To those early game warmongers among us.

Dtekkar

Warlord
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Nov 30, 2010
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As you all know, the warmongering penalties in the early game are much more significant than they used to be. One eliminated player, one stolen capital, or one pile-on dow that results in you picking off a city from a civ with small number of cities and you won't have fair trades ever again. This is partly to reduce runaways so that people can experience the industrial era and the new expansion, and also to be in line with the flavor of Brave New World.

But now that we've had a taste of what Brave New World offers, I'm not sure we need to hold up every game until the industrial era. Many prefer the old way, and feel that conquest and domination should have early game applications. To make this possible, I recommend an advanced option.

Warmonger Diplomacy Penalties: Light /// Classic // Intermediate // Brave New World /// Extreme

Brave New World will have the warmongering penalties as they are now. Classic, as they were. Light would reduce a number of diplomatic modifiers, and extreme would increase them. Light and Classic may have some happiness modifiers restored in early game options, such as zoo +3 happy, stadium +4 happy, and a few cultural policy trees would have their happiness policies restored (Something to the tune of +1:) from shrines and temples, +1:) from university, public school, observatory, honor walls :), and +5 happy from the culture rollover in aesthetics). This would allow successful early warmongers to become empires and not be blighted with tiny cities from happiness caps and 0 trade partners. And because it would be a Brave New World game, all the new content, especially from the industrial era on would be available. Except now, you won't always see it.

I may mod this in when I have the time. Would this be an advanced option anyone else is interested in?
 
I would love to have some sort of option like that.

This way, people who like to fight can just put nothing but aggressive civs in the game and be at each others throats the entire time and if I need something different, I can choose to increase the penalty for warmongering.
 
No. I pretty much like the penalty. Since when do warmongers care who they associate with, because anyone that opposes them will get the axe anyway? If you don't like everyone hating your for being a warmonger... then don't be a warmonger. Problem solved.
 
No. I pretty much like the penalty. Since when do warmongers care who they associate with, because anyone that opposes them will get the axe anyway? If you don't like everyone hating your for being a warmonger... then don't be a warmonger. Problem solved.

Well, if you like the penalty, you could keep it on the "Brave New World" setting. Why deny others what they want just because it's already working as intended for you? What if some people enjoy early game warmongering?
 
BNW was designed to work with certain warmongering penalties. Changing them would most likely cause some serious issues in global diplomacy of the game. Though if we were to put the dot after the list of penalty levels, this could be quite reasonable and potentially less problematic.

If you were to ask me, I would add something a little different. How much do you care about wars in Central Africa? Does anyone of you still remembers that Russia has invaded Georgia and still occupies (and doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon) 1/3 of its territory?

My point is that outlook on someone's warmongering is not determined as much by that persons actions, as by its influence on the party in question. If you live in Georgia, Russian invasion is definitely an issue for you. Ukrainians, Belorussians and other neighboring nations may also be seriously worried. Other powers in the region of conflict, like china and Turkey, may also be worried because of conflicts near them. Furthermore, Great Britain and USA, as historic rivals of Russia, will most certainly get angry. On the other hand, countries like Germany, France, Brazil or Australia may voice some initial concerns, but in longer run, they couldn't care less.

Civ5 should have a mechanism that would take into account subjective view on warmongering actions. We have now subjective view on warmongering as a general phenomenon (leader's flavor) but it's equally applied to razing cities on someone's border and on the other side of the world.
 
To those early game warmongers among us:

The changes in BNW are YOUR fault. Your lack of self control, and casual exercise of your warmongering, has led to subtle yet sweeping, game-changing (literally) alterations in the game we know and love.

Face up to your addiction. Admit that you cannot control this behavior. With his admission, you will feel liberated and can begin a new approach to gaming. But you can't do it yourself... Find a partner to provide support and encouragement, and to help when you feel those urges again.

With help, you can deal peacefully with such situations as
  • You don't need to steal that worker
  • the Shoshone, while annoying, can indeed be good neighbors
  • Finding room to settle good city spots

Once this casual warmongering has come into balance, no longer will it be necessary to have punitive mechanics in the game!
 
You don't need to steal that worker

To be clear, there is very little penalty for DOW'ing and stealing a worker as long as you don't take any cities. Early warmongering is still viable, but city conquest is not.
 
No. I pretty much like the penalty. Since when do warmongers care who they associate with, because anyone that opposes them will get the axe anyway? If you don't like everyone hating your for being a warmonger... then don't be a warmonger. Problem solved.

