So we are back to gods and king?

[katfish]

Just like how a human player, if they've been engaging in a lot of wars, will completely ignore that there's an AI-controlled opponent gobbling up the other side of the map, right?

Pretty sure any sane human player that cleared his continent will ignore some poor 2eras behind Attila with 3 citites, that just took out even poorer Ramses with 2 cities. Hell, he might even payed for it, to stop Egyptian wonderhogging.
And even if i aim for domination and attack someone like this Attila, I'm not doin it because i see him as a goddamn treat to the world peace.

 

[Polisurgist]

Diplomacy should never have revolved primarily around who is a warmonger or not the way it does now.

Diplomacy only revolves entirely around being a warmonger if your gameplay revolves entirely around being a warmonger. If you aren't going to war, your trade balance, expansion and mutual declarations of friendship matter way more.

Yes, things go out the window when you start capping cities, but that's because taking even a moderately big city from one civ and taking it as your own, with all its resources, great works, and the plundered gold is a shift in the standings of those two civs in a big way. The AI would be even dumber if it cared less than it does about warmongers and just was content to feed the beast until it turned on them.

This is atop the fact that it's relatively simple to avoid getting warmonger penalties with AI civs if you just do the one thing that the warbaby crowd here claims is anathema: make allies before going to war.

Maybe it would be possible to deprioritize the warmonger portion of a civ's attitude toward you (and it is but one of several factors), but you'd have to make the gains of war (not even a Domination victory, but the advantage you get from taking cities) less accordingly. To do anything else is to ask for an AI that just sits around waiting to be conquered while you get to have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Quineloe]

Just like how a human player, if they've been engaging in a lot of wars, will completely ignore that there's an AI-controlled opponent gobbling up the other side of the map, right?

That's borderline trolling, we're not talking about two players taking out everyone else on their respective continents. We're talking about minor or moderate warmongering here (taking out 1 civ by taking only one city).

 

[Polisurgist]

Pretty sure any sane human player that cleared his continent will ignore some poor 2eras behind Attila with 3 citites, that just took out even poorer Ramses with 2 cities. Hell, he might even payed for it, to stop Egyptian wonderhogging.
And even if i aim for domination and attack someone like this Attila, I'm not doin it because i see him as a goddamn treat to the world peace.

You know that that whole "stability to the world" line is just BS flavor text, right? You've actually read threads written by people who were able to read into the game's code how warmonger penalties and attitudes actually work, right?

What the game labels a "warmonger penalty" is the AI assessing the threat level you pose based on the amount of conquest you've been doing, the exact same as a human player would react if he saw a whole continent turn one color as the tide rushes toward him.

 

[Polisurgist]

That's borderline trolling, we're not talking about two players taking out everyone else on their respective continents. We're talking about minor or moderate warmongering here (taking out 1 civ by taking only one city).

Taking out 1 civ is not minor.

Look, I'm open to there being some refining of this attitude adjustment here. One improvement I'd like to see:

Have the AI judge your aggression against weaker civs differently than stronger civs, and to react differently if they themselves are weaker/stronger. So if Rome actually is dominating 1/3 of the planet and you just ate up Siam which owned another third, Augustus is going to be a lot more wary of you than Hailie Selassie is, with his two cities tucked away in the desert. Conversely, Hailie will be more wary if he sees you taking out some other weakling civs.

This might go a long way toward fixing some of the problems people are mentioning here, though I still feel like the majority of this complaining is people whose gameplay isn't even impacted that negatively, they just don't like seeing that a robot disapproves of them, ever.

 

[njmfff]

It is an unfun mess that leaves the player seeking for ways to work around this artificial obstacle of being branded a warmonger rather than playing the game (avoiding conquering a civ's last city, anyone?).

That's true, but it's best to leave all civs alive, because techs which are cheaper the more civs are alive. The only time I would consider eliminating civs from the game is while playing culture-domination hybrid type of game. The less civs there are, the faster you get to the victory, especially if there's troublesome civ that also goes for culture victory and it's hard to get influence over them.

Think about it, you're left with, let's say Iroquois and have 70% influence over them, so it will take a while to get it at 100% because they've also gone for culture victory. On the other side of the map, Babylone is getting close to tech victory (he just finished Apollo). It won't take long before he gets cranking up SS parts. So you have two choices, either kill of Iroquois and win, or cripple Babylon until he's no longer a threat. (capturing all of his major cities will render him useless in tech threat).

