Warmonger for self defence.

[Greywulf]

Just discovered how frustrating it feels to be called a Warmonger by the AI after one of the AI declared war on me, invaded with an army, and I defeated their army and went and took a few of their nearby cities (wouldn't give me a good deal for peace). Anyway, I went nowhere near their capital, and I didn't even pillage their improvements. Two of the cities gave me a light warmonger penalty, and one game me a moderate.
Does this seem right to you?

Also, did the AI civ who declared war on me get called a Warmonger too? The war was their idea.

 

[sixty4half]

Yeah, it seems right to me. You didn't fight a totally defensive war. You took 3 cities.

Depending on how the AI declared war (surprise, Casius Belli) it did get some level of warmonger penalty. That can range from light to extreme depending on the era that it happened in and reason it was declared for.

If the war happened early enough, things will calm down with time.

 

[Browd]

This is an old debate. They DOW you and then you turn the tables and take a couple of their cities. Yes, you became the warmonger. Is that all that surprising? If you had pillaged their lands extensively, and in the peace treaty stripped them of everything movable (gold, luxuries, relics, works of art) while returning their cities, you would be a respected defender. Instead you chose to use the opportunity to expand your empire by conquest. Warmonger is as warmonger does.

 

[Jackanape]

Agreed. I've found the best way to avoid this is to strip resources, as you suggest, and redraw borders by swapping all available tiles before returning the city...you still grow your empire but without taking cities...

The only bothersome part of this is that you can't swap over districts or wonders. You should at least be able to dismantle a district along the way.

 

[Chefofrats]

They will give you a good peace deal if you destroy their army and pillage their lands. Taking cities is not necessary to force them into a peace treaty.

 

[sixty4half]

They will give you a good peace deal if you destroy their army and pillage their lands. Taking cities is not necessary to force them