I kinda agree with you there. If you're going to conquer all, you really don't care who loves or hates you. They will all get conquered in the end.

but I would love some other changes to diplomacy, like AI not turning hostile because you allied CS (khmm, Alex anyone) or starts denouncing because you built one wonder Ramses desperately wanted (even if he build other ten) ...

or William and Elizabeth going around the world just to settle their city right next to you, then ask you not to settler near them and turn hostile because your culture took title belonging to your capital. :rolleyes:

Those should be fixed, warmongering... well, it can stay. The only change I would make to warmongering diplo is amount of war. If you started one war, no penalty.

If you start second war, especially after peace treaty is over, get diplo hit.

If you declare multiple wars in short amount (like same turn, 5 turns difference) get diplo hits. If you wipe out civ, get diplo hit.

If you take their city, why diplo hit? If you burn it down, ok. You're city razing maniac... but why get negative diplo hits if AI gives you his cities in peace offer? You get two diplo hits - first for "conquering cities" and second for "building cities too aggressively" the ... ??? :confused:
 
BNW was designed to work with certain warmongering penalties. Changing them would most likely cause some serious issues in global diplomacy of the game. Though if we were to put the dot after the list of penalty levels, this could be quite reasonable and potentially less problematic.
Actually, it doesn't. Obviously it does change the way different aspects of the game are weighed in diplomacy, but I play with a mod that changes the way warmonger penalty works, and I get a perfectly meaningful and coherent diplomatic game (imo. in fact much more coherent than with normal BnW settings). So while changing things obviously means things are changed, there are no "serious issues" caused by this, so there is no need to be afraid of change just because it's a change.
 
I don't think the warmonger penalty itself is as much the problem. I think it's more a resourcing problem - i.e. in BNW if you aren't dedicating yourself to building up your cities at the outset, you can fall behind (especially at higher levels).

If you play on a smaller map (or potentially like a marathon game - i.e. any situation where you have enough time to physical move the units before the Industrial era), it's still viable to go on an early/medieval warmongering rampage, and finish the game early.

What's more difficult is doing some early/piecemeal warmongering, and then trying to keep up in industrial age and beyond. And I think that's only partially of the penalties, and more because you've spent so much early time on producing military units etc. Essentially the same as someone who, say, tried to just expand and wonder-whore their early game instead of building the proper libraries, happiness buildings, etc.
 
As to warmongering, I think it should be modified so that you don't get warmongering penalties (or it's significantly reduced) with a civ you ally with when you go to war against a common enemy (with some enhancements for being same versus different religions as well - so if you're Catholic and you team up with Catholic Japan to attack the Buddhist Aztecs, you and Japan stay best buds).

I.e. if you try and go to war with everyone, or by yourself, in the beginning, everyone hates you. But if you bring an ally or two into the war with you, you all remain on friendly terms even if the rest of the world hates you.


Also as to happiness, I think it would be cool to say have an honor policy that gives you temporary happiness for each (non-barbarian) unit killed. Say +1 for 30 turns. A little 'nationalistic' boost, but one you have to scramble to maintain (during war), or build happiness buildings to compensate for when the war ends.
 
I just wish the warmongering penalty faded faster over time. It's 2013.. do we still hate the Mongolian people and fear their warmongering from hundreds of yrs ago? Or the greeks/persians/romans/English/spanish for their warmongering once upon a time? No... But in Civ V, that capital you razed 4000 yrs ago means you are a horrible, terrible civ and should be punished for eternity. Been almost 70 yrs (15 turns in game) since WW2, and we've dropped the warmongering penalty vs Germany and Japan.

Civs ned to forget faster. Because really.. how many people, other than historians and achaeologists, remeber all the bad things we did to eachother from 4000bc-0a ad?
 
Hey, we're too lazy to make military AI any smarter, so we'll just adjust conquest penalties to the extreme.

Love,

Firaxis.
 
(I guess my comments below aren't quite on the topic of the thread! I think that your suggested option would make a great mod and allow for some greater freedom of playstyle, but don't give up on early game wars outright!)

As someone who loves playing Classical/Medieval era warmonger civs ie Rome, this penalty at first seemed very crippling on higher levels. I have to contend with a huge AI advantage out of the gate, then long term diplomatic effects put me at a major disadvantage throughout the game. Like anything in civ though, eventually you can learn to work these mechanics to an advantage.

