testing warmonger penalty NO DECAY

[Louis XXIV]

They have constantly tweaked it and, at least imo, it's much improved. So the idea that they haven't addressed this is incorrect. You just disagree with where it's at now. However, a balance is still required and I'm not sure if you'll agree with where the balance ends up either.

 

[Barghaest]

I just find it wierd that i am the only one who thinx firaixs fails to adress this it has been a broke mechanic since the game came out and its still there.

they promised to fix it at gods and king but they didn't.

There priorities are to improve leaders who are allready strong or enchance other gameplay asspect

instead of fixing major issues

In my opinion they have fixed it. It is much better than it was in vanilla. I've been able to wage wars without every AI turning against me. The system isn't broken, your approach to it is. You need to adjust YOUR tactics if you don't want the world to turn against you instead of complaining the system is broken.

 

[Biologist]

I think it's fair to say that, objectively, the system has come a long way. I remember in the early days of vanilla it was possible to get chain-denounced just for defending yourself from other civs' aggression. Warfare was inevitable, and diplomacy in every single game was just a house of cards waiting to collapse on you. Now you have a choice of either playing by the rules and avoiding the pitfalls, or just ignoring everything and plowing your way through.

I don't think it's possible to play a game where every civ is friendly throughout the entire game, either. I've successfully played games where no war occurred between myself and another faction until very late in the game, but at some point your interests will diverge too sharply from someone (due to ideologies if nothing else) to keep everyone friendly. The game doesn't punish you for defending yourself, and possibly not even for capturing a minor opponent city. That's an improvement in my view.

 

[boghog]

This is illogical, stupid, not realistic and extremely frustrating:

Applying IRL comparisons is no use - and here's why: Other than IRL a game of CiV is finite and there is no second place.
In the game if it looks like the US is going to win, every sensible nation should gang up on them -no matter how strong they are - since they will lose either way. IRL nations can go on living even if another one builds an interstellar spaceship or all peoples of the world wear blue jeans. Ergo a CiV civ should behave differently than a RL civ.
Ganging up on warmongers the way they do is really sensible in a game context and exactly what human players would do. And forgetting that someone likes to solve his problems by taking cities or wiping out civs is not a winning strategy.
The thing that I'm more concerned about is that they are not equally bent on foiling a victory attempt if there's a runaway cultural or diplomacy or science leader: They will happily sell you Open Borders when you are obviously going for a CV, they will sit on piles of money rather than become allies with the CS whose votes will give you a DV and will be eager to be your friends while you already have a spaceship factory in every city.
Warmonger hate isn't broken, the lack of hate for other player actions is.

 

[Polisurgist]

I just find it wierd that i am the only one who thinx firaixs fails to adress this it has been a broke mechanic since the game came out and its still there.

You are absolutely not the only one who thinks this. There are plenty of other people more than willing and able to sound off on how this is the most important issue in the game, and far more (myself included) who think it could use some improvement.

 

[apocalypse105]

You are absolutely not the only one who thinks this. There are plenty of other people more than willing and able to sound off on how this is the most important issue in the game, and far more (myself included) who think it could use some improvement.

Fine but my patience is over firaxis has lost my trust i thinx they won't change it and if they do it will still be broken just remove it

there are allready enough negatif modifiers and not enough positif ones

 

[Barghaest]

There are plenty of positive ones and most of the negative ones are easily avoidable or overlap. I have no problem maintaining Friendly status with most of the AI. Current game I'm Friendly with everyone - even Carthage who every other AI hates - because I've been passive for most of Medieval/Renaissance and concentrated on my current empire over expansion, trading with others and not really denouncing anyone. Despite the fact I have several negative modifiers with a few of them I have more positive ones so they're still friendly for now. When DoFs fad they might turn against me but for now I've managed to wrangle several of the AI into a cohesive coalition.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I think warmonger hate is a fine thing. If you're trying to be diplomatic, you need to actually be diplomatic!!! You can't solve problems in civ (or in life kids ) by beating someone into submission. Everyone knows it's happened and they aren't going to trust or respect you.