Did Rome attack and destroy Carthage because Carthage was a dirty warmonger? They did it to secure their own interests in the Mediterranean - because Carthage was a competitor, not because Carthage was OMG BAD GUYZ. Same can be said of virtually every conflict there's ever been.

I get what you're saying, but again, it's not all that important for gameplay. You can always cripple annoying civ and leave it alive with some 3 pop city on worthless snow\tundra land and citadel bomb good part of his territory. He won't bother anyone again, except denouncing and being chatty from time to time. (begging desperately to be killed off)... and you can always capture all of his major cities, then pay some other civ to finish him off.

In Civ V, diplomacy is taken to finger-pointing kindergarten level. Practically the only thing that really matters diplomatically is whether you conquered some random city or not, in case of which you'll be hated for it by every nation on the globe, even if it happened hundreds or thousands of years ago, and regardless of if you had otherwise good relations. It is, excuse me, idiotic. The needs and current statuses of nations take a second priority to resenting some unfortunate civilization for what happened hundreds of years/turns ago (while at the same time being perfectly fine with seeing some other civ that could threaten their very existence running away with the game). If the real world worked like Civ V's, we'd still be bombing or at least 'denouncing' Germany.

Agree there. It's ridiculous that you get "warmonger" tag until the end of the game buy something you did at the beginning, like stealing worker from CS. A simple "recheck" roll from time to time in coding would fix this. example: after every era you advance (or most civs advance), you get reroll check with AIs to see if you were peaceful or troublesome. If you played peacefully all the time after that, "warmonger" penalty is removed... or at least, they can set the number of wars you can start before getting penalty. If you attack constantly one or several civs, then fine, you're trouble, but getting WMP just for one war is ridiculous, all while other AIs fight all the time and pretend they are Three Happy Friends. (yes Siam, I am calling you out)

They could have gone with a sane, adult model like the one used in the Europa Universalis series, which manages to feel both realistic and relevant. Instead, they've perpetuated the "warmongering menace to the world!!!!111" again, the Fall Patch once again shaving off just a tiny layer of the worst ramifications of a broken diplomacy model when a total rework was required in the first place.

There's my thoughts on Civ V's diplomacy, the single weakest aspect of the game.

Again, agree. Diplo system is terrific in EU. Yeah, you'll get hated if you start war for no reason, but if you have bias, you're safe, and you only get exact number of diplo hits (or ups) with neighbors and allies by doing certain things.

 

[Quineloe]

Taking out 1 civ is not minor.

It isn't in general, but it should be to a civ who itself took out two other civs themselves with 10 cities between these two.

It also is hardly "warmongering" in the actual definition of the word.

I could fully understand if the AI in this example attacked him anyways because it set the grand strategy goal to domination and therefore has to defeat everyone else. But that is absolutely not the case.

Because of that, after a series of wars that involved everyone, there will never be good relationships again because everyone hates everyone because everyone else did the same thing and if the player somehow manages to avoid a war while everyone else is fighting one, the player pretty much has one of the peaceful victories in the bag because the AI will never target him over the other "warmonger" civs.

 

[katfish]

You know that that whole "stability to the world" line is just BS flavor text, right? You've actually read threads written by people who were able to read into the game's code how warmonger penalties and attitudes actually work, right?

What the game labels a "warmonger penalty" is the AI assessing the threat level you pose based on the amount of conquest you've been doing, the exact same as a human player would react if he saw a whole continent turn one color as the tide rushes toward him.

Riiiiiiiiiiight. That's why everyone was OK when i wiped half of roman 30 city empire. I clearly wasn't a threat everyone should perceive! But when i cap a poor ice locked tundra stranded CS for 3 coal, i became a powerful warmonger everyone should wary!
Its ok to cap 15 cities and become world leader in span of 15 turns since those cities are a MINOR factor. But its not ok to coup de grace some bitter one city Ai leftover that keeps pestering you whole game - its genocide(in a game) too EXTREME
Oh, almost forgot about LIBERATING. Like this this mad map coloring warmonger that leave exactly one city for 3 civ he pwn on his continent? Hes a chill guy! He freed 2 CS and made them his ALLY. Total PEACE MONGER.
Clearly human-like behavior i except to see in multiplayer.