At first I really disliked it, but now after having dealt with it a few times I know more what to expect and can adjust my strategies accordingly. It doesn't make early wars any less feasible, it just means you have to think more long term since the AI isn't as 'forgetful' as before. Now I build cities at choke points (this includes along the coastline to prevent boats from moving across until mid-game) and deny open borders to prevent civ's from meeting others before I've dealt with them, or butter up civs with opposing religions to my enemies, with gifts of luxuries or gold to bring them to my side and actually benefit from DoW on the mutual heathen enemies. In the same vein if you see a few civs denounce an opponent, hop on the bandwagon and turn it into something that actually benefits you. Granted this doesn't happen as much until later in the game when AI has reason to fight over territory and resources, but I personally tend to play with about 1.5x the number of civs that default on a map size, so things are usually in contention pretty early.

Allying city states at choke points also helps a lot as well, it can prevent entire armies from ever reaching your borders since they're held up by your CS ally. Use GG's defensively and build citadels on hilly borders or near beachheads to hold up one foe while your main offensive army takes care of another. Ransom CS's and go on pillaging sprees to combat a compromised trading economy, using the resulting gold to shore up relations with those civs which you're not burning to the ground. There's plenty of ways to survive if you think about it.
 
I just wish the warmongering penalty faded faster over time. It's 2013.. do we still hate the Mongolian people and fear their warmongering from hundreds of yrs ago? Or the greeks/persians/romans/English/spanish for their warmongering once upon a time? No... But in Civ V, that capital you razed 4000 yrs ago means you are a horrible, terrible civ and should be punished for eternity. Been almost 70 yrs (15 turns in game) since WW2, and we've dropped the warmongering penalty vs Germany and Japan.

Civs ned to forget faster. Because really.. how many people, other than historians and achaeologists, remeber all the bad things we did to eachother from 4000bc-0a ad?

In a way, it's the opposite. I went to Greece lately for all the history as well as the warmth. This should be reflected by Antiquity sites popping up around battles, but instead they show up where you found ruins that were ancient 4000 years ago, leaving beads behind.
 
Been almost 70 yrs (15 turns in game) since WW2, and we've dropped the warmongering penalty vs Germany and Japan.

Actually there are still people who point fingers at German people and call them "Nazis" but they can't say it out loud because this or that... but yeah, we get what you mean. :D

Those terrible pre-Italian people who conquered much of the known world 5000 years ago. Bad proto-Italians. :lol::crazyeye:

Hey, we're too lazy to make military AI any smarter, so we'll just adjust conquest penalties to the extreme.

Love,

Firaxis.

I think it's for the best. If they are done to be excellent at using their military, plus with advantage they already got, human players will NEVER win. It's pretty much the same reason why AI is horrible at air\naval units. They can already see where strategic resources would be, who's to say they wouldn't spam dozens of bombers and just roll through human players? :confused:

Not to mention their happiness\tech bonus, they'll just spam 20 cities and drop 20 units per turn, using them on same skills as excellent deity players. It's better that AI is bit dumb. I mean, less experienced players already have trouble with Shaka on King\Emperor because of city\unit spam. :D
 
I think it's for the best. If they are done to be excellent at using their military, plus with advantage they already got, human players will NEVER win. It's pretty much the same reason why AI is horrible at air\naval units. They can already see where strategic resources would be, who's to say they wouldn't spam dozens of bombers and just roll through human players? :confused:

Not to mention their happiness\tech bonus, they'll just spam 20 cities and drop 20 units per turn, using them on same skills as excellent deity players. It's better that AI is bit dumb. I mean, less experienced players already have trouble with Shaka on King\Emperor because of city\unit spam. :D

I think the whole idea is that if the AI was more intelligent in using their military, the production and research advantages could be toned down at higher difficulty levels. The bonuses are just compensating for weak AI. We're just used to "high difficulty = city and unit spam" because that's the way it's worked since Civ I ;)

Hopefully future patches and modding will eventually buff up the combat AI, similiar to what Civ 4 had with mods like Better AI and K-Mod. I actually had to drop down a difficulty level in K-Mod, but that was a good thing.
 
I am in. Want to see such an option. I hate the warmonger penalty incredibly. I hated it before and now its a scandal. I always went early wars, conquering CS. Now I just go bankrupt and everyone on the planet hates me. So I cant really play my game -> no fun.
 
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