Diplomacy is universally not effective when a stronger AI attacks you. Let's say you demolish their army or only hold it off - and the peace screen comes up, and in the first case the AI offers you a bribe, maybe a small city, and in the second they want everything of yours. That is the diplomacy. What is going to happen if you accept either of those things? On higher difficulty, the AI is just going to come back stronger and teched-up in 10 turns and invade you again, or have given you too much and be conquered by some other AI within 30 turns.

Defenders of the warmonger penalty on this forum deploy admonitions about genocide and annihilation. The peace screen is a contract for annihilation. You can't solve some problems in CiV or, wow, in real life wars, with peace deals.

It almost always makes more sense to totally conquer an aggressor in game. War needs to be a part of diplomacy. Every AI does it too. Stop breaking the system for a built-in aspect of the game (war).

 

[Barghaest]

Diplomacy is universally not effective when a stronger AI attacks you. Let's say you demolish their army or only hold it off - and the peace screen comes up, and in the first case the AI offers you a bribe, maybe a small city, and in the second they want everything of yours. That is the diplomacy. What is going to happen if you accept either of those things? On higher difficulty, the AI is just going to come back stronger and teched-up in 10 turns and invade you again, or have given you too much and be conquered by some other AI within 30 turns.

Defenders of the warmonger penalty on this forum deploy admonitions about genocide and annihilation. The peace screen is a contract for annihilation. You can't solve some problems in CiV or, wow, in real life wars, with peace deals.

It almost always makes more sense to totally conquer an aggressor in game. War needs to be a part of diplomacy. Every AI does it too. Stop breaking the system for a built-in aspect of the game (war).

I made the mistake of attacking Carthage in my current game. I was in 3rd place (score wise) and Carthage was #2... but they were the #1 in Military by a large margin (I had 175k Pointy Stick they had 260k). We had a large naval battle which I managed to win, but just barely... while my units were all still around half health the second wave of fresh units came... when I managed to hold them off a third wave appeared on the horizon.

I had destroyed their units and not really lost any of mine (a few I captured were sacrificed - playing Ottomans - but none of my existing navy died and despite hammering two of my island cities they hadn't taken them yet). Dido offered me a peace treaty asking for all of my cities. I refused and the third wave manage to take two of my island cities and decimate my navy... so I "time traveled" to try a different tactic. I did this several times and just couldn't hold her at bay so then I decided to remove all of my cities from the offered peace treaty (even peace with each other and CS allies, nothing else). She accepted.

Just because the AI asks for concessions doesn't mean you HAVE to give them. You can haggle a bit with the peace treaty window... sometimes I turn down some gifted cities the AI offers me (mainly because I don't want the Unhappiness while razing them) other times I'll ask for one when they don't offer. The starting offer in peace negotiations is just that... a STARTING place.

 

[Aristos]

I made the mistake of attacking Carthage in my current game. I was in 3rd place (score wise) and Carthage was #2... but they were the #1 in Military by a large margin (I had 175k Pointy Stick they had 260k). We had a large naval battle which I managed to win, but just barely... while my units were all still around half health the second wave of fresh units came... when I managed to hold them off a third wave appeared on the horizon.

I had destroyed their units and not really lost any of mine (a few I captured were sacrificed - playing Ottomans - but none of my existing navy died and despite hammering two of my island cities they hadn't taken them yet). Dido offered me a peace treaty asking for all of my cities. I refused and the third wave manage to take two of my island cities and decimate my navy... so I "time traveled" to try a different tactic. I did this several times and just couldn't hold her at bay so then I decided to remove all of my cities from the offered peace treaty (even peace with each other and CS allies, nothing else). She accepted.

