So we are back to gods and king?

[Dralix]

The place where I'd like to see warmonger penalties toned down is in defensive wars.

I'm pretty sure there is zero penalty for a defensive war. Unless by defensive war you mean let the AI DOW on you and then go on the offensive and take their cities.

 

[Ninakoru]

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.

I'm agree, it's a step in the right direction, but too many steps makes a even worst situation... The formula is lazy, to my understandement this should have been taken into account:

- Would make the formula based on a population basis. Right now you take a 30 pop capital to a player witch has other 4 pop 10 cities is totally irrelevant.

- As you advance in era, you get more warmongering penalties. As we advance in eras, other civs should be more concerned on warmongering: -50% ancient/classical, -25% medieval renaissance, 0% industrial/modern, +25% atomic, information.

- CS should generate 50% less warmonger hate. After all are minor civs, are not that of a concern for the players.

- Wiping last city from a player should generate less severe warmonger points. Adding one artificial city for the victim number of cities on the warmonger calculation would lower warmongering the less cities the civ has. And we kill the absurd we have now with it.

 

[Dogmouth]

I'm pretty sure there is zero penalty for a defensive war. Unless by defensive war you mean let the AI DOW on you and then go on the offensive and take their cities.

Yes, I mean go on the offensive and take their cities after they DOW you. It's kind of silly to fight them up to their borders and then say "Good try! I'll see you here next time!" In real life and in multiplayer, most people accept that a defender is entitled to some spoils and should be allowed to neutralize an aggressor.

 

[Dralix]

Yes, I mean go on the offensive and take their cities after they DOW you. It's kind of silly to fight them up to their borders and then say "Good try! I'll see you here next time!" In real life and in multiplayer, most people accept that a defender is entitled to some spoils and should be allowed to neutralize an aggressor.

What happens in real life is relative. In today's age, it's not at all acceptable for a defender to seize lands from an aggressor. In earlier times, it happened more often, but memories ran deep, and it often led to later wars to reclaim those lands.

But I don't think that's very relevant anyway, because we're playing a game. I don't think the AI should care who started the war. In their eyes, if you take land from another civ, you're a threat.

 

[mikeville]

Riddle me this.... (it has happened in my last two games)...

A neighbor DOW'ed me and invaded my lands. Took a couple workers, pillaged a couple tiles, but was never a threat to take any of my cities. Once I got mobilized, I destroyed the invaders, and took the fight to his lands. I capture two of his four cities (including his capitol) and liberate a third (a CS he had conquered).

He's down to one city. He has no units. He WON'T MAKE PEACE. He won't even discuss it. "We have unfinished business" they say. I bombard his remaining city to zero HP. I ask again. "We still have unfinished business." Wait a few turns. I ask a third time. Same response. Won't even negotiate.

What am I supposed to do? I don't want to destroy him because of the diplomacy hit, but he won't even sit down in peace talks.

Likewise, the guy on the other side of the continent that declared war on me 20 turns ago won't sit down to talk either. I haven't even seen any of his military units. The "war" is non-existant!

 

[Polisurgist]

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!)

Rejecting peace deals doesn't factor into it, and yeah, you'd have to riddle out some kind of abuse protection. In general, I'd like to see favorable/unfavorable trade balance be a boost to diplomacy, and peace deals should be treated like any other trade; me giving you more than you would have taken should increase your attitude toward me, and me asking for too much should penalize me.

City-states counting as if they were civs-of-one for the purpose of the warmonger penalty is silly, though I thought that was mitigated in the patch.

"Defensive wars" is a misnomer and kind of a dodge. You can very easily crush a rival in a "defensive war," so I don't think that who declared war should have much to do with it at all. Maybe have the penalty be based on where the fighting took place - regardless of whether Rome declared on me or not, if way more of the fighting took place in Rome's land, I should get the bigger penalty.

As for the "thousands of years" thing, that's because it's a game. I'd be happy to hold WWII against modern-day Germany if modern-day Germany was still being controlled by the same "player."

 

[Polisurgist]

What am I supposed to do? I don't want to destroy him because of the diplomacy hit, but he won't even sit down in peace talks.

Remain at war. Guard your units, keep an eye on him to be sure he doesn't mass up, let him keep some workers to repair pillaged tiles, then go back in and re-pillage for some free gold until he sees sense.

