Should stealing land with a Citadel flat out require you to be at War?

[CppMaster]

One thing I wish Vox would attempt to do better is weaker civs sucking up to more powerful civs. Civs have the ability to be deceptive and can act friendly to civs they dislike. However it always seems to "run out" at some point. The civ with 1/4 your power will be mocking you and sending denouncements. They should be kissing your butt waiting for a chance to open up for them to actually harm you. (If they hate you in secret)

So all civs should be deceptive? We already have flavors for that.
It would be better if weaker civs would start joint wars against stronger civs.

 

[Zanteogo]

So all civs should be deceptive? We already have flavors for that.
It would be better if weaker civs would start joint wars against stronger civs.

Agreed that not all civs should be deceptive all the time. Civ personality type should be part of this. I just find it is never the case after a certain point.

Take the most deceptive civ, Russia for example. She will come back with a friendly status after a long war and be praising you. This shouldn't happen all the time, but should happen more. "Sucking up to the big guy".

Remember weaker civs can still suck up to you but look to gather allies to work against you, including joint war.

 

[Zanteogo]

Also, civs who's victory doesn't depend on taking down others (for example, going for culture victory and are currently leader in tourism). They should doing everything they can to be friendly towards other civs to keep them at bay. Again, civ flavor taken into account to keep it interesting. Civs that aren't deceptive like for example, Aztec, might still be open and vocal with civs they don't like and attack "just because".

 

[ElliotS]

I disagree. It's natural to dislike warmongers for genocide. Even if it doesn't happen to you, it easily could if it was done to someone else already. It's like not caring about murderers as long as they don't murder you or your family.

Yes because nobody cared when nazi Germany was exterminating Jews since it didn’t affect them.

If China rolled up and tried to annex some islands off the coast of Japan I guarantee you Japan would not be the only country upset.

You're talking about real life and not a game. Civ isn't a historical simulation, it's a strategy game with historic influences.

In real life I get upset about various injustices going on in the world, because real people are suffering.

In Civ I couldn't care less if an entire nation is genocided, because 1's and 0's don't have feelings. If Japan burns China to the ground I won't give a crap about the pretend Nanking Massacre if Japan doesn't pose a threat to me.

I think we might need a mod for role-playing mode, or at least an optional toggle, because your interests are not invalid, but are mutually exclusive from a fully balanced game. Making the AI care about something it objectively shouldn't from a balance perspective by necessity makes the game less balanced.

 

[CppMaster]

In Civ I couldn't care less if an entire nation is genocided, because 1's and 0's don't have feelings. If Japan burns China to the ground I won't give a crap about the pretend Nanking Massacre if Japan doesn't pose a threat to me.

I think we might need a mod for role-playing mode, or at least an optional toggle, because your interests are not invalid, but are mutually exclusive from a fully balanced game. Making the AI care about something it objectively shouldn't from a balance perspective by necessity makes the game less balanced.

I disagree again. AI shouldn't be made to win at all cost, no matter what. It should give the player the best experience via both challenge on certain level and acting natural, so it doesn't feel like it's just 1's and 0's. AI's role-playing like getting mad, being friendly or treasonous is a very nice flavor. That's the purpose of diplomacy after-all.
For me, this is a balanced game. Focusing on both these aspects (trying to win and role-playing), while focusing on just the first one would be break that balance and if anything that should be a mod territory.
For similar reason we won't remove unit leveling up. Sure, it would be more balanced, because AI handles it worse than a player, but it wouldn't be fun. Fun > Competitiveness.

 

[Recursive]

I think valid points are being made by everyone here. It's a delicate balance to integrate elements of roleplaying into diplomacy, but at the same time many players find that fun, from the feedback I've received.

Currently I'm leaning towards "no" on citadels applying a global penalty, because as I mentioned above it's only really comparable to the civilian killer penalty, and that's only applied when a lot of civilian attacks are done. That penalty has some roleplay value, but also serves as a signal to the AI that this player will raze cities for additional war score and/or attack their Settlers, Workers, etc.