Just because the AI asks for concessions doesn't mean you HAVE to give them. You can haggle a bit with the peace treaty window... sometimes I turn down some gifted cities the AI offers me (mainly because I don't want the Unhappiness while razing them) other times I'll ask for one when they don't offer. The starting offer in peace negotiations is just that... a STARTING place.

I can't believe we have to clarify even something this obvious... people don't want to even try to change little things in the trade window? No wonder they see a "broken" system...

What is a "fixed" system then? One that does everything for us? Why play then?

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I wrote a guide on how to diplo for the express purpose of getting threads like this to go away

 

[umphrey]

Can I decrease it with gold gifts or razing cities or anything? I have a nasty warmonger penalty going, I want to go for a nice science victory but if the other civs hate me so much maybe I'll just kill them all.

 

[Aristos]

Can I decrease it with gold gifts or razing cities or anything? I have a nasty warmonger penalty going, I want to go for a nice science victory but if the other civs hate me so much maybe I'll just kill them all.

First, it's the other way around: you decide to kill them all (Dom VC), and THEN you warmonger. Or else.

Second, and most important: To conquer the world you have to liberate part of it.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Just because the AI asks for concessions doesn't mean you HAVE to give them. You can haggle a bit with the peace treaty window... sometimes I turn down some gifted cities the AI offers me (mainly because I don't want the Unhappiness while razing them) other times I'll ask for one when they don't offer. The starting offer in peace negotiations is just that... a STARTING place.

Ha, I never tried haggling when they demand cities. I very rarely take anything of theirs either way, unless it is actually a good city and that AI is about to be conquered by someone else.

The main issue either way is tech and economic disparity. Obviously if you aren't behind the AI a clean peace is fine and you can go back to being friends - neither of you has an "interest" in being at war anymore. If you the human are still behind then peace deals are pointless. The AI will have tons of reasons to DOW again in 10 turns. You need to conquer before that AI comes back.

A lot of this ties into the variety of play-styles issue. The reason "you can be smart about your conquests" is not a satisfactory answer to me is because that assumes my civ is not lagging, i.e. I've been turtling with Tradition and now I'm ahead on tech. But that's not how I play. I open Liberty or Honor. I like to play as the uncultured underdog. When you experiment with other play paths, you will be invaded by strong neighbors and need to conquer them back.

 

[Aristos]

Something that people should know, and probably very few do, is where Sid Meier's Civilization comes from.

The seed of our addiction is an old, and one of the best ever, board game called Advanced Civilization. It is out of production now (only Hasbro knows why), and the existing copies sell for ~US$ 600 in Ebay. A group of fans created a website replicating the exact gameplay, board and rules, and more than 1,000 members and growing attest to the immortality of this boardgame (by the way, I highly recommend going to the website, register for free, and learn to play the game... nothing better than a round of true civilized diplomacy ... ).

http://civ.rol-play.com/ahciv/login...rde&url=/ahciv/games.php?nocache=5v205r0d55kw

Anyways, Advanced Civilization, as the name indicates, is a game about, hey you guessed!, advancing your civilization. Warfare is penalized there, not impossible but not the best path to civilization, especially in the early phases of the game. Sid Meier's Civilization inherited heavily from that approach, assuming also a "war is costly" stance throughout the series. That is very easy to see.

Only Shafer decided, and using his own words, that he wanted "a Panzer General with cities in between"... basically breaking up with one of the core principles of the series (and its seed board game). War was almost the ONLY strategy in Vanilla, which not only made for a poor game (the AI will never be as good as we are maneuvering), but also divorced the spirit of the game series from the latest iteration. War was not costly anymore, but the only and ultimate strategy. In other words, he transformed a game about advancing your civilization into a wargame, and a poor one at that.

