Warmonger Change idea

[bbbt]

I've been thinking about how to make warmonger more interesting/less objectionable, without doing away with it all together. My idea:

1. The warmonger penalty has a per era 'cap' (your total can never get above), that's that amount that fade in about 2 eras. So even if you went full surprise war and wipe out civs in the medieval era, and then went peaceful, you'd get back to 0 in the industrial era (which seems about right).
2. Your warmongering penalty is reduced by your opponent's warmongering penalty (by the ratio with the above cap). So if the medieval era cap is 50, and you declare war on the Aztecs, who already have a 25 warmonger penalty, your warmonger penalty is reduced by like 50% (though there probably should be some cap below a 100% reduction). This means you can go after other warmongers easier, and also means the AI will go after the player more aggressively if they are waging war (as there is less penalty to do so).
3. I think there should also be separate AI penalties for 'attacked declared friend' and a positive for 'attacked someone I denounced'.

 

[dunkleosteus]

In general it's kind of ridiculous that most leaders hate warmongers. Gandhi I can understand, but nearly every other leader understood that war was natural. Warmongering is a sore thumb in the game. There is a little historical precedence for disliking war mongering, but only in instances with the Huns or Mongols. Minor wars and skirmishes are a logical consequence of cultural interaction.

In Civ, if you declare war on someone, your friendly civs will get very upset: basically saying "How could I ever be friends with you?"

In real life, allied nations would say "Hey, good luck. Hope you win."

It only exists to try to put a punishment against domination victories. That's the real issue, they've been using this mechanic for years and keep reusing it even though it was bad from the start.

A better option for curbing domination would be administrative penalties for annexing cities too quickly. Razing cities should give you war monger penalties though.

Actually, warmongering isn't THAT big of a deal if you only give warmonger penalties when you actually DO something like take or raze a city. If you're just fighting or killing all the AI units and demanding massive gold from them, you should be fine.

 

[bbbt]

In general it's kind of ridiculous that most leaders hate warmongers. Gandhi I can understand, but nearly every other leader understood that war was natural. Warmongering is a sore thumb in the game. There is a little historical precedence for disliking war mongering, but only in instances with the Huns or Mongols. Minor wars and skirmishes are a logical consequence of cultural interaction.

I definitely agree that it's generally more of a modern concept. I do think people would be happier if they went back to a standard 'if you attack my friend I'm unhappy, if you attack my enemy I'm happy approach'

Some sort of 'threat penalty' might be worth implementing as well that takes distance into account - i.e. if Civ A attacks Civ B then civs near Civ B might be more hostile towards Civ A (and increase there defenses accordingly), but distant civs wouldn't care (unless allied with B).

 

[Naokaukodem]

I also agree that warmongering penalties are ridiculous, to the point they mean nothing except inability to do alliances / good trades. (which is already bad in itself) As an eloquent example, i declared once a war with moderate penalty (first war), and immediatelly got denounced by EVERYBODY. Not a single fight, not a single conquest. This, is ridiculous because severity of penalty is just fake.

Firstable, war weariness wasn't for the core country, it was for the soldiers (see Alexander the Great conquests). In ancient times, wars were seen only as a good way into glory. Even the Holy Bible depicts wars as something good (or rewarding, and even brutality - you will kill the women and the children of that place on top of men for example) or at least necessary.

Only the soldiers could express weariness at that point. It should be reflected as desertions, it is to say units vanishing / converting into barbarians.

Your ideas bbbt are cool though for warmongering, and I understand why it should be some concern for closer civs than farer. (reminds me of my critic about Civ5 and even 4, everything being "mondialized" in Antiquity, with your idea it may no more be)

Something to dig on definitely IMO.

 

[Cliomancer]

I think it'd be reasonable for civs to be concerned about your territorial expansion, especially if you're doing it in their back yard. (A may have no love for their neighbour B, but if C moves in and conquers B, A will worry they'll be next.)

It does kind of annoy me when I get a surprise war declaration from a civ I get called a warmonger for taking their cities to reduce their threat to me. Maybe if you were able to declare conquered cities independent territories (Essentially lesser city states) it'd be easier for other civs to stomach.

 

[Ciarson]

i agree to the fact that warmongering could be more developped.

the three factor for information spreading are:

- importance
- distance.
- frequency

what should affect warmongering "importance" are:

- when denouncing or declaring surprise war, amplitude of the fall of opinion (going from good relation to denouncing should be worse than going from neutral to denouncing.)
- opinion about the attacker
- opinion about the defender
- if "holy war", religion of both parties
- if "liberation war" opinion toward the liberated.
- if "defensive war" opinion toward the defended.
- ( the same for all other casus belli)

when considering distance and frequency, we should first ask what would generate warmongering.
let's consider taking cities, razing cities and pillaging tile as action that could generate warmongering.

the "importance" would determine the base "warmongering" generated by such action. (value could be diferent for each civ)
the "distance" between such action and the civ would reduce that value as it increase.
the "frequency", work as it is, the more those action are done the more warmongering would add up.

another big question would be about recovering from bad warmonger opinion, including the possibility to have warmongering bonus if you help a nation in need.