 

[mikeville]

I thought it was pretty funny in the current game I'm playing (Emporer, Epic, Pangea, everything else standard) when I went to visit Rome to barter for World Congress votes and he greets me with, "Ah, the bloodthirsty one shows his face."

Excuse me? Mr. Rome, who took three of my best friend's cities (Persia) and who recently declared war on me and lost his entire army and sued for peace (which I accepted) before I took any of his cities?

After I got what I wanted from him in terms of World Congress votes, I denounced him, then next turn DOW'ed him, took all three of Persia's cities that Rome had conquered, and gave them back to Persia.

This apparently upset Rome enough that he bribed others to DOW me, as during my war with Rome, Germany, Shoshone, America, and Polynesia all DOW'ed me. I paid Aztecs to DOW Rome, paid my friends the Koreans to DOW Germany, and paid my other friends the Ottomans to DOW Shoshone. Persia then DOW'd Rome on their own, so I marched my forces back across the map to exact revenge on Polynesia, my only other neighbor. The others were too far away to do anything to me except harrass my city state allies, plus my other two good friends, Korea and Ottomans, are between me and the German/Shoshone/American alliance.

Long story short, Rome started a world war by being overly aggressive and calling ME the "bloodthirsty one." I'll show you bloodthirsty, fella!

 

[Polisurgist]

It isn't in general, but it should be to a civ who itself took out two other civs themselves with 10 cities between these two.

I have yet to see anyone give a reason why this should be. As a human player, if I've taken two civs and 10 cities and I see you take over 3, I'm still going to be concerned with you...I might be even more concerned because you may be on track to compete with me militarily.

The only basis I can think of for the position that the AI shouldn't worry about Bad Thing A when it also does Bad Thing A is that doing so makes the AI a hypocrite or an a-hole. Which there isn't really a problem with in the realpolitik world in which you're trying to win a game.

It also is hardly "warmongering" in the actual definition of the word.

I could fully understand if the AI in this example attacked him anyways because it set the grand strategy goal to domination and therefore has to defeat everyone else. But that is absolutely not the case.

Denouncing is one way of impacting your ability to win the game, and it's the natural lead-up to an attack; domination victory is not the only possible aim of war. They could be trying to steal your wonders, your great works, plunder your tiles, crash your happiness, or just get you into a position that you're willing to pay tribute for peace.

Because of that, after a series of wars that involved everyone, there will never be good relationships again because everyone hates everyone because everyone else did the same thing and if the player somehow manages to avoid a war while everyone else is fighting one, the player pretty much has one of the peaceful victories in the bag because the AI will never target him over the other "warmonger" civs.

Riiiiiiiiiiight. That's why everyone was OK when i wiped half of roman 30 city empire. I clearly wasn't a threat everyone should perceive! But when i cap a poor ice locked tundra stranded CS for 3 coal, i became a powerful warmonger everyone should wary!

Treating city-states as if they were a civ with only one city is a problem (though I've never really had too much trouble with doing it).

As for wiping out Rome, if the rest of the world hated him, especially if they were also at war with him, then congratulations on figuring out the entirely obvious way to warmonger correctly.

Its ok to cap 15 cities and become world leader in span of 15 turns since those cities are a MINOR factor. But its not ok to coup de grace some bitter one city Ai leftover that keeps pestering you whole game - its genocide(in a game) too EXTREME
Oh, almost forgot about LIBERATING. Like this this mad map coloring warmonger that leave exactly one city for 3 civ he pwn on his continent? Hes a chill guy! He freed 2 CS and made them his ALLY. Total PEACE MONGER.
Clearly human-like behavior i except to see in multiplayer.

This is pretty much the perfect encapsulation of this insane line of thinking here. "AI leftover that keeps pestering you," like anyone in their right mind would ever say to a person "well, what you did was pretty effed up, but I understand, you were mildly annoyed."

 

[Polisurgist]

This is seriously like me playing Mario Brothers and wondering why all these turtles are trying to kill me.

 

[mikeville]

I guess my question is... does the Warmonger penalty apply to the AI's relationhip with other Civs as well? In my example above, in that game, Rome had taken over 3/4 of Persia and half of Assyria. Then the Aztecs completely wiped out Assyria. Germany thought it prudent to conquer two city states.