 

[EK834]

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

I agree with nearly all your points and certainly with the conclusion.

The warmongering penalties make sense to me. Conquest was, IMO, overpowered. Changing Domination so you now have only the capitals to take was a good step, but not enough to balance raw conquest as a mean to go very wide. It's an alternative way to acquire luxuries and the potential for increasing culture, science, happiness, land etc. I find it normal for balance's sake that it at least hinders or seriously slows you down from the other means of acquiring the same, like through the diplomacy system.

But I dislike how it's been implemented as it has ruined further an already bad, childish diplomatic system.

 

[Theruss]

Riddle me this.... (it has happened in my last two games)...

A neighbor DOW'ed me and invaded my lands. Took a couple workers, pillaged a couple tiles, but was never a threat to take any of my cities. Once I got mobilized, I destroyed the invaders, and took the fight to his lands. I capture two of his four cities (including his capitol) and liberate a third (a CS he had conquered).

He's down to one city. He has no units. He WON'T MAKE PEACE. He won't even discuss it. "We have unfinished business" they say. I bombard his remaining city to zero HP. I ask again. "We still have unfinished business." Wait a few turns. I ask a third time. Same response. Won't even negotiate.

What am I supposed to do? I don't want to destroy him because of the diplomacy hit, but he won't even sit down in peace talks.

Likewise, the guy on the other side of the continent that declared war on me 20 turns ago won't sit down to talk either. I haven't even seen any of his military units. The "war" is non-existant!

That's exactly what happened in my last game, the only difference was the whole world declared on me because I captured a City State. Rome was the first to declare and I beat them badly. But despite taking 3 of his cities and leaving just 1 of his, he would not accept peace. I was at war with the whole world yet for 70 turns not one of the 7 civs would accept any sort of peace offer. This new patch messed things up, I think...

 

[KrikkitTwo]

They need to focus the warmonger penalty on how much you have gained through war... not on how much others have lost.

So something like the warmonger penalty for taking a city depends on the number of cities in the World at the time you take it, rather than the number of cities in the civ.

Eliminating a civ would only be significant to civs that were allies/friends/trade partners/(pledge to protect for CS) of the civ that was eliminated

 

[Qoma]

Riddle me this.... (it has happened in my last two games)...

A neighbor DOW'ed me and invaded my lands. Took a couple workers, pillaged a couple tiles, but was never a threat to take any of my cities. Once I got mobilized, I destroyed the invaders, and took the fight to his lands. I capture two of his four cities (including his capitol) and liberate a third (a CS he had conquered).

He's down to one city. He has no units. He WON'T MAKE PEACE. He won't even discuss it. "We have unfinished business" they say. I bombard his remaining city to zero HP. I ask again. "We still have unfinished business." Wait a few turns. I ask a third time. Same response. Won't even negotiate.

What am I supposed to do? I don't want to destroy him because of the diplomacy hit, but he won't even sit down in peace talks.

Likewise, the guy on the other side of the continent that declared war on me 20 turns ago won't sit down to talk either. I haven't even seen any of his military units. The "war" is non-existant!

This is a free invitation to level your units.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

This is a free invitation to level your units.

Exactly, just contain him.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Yes, I mean go on the offensive and take their cities after they DOW you. It's kind of silly to fight them up to their borders and then say "Good try! I'll see you here next time!" In real life and in multiplayer, most people accept that a defender is entitled to some spoils and should be allowed to neutralize an aggressor.

Actually, Israel is still taking flak for all of the territory they've gobbled up after being DOW'd by their Muslim neighbors. I don't really like using the realism argument because it's dumb and should be the last concern of people making a turn based video game but there ya go.

 

[gps]

I don't really like using the realism argument because it's dumb and should be the last concern of people making a turn based video game but there ya go.

Verbal quote from Civ V manual page 3:

"Civilization V is the fifth version of the classic game first released in the early 1990s. It is the longest-lived and best world history computer simulation ever published, famous for its depth of play and uniquely addictive nature."

So yeah, realism is an absolute non-issue here...

 

[matateu]

The diplomacy of Civ V is a joke and the Fall Patch has unfortunately proven that Firaxis does not understand this and will not be changing what is a horrendous model to the core.