What we see in the latest, "Ed Beach"-generation of versions, is a return to the spirit of the series. War is costly. You can play it as a wargame, and the engine let's you do that, but do not expect Command and Conquer-like feedback from the game. In fact, given that now the game feels again like what the series is about, Ed Beach et al did a wonderful job in not completely disregarding the 'warpath" for players... but War is costly. If you are able to pay the cost, or able to avoid it with smart diplomacy and maneuvering, that is up to you.

But war is costly. As it should be, as it should have been barring the Shafer anecdote.

If I want to play a wargame, and I do sometimes, there are very good games at that (AT series, TOAW, even the controversial HoI series). When I want to build a civilization, which also includes conflict of course, but does not REVOLVE only around it, then I come to Civilization.

I suggest you do the same.

 

[GhostSalsa]

But war is costly. As it should be, as it should have been barring the Shafer anecdote.

If I want to play a wargame, and I do sometimes, there are very good games at that (AT series, TOAW, even the controversial HoI series). When I want to build a civilization, which also includes conflict of course, but does not REVOLVE only around it, then I come to Civilization.

War is costly until it isn't. I can always hop sides and do the "be smart about warfare" thing by turtling with tradition until I hit ideology and have my Radio wonders up. Then go swarm the unpopular warmonger on the other continent and be the Big Hero. There's literally no cost to war if I follow the standard tech-first strategies for my non-domination win. There's no cost to war if I'm playing safe and strong.

Play paths play paths play paths play paths. BNW needs to open up.

 

[Polisurgist]

War is costly until it isn't. I can always hop sides and do the "be smart about warfare" thing by turtling with tradition until I hit ideology and have my Radio wonders up. Then go swarm the unpopular warmonger on the other continent and be the Big Hero. There's literally no cost to war if I follow the standard tech-first strategies for my non-domination win. There's no cost to war if I'm playing safe and strong.

Play paths play paths play paths play paths. BNW needs to open up.

That's only one of the ways to "be smart." The other is to make sure you don't have to care whether anyone else likes you. There's nothing that can be traded pre-DoF that can't be taken by force, and if you have a strong enough military, it doesn't matter who declares war on you. You don't have to be liked. The only downside there is if...I guess you don't like the color red.

You can talk about play paths all you want, but if the valid play path you're looking for is basically a turn-based wargame in which you're guaranteed that your enemies only fight back half the time...there are better options.

 

[GhostSalsa]

That's only one of the ways to "be smart." The other is to make sure you don't have to care whether anyone else likes you. There's nothing that can be traded pre-DoF that can't be taken by force, and if you have a strong enough military, it doesn't matter who declares war on you. You don't have to be liked. The only downside there is if...I guess you don't like the color red.

You can talk about play paths all you want, but if the valid play path you're looking for is basically a turn-based wargame in which you're guaranteed that your enemies only fight back half the time...there are better options.

I've done the total conquest before, with for example Mongolia bagging all the capitals on your continent isn't super-hard, but growth lags and all that... start to fall behind the AI that you almost entirely conquered. So... maybe I'm just not good enough for pure domination *shrug*. G&K let you space out your aggression a lot more.

 

[phillipwyllie]

In my current game I took one of Brazil's cities very early on and about 100 turns later we have a DOF. The warmonger score may decay slowly but the warmonger hate can be somewhat nullified with positive diplo modifiers, shared religion being a good one(if they haven't founded one yet).

 

[Polisurgist]

I've done the total conquest before, with for example Mongolia bagging all the capitals on your continent isn't super-hard, but growth lags and all that... start to fall behind the AI that you almost entirely conquered. So... maybe I'm just not good enough for pure domination *shrug*. G&K let you space out your aggression a lot more.

I find that if you're going that route, you have to just ignore a lot of big red numbers that otherwise might convince you you're losing the game. The first time I won with the Huns, I don't think I had a positive GPT until the late Renaissance. It was never a problem, because I got enough lump sums of gold from taking cities that I kept my head above water.

So playing through that lag might be a good idea, if you get to the point that you're thinking about quitting.