Citadels are a much more limited resource, used fairly frequently and a normal part of war that does not necessarily indicate success or danger.

We already have a toggle to disable victory competition, which is essentially "roleplay mode", particularly as of next version where it has more applications. I'm trying to balance everyone's desires here.

I think civs have the potential to employ more advanced tactics, particularly with coalitions and joint wars - and I'm going to work on that as time goes on.

 

[ElliotS]

Yeah maybe I went a bit too far in how I said it, but I think having Citadels cause a global penalty would be a bridge too far in the roleplay vs gameplay route.

Even taking roleplaying into account nations aren't likely to care as much about a blood-less stealing of lands as a genocide of civilians.

 

[CppMaster]

Alright. It may be a good compromise since placing citadels is not OP right now and it requires using a GG. If the potential global penalty would be so low, because we wouldn't want it to penalize too much then maybe it's better to not add it at all for the sake of simplicity.

 

[Vhozite]

I feel like my original point has gotten lost here, which is my fault since I keep jumping around with the topic. I don’t really care if Citadels get a global penalty or not, it was just a potential solution to one of my problems with Citadels:

1. The counterplay to them sucks. It’s either have your own GG (a rare resource as discussed) and hope you can get your tiles back OR DoW and be forced to take an entire city (and be branded a warmonger).

2. There is no consequence to tile stealing. One Civ you’re probably already down to fight gets mad and that’s it.

I don’t need both of those things implemented I just want some (any) kind of push back to tile stealing. The ability to take something from another player is very strong and the mechanic should be more nuanced imo.

Edit: And as mentioned earlier, stealing tiles directly around a city should be impossible. It makes no sense and I would argue it borders on being a human exploit.

 

[Stalker0]

I feel like my original point has gotten lost here, which is my fault since I keep jumping around with the topic. I don’t really care if Citadels get a global penalty or not, it was just a potential solution to one of my problems with Citadels:

1. The counterplay to them sucks. It’s either have your own GG (a rare resource as discussed) and hope you can get your tiles back OR DoW and be forced to take an entire city (and be branded a warmonger).

2. There is no consequence to tile stealing. One Civ you’re probably already down to fight gets mad and that’s it.

I don’t need both of those things implemented I just want some (any) kind of push back to tile stealing. The ability to take something from another player is very strong and the mechanic should be more nuanced imo.

Edit: And as mentioned earlier, stealing tiles directly around a city should be impossible. It makes no sense and I would argue it borders on being a human exploit.

If we look at the poll, at least so far the majority are in favor of leaving it alone. Honestly even the diplomatic penalty is more than I wanted, but if it happens it happens.

 

[DeAnno]

Yeah I'll admit defeat here, the poll is pretty clear. I still think the interaction of DPs with Citadels is garbage though, even if DPs eventually become less obnoxious than they currently are.

 

[Vhozite]

If we look at the poll, at least so far the majority are in favor of leaving it alone. Honestly even the diplomatic penalty is more than I wanted, but if it happens it happens.

Oh I know nothing is actually going to change...it was pretty obvious a few days ago most were fine with citadels as is.

I’m not just just gonna lay down and die because my opinion is unpopular though. That doesn’t make for interesting discussion (I thought the discussion was good )

 

[a3kov]

There definitely needs to be some kind of penalty for spamming citadels mindlessly. AI likes to citadel my non-resource tiles, even if it's outside of his city work radius. Isn't it a stupid thing to do, even if you have too many GG ? How about each subsequent citadel you plant gives bigger and bigger diplo penalty ?

 

[Delvemor]

There definitely needs to be some kind of penalty for spamming citadels mindlessly. AI likes to citadel my non-resource tiles, even if it's outside of his city work radius. Isn't it a stupid thing to do, even if you have too many GG ? How about each subsequent citadel you plant gives bigger and bigger diplo penalty ?