Diplomacy should never have revolved primarily around who is a warmonger or not the way it does now. There is no basis for this in terms of realism; there is no basis for it in terms of gameplay. 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?). World affairs never were dictated by pointing fingers at 'warmongering menaces to the world'. 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.

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.

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.

Totally agree with this^^

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Historically leaders who start wars or conquer cities have been labelled warmongers and often this have been followed up by several DoW from neighbouring empires.

Just watched a documentary about Napoleon the other day and it was fun to see the path he and the surrounding empires took. First of all he proved him self as a great tactician and a threat to the old empires. They denounced him and his revolutionary ideas. Then they had a trade embargo towards him and England, Austria etc all declared war on him at the same time. He beat Austria in battle and negotiated peace on his terms, he could do this since he was just a day or two march away from Vienna. He got Belgium and some other stuff in the treaty.

The documentary also made a good argument whether frigates and SoTL are to powerful or not. Napoleon and France where a powerful nation, on land. But on the sea their fleet was no match for the English who sunk it twice (Egypt and Trafalgar). One episode of the documentary included the period when France and England was at war (as usual) and Napoleon had a huge army at the English channel but could not cross it since Englands fleet was to powerful. England on the other hand could easily cross the channel but did not have army to challenge France so they stayed on their island.

In the documentary they also brought up a common subject in these forums, namely technology and its power. When Egypt marched towards Kairo they encountered Egypts protectors, the middle East´s most feared warriors, the Mamluks. France was slightly outnumbered, 20 000 against 25 000 but when the battle was over after a couple of hours France had only lost 30 men while the Mamluks was masacred and lost 20 000 men. France had muskets and cannons, the Mamluks swords and horses.

Had it not been for the British navy sinking all of Frances ships the Middle East would have been in French hands shortly after.

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Need more examples? USA invade Iraq in 2003 and is denounced world wide, by it´s own allies even. This did not effect any trade deals however.
Previously in 1991 Saddam had invaded Q8 and got denounced and later on a DoW thrown at him. And they put up an embargo on Iraq after the war. Even so, Iraq was not fair game for an invasion in a diplomatic sense anyway.
Hitler, conquered a large part of Europe before the rest of the major powers DoW him and his nazi henchman.
Japan walked out of the league of nations 1936(?) after it had declared Japan a warmonger for conquering Manchuria. Needles to say most of the leading powers at the time where warmongers them self with colonies all around the globe.

And on and on it goes.

 

[kaspergm]

I may be in the minority, but in many ways I actually think Fall Patch improved game in the sense that now at least warlike nations will favor early war, unless prior to patch where you would easily have nobody doing war before renaissance era (i.e. boring).

I do agree what others have said, however, that the warmonger penalty for capturing last city is too big. This is particularly problematic with regards to City States where capturing them will by default be their last city. That's just stupid. Two equally big but less evident problems are that warmonger score decays WAY too slowly in game (wipe out a civ in classical era and you will easily still be considered warmonger come Modern era - wtf?) plus the threshold for the permanent warmonger status you get for wiping out a certain percentage of the civs on the map is too low (again, because CS are considered equal to major civs).

Above things can be changed by minor modifications of the code (sadly not without going into the .dll with regards to the per-city calculation) but a more elegant solution would be if your warmonger score with another civ would always be subtracted by their own warmonger score, so that you wouldn't get a warmonger penalty with another civ who's earned more warmonger points than you have yourself.

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Above things can be changed by minor modifications of the code (sadly not without going into the .dll with regards to the per-city calculation) but a more elegant solution would be if your warmonger score with another civ would always be subtracted by their own warmonger score, so that you wouldn't get a warmonger penalty with another civ who's earned more warmonger points than you have yourself.

Totally agree. If I stop Attila or the Mongols and conquer their cities after they have set fire to their part of the world the other civs should not label me a warmonger. They should of course be worried about me however.

 

[Browd]

They should of course be worried about me however.

That's the problem really. The game essentially uses "warmonger" as a catch-all label for a rapidly growing military threat. Frustrating as it may be to players aiming for global hegemony, the other civs should be more alarmed the more you stomp around. Allowing warmonger fear to burn off over 50-100 turns would address, IMO, the more legitimate concerns.