If any human player did any of the above, they would be labeled a Warmonger by ALL the AI civs. So does the rest of the world (Korea, America, Shoshone, Ottomans, Polynesia) hate the Romans, Aztecs, and Germans for being Warmongers?

 

[katfish]

This is pretty much the perfect encapsulation of this insane line of thinking here. "AI leftover that keeps pestering you," like anyone in their right mind would ever say to a person "well, what you did was pretty effed up, but I understand, you were mildly annoyed."

Attila starts near Nebby and tries to rush him. Nebby barely survives, skillfully counterattacks and takes Attila's court, leaving Huns with one small city and no chances to win. Nebby is crippled too, since all he got are capital with no wonders and lots of lost hammers on dead units.
Multiplayer reaction:
Siam: Gj(takes notice of him)
Lizzy: lol(yawns, continues to expand)
Suleiman doesn't care, hes locked in war with on another continent with Romans.
August doesn't care, hes locked in war with on another continent with Ottomans.
Attila:Gj, bye (he quits)

HUMAN LIKE Ai BEHAVIOR:
Siam: Hey jerk, you are clearly not to be trusted!
Lizzy: I know right? Hes such a nerd, pwning poor Attila
Suleiman and August make peace and denounce Babylon
Attila: This isnt over yet you hear me a$$h0le! I Gonna plunder your sea trade routes with worker for the hell of it! I know i'm not gonna win, but i don't have anything better to do with my time!

After few turns Nebby got tired of chasing pillaging workers and scouts and finishes Attila.

Siam: WTF you're doin?? Leave him a chance you jerk!
Lizzy: You know you had it coming right?
Suleiman and August: You monster, hes was just having fun!
Chain of DoWs
Nebby: I'm tired of you noob circlejerks(quits game)
End.

Ok now i actually think your human like behavior is truth. And mine is just me dreaming.

 

[Theruss]

Yeah, the new warmonger ssytem had a great idea: penalyse on city acquisition, but the execution is poor. Take the last city of any civ or a CS and your diplo relations are doomed to no end.

^This.

Before the patch, I could usually get away with conquering a CS. Now, I found out that conquering a CS, means permanent hate and war. This makes the "Plus" maps more appealing now, since CS' won't be in the way...

 

[Polisurgist]

I guess my question is... does the Warmonger penalty apply to the AI's relationhip with other Civs as well? In my example above, in that game, Rome had taken over 3/4 of Persia and half of Assyria. Then the Aztecs completely wiped out Assyria. Germany thought it prudent to conquer two city states.

If any human player did any of the above, they would be labeled a Warmonger by ALL the AI civs. So does the rest of the world (Korea, America, Shoshone, Ottomans, Polynesia) hate the Romans, Aztecs, and Germans for being Warmongers?

Yes, it applies. However, the AI might also take steps to mitigate its warmonger penalty (by having friends) or may be pursuing other diplomatic avenues.

Part of the problem here is that you can only see the attitude of other civs as they relate to you, and you can only see relationships between AI civs when they declare friendship, denounce or ask you to go to war. The situation isn't as simple as "go to war and get denounced," it's "go to war, take cities, especially take cities from smaller civs, make other civs cautious, make them less cautious if they like you more than the one you're attacking, and that in combination with a bunch of other factors might get you denounced." People who think it is as simple as the first option generally are the same people who avoid any diplomatic relations prior to going to war, so they don't have anything else on the other end of the scale.

 

[chazzycat]

did you hover over the city before you captured it? it tells you whether the diplo hit is minor or major now.

also, everyone was complaining about the AI being too peaceful, so i'm not sure what you expected from the patch.

 

[Polisurgist]

Attila starts near Nebby and tries to rush him. Nebby barely survives, skillfully counterattacks and takes Attila's court, leaving Huns with one small city and no chances to win. Nebby is crippled too, since all he got are capital with no wonders and lots of lost hammers on dead units.
Multiplayer reaction:
Siam: Gj(takes notice of him)
Lizzy: lol(yawns, continues to expand)
Suleiman doesn't care, hes locked in war with on another continent with Romans.
August doesn't care, hes locked in war with on another continent with Ottomans.
Attila:Gj, bye (he quits)

HUMAN LIKE Ai BEHAVIOR:
Siam: Hey jerk, you are clearly not to be trusted!
Lizzy: I know right? Hes such a nerd, pwning poor Attila
Suleiman and August make peace and denounce Babylon
Attila: This isnt over yet you hear me a$$h0le! I Gonna plunder your sea trade routes with worker for the hell of it! I know i'm not gonna win, but i don't have anything better to do with my time!

