friendships with the big warmonger-haters.

The effects of denouncements could also be low in the early game and raise with the creation of the WC and increase a bit with each era after that. You could still get chained denounced if you are over ambitious and in the later game, but the risk would be much lower it happens early for taking a few cities as in your examples. Severe/extreme threat levels would still have exactly the same effects as they have now.

The real solution is to have the diplomatic effect of a denunciation decay over time, and/or to have each successive denunciation add a smaller diplomatic hit. Civs won't leapfrog their denunciations, and the pileup would be less severe.

 

[Polisurgist]

The other diplo issue is that, in the absence of other factors, one incident can swing an AI's opinion unduly. If your minor warmonger hit sends someone from neutral to hostile it'e probably because they don't actually know anything else about you. Some kind of weighting based on familiarity (though I don't know how that would work in practice) would be good, so your whole relationship isn't based on the first thing they know about you.