If an AI repeatedly plants citadels into your territory it's very likely to declare war on you anyway. It's a case of perpetual war until you cripple them for good. Whether you vassalize them or get a very profitable peace treaty on each war is up to you, but you still have to fight them. I'm not against the suggested diplomatic penalty from citadels but it still won't change your situation with this AI.

 

[a3kov]

If an AI repeatedly plants citadels into your territory it's very likely to declare war on you anyway.

It's common for AI to wait for overwhelming military advantage before DoW, until that moment they will citadel you non stop unless they run out of generals or tiles to take. And if you maintain tech advantage it may last whole game. It's easy to defend with a small advanced army, but harder to conquer to take back the land they citadeled, especially when they are in several DPs

I'm not against the suggested diplomatic penalty from citadels but it still won't change your situation with this AI.

Maybe with enough negative diplo, everyone will hate them and DoW together and sanction ? Who knows ? Better than nothing.

I believe this topic is a part of a bigger issue that's brought up here on the forums over and over again: warmongering is stronger than peaceful play. What is the counter to citadel ? Citadel back ? But peaceful player may only have 3-5 GG through the whole game, while warmonger may have 10+. And what if they go Lebensraum route ? So you must take every neighboring city to have your city tiles left alone ? But then you become warmonger with all the negative penalties but without much advantages such as military policies. So in a perfect world everybody should just become warmonger ?

 

[Delvemor]

Warmongering is not garanteed to succeed, but if it does yes it is a stronger play as it should be. And I'm saying this as a player who almost always open with Progress, not Authority. Unless they have Lebensraum (which is a problem I agree), you can citadel back the tiles that really matter. If they choose to spend all their GG on you, again, they will most likely declare war anyway.

So in a perfect world everybody should just become warmonger ?

On Emperor/Immortal I find it very difficult to win a peaceful victory. What if Brazil culture is going to assimilate yours ? Or Austria is controlling the World Congress ? I very rarely can win without having to deal with a threat of that nature.

 

[a3kov]

Warmongering is not garanteed to succeed, but if it does yes it is a stronger play as it should be.

Peaceful play is not guaranteed either. And warmongering should not always be the strongest way to play. Defensive play should be viable, otherwise it removes the fun of playing different non-warmonger civs and creates imbalance

Unless they have Lebensraum (which is a problem I agree), you can citadel back the tiles that really matter.

They citadel non-resource tiles. Normally it's cheap to lose them but when it's several citadels and/or Lebensraum, your city may lose half or even most of its work tiles.

If they choose to spend all their GG on you, again, they will most likely declare war anyway.

They don't have to spend all, just a few is enough and they still have many more left.

On Emperor/Immortal I find it very difficult to win a peaceful victory.

Any victory should be hard, if the difficulty is high enough.

 

[a3kov]

How about this idea: pillaging a citadel destroys it and it's tile and all adjacent tiles owned by the citadel owner become neutral territory, so that both sides could grab the land again (via a new citadel or natural land expansion or tile buying). The only reason the tiles switched side is because of the military presence, so it makes sense once you remove it the tiles flip. Would make players to actually keep garrisons there at all times.
If a player has Lebensraum, pillaging his citadels makes 2-tile circle around the citadel owned by the player become neutral. With great power comes great responsibility
This way I could have a military response that doesn't involve mass city capturing and all related warmonger activities.

Is it possible to implement, @Recursive ?

I think it would be pretty balanced, no ? You can grab free land but you have to defend your citadels well, and citadeling becomes reversible. Buying your tiles back sucks, but it's much better than the current situation where I don't have any response other than taking cities.

 

[pineappledan]

Citadels are lovely just the way they are. you have at least as many people complaining they have too few tools short of war to provoke and engage other civs.
Leave citadels alone.

 

[a3kov]

I created a separate discussion for my suggested change, and I'm encouraging everybody to participate: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/suggestion-make-citadeling-reversable.661687/
Don't forget to vote as the change may actually be implemented depending on community opinion.