After few turns Nebby got tired of chasing pillaging workers and scouts and finishes Attila.

Siam: WTF you're doin?? Leave him a chance you jerk!
Lizzy: You know you had it coming right?
Suleiman and August: You monster, hes was just having fun!
Chain of DoWs
Nebby: I'm tired of you noob circlejerks(quits game)
End.

Ok now i actually think your human like behavior is truth. And mine is just me dreaming.

This is a great story here, but it doesn't make any sense. For that story about the initial rush to be true, it has to be early enough in the game that:

• Having taken Attila's Court, Babylon is in a very strong position indeed, regardless of having lost units in the war
• Babylon has no external checks on his growth, so he has free rein over a much larger area
• Most of the rest of the players haven't met either, so they don't take notice; by the time they meet Babylon, it looks like he's had Attila's Court the whole time

Therefore, your other human players may indeed yawn and look the other way if they somehow become aware that this happened, but they'd be rock-stupid to do so, because Babylon just jumped up a couple rungs on the ladder, putting himself in position to be a holy terror down the line. Not to mention that he's demonstrated a willingness to put another player out of the game rather than accept a clean peace deal, which doesn't bode well for anyone on the receiving end later on. A smart human player will remember that or far longer than Babylon's warmonger penalty will last with an AI (supposing that's the last of his warmongering).

 

[Dogmouth]

Part of the problem is that the warmonger mechanics encourage really gamey tactics. For instance, the best way to manage threatening neighbors who attack you early in the game is to never accept peace, pillage incensantly, kill any units they make on sight, seize their civilian units whenever you get the chance, and land grab with citadels. If I'm not mistaken (I could be!) you won't get any warmonger penalty whatsoever for keeping another civ in a permanent, smoldering, hellish slave-like state. However, if you capture their second city that they settled in your face, watch out!

 

[Polisurgist]

Part of the problem is that the warmonger mechanics encourage really gamey tactics. For instance, the best way to manage threatening neighbors who attack you early in the game is to never accept peace, pillage incensantly, kill any units they make on sight, seize their civilian units whenever you get the chance, and land grab with citadels. If I'm not mistaken (I could be!) you won't get any warmonger penalty whatsoever for keeping another civ in a permanent, smoldering, hellish slave-like state. However, if you capture their second city that they settled in your face, watch out!

I'd be all for having things like rejecting peace deals, demanding obscene reparations and capturing civilian units increase your warmonger penalty, possibly coupled with a decrease in the penalty for taking cities...plus, say, an option during a peace deal to return all captured civilian units, which would lessen it somewhat.

But note that the bulk of that adjustment involves increasing the warmonger penalty.

But overall, the "gaminess" could use some fixing, sure. The whole concept of pre-BNW, which let you avoid the bulk of the warmonger penalty by leaving your opponent stranded on a one-tile icebound island, was stupid.

 

[Dogmouth]

I'd be all for having things like rejecting peace deals, demanding obscene reparations and capturing civilian units increase your warmonger penalty, possibly coupled with a decrease in the penalty for taking cities...plus, say, an option during a peace deal to return all captured civilian units, which would lessen it somewhat.

But note that the bulk of that adjustment involves increasing the warmonger penalty.

But overall, the "gaminess" could use some fixing, sure. The whole concept of pre-BNW, which let you avoid the bulk of the warmonger penalty by leaving your opponent stranded on a one-tile icebound island, was stupid.

My memory could be failing, but I thought that rejecting peace deals did increase warmongering in some iteration of the game. But that also invites abuse, particularly if the peace deals are being offered by the aggressor.

The place where I'd like to see warmonger penalties toned down is in defensive wars. There should be consequences to losing an offensive war. Also, the super-duper-special treatment of CSs is really silly. Capturing a CS nowadays doesn't have a huge gameplay effect, and it's not reasonable for everyone in the world to hate someone for thousands of years for seizing a city state (damn you, China, the tribes of Hainan were my friends! Your Song Dynasty conquests will not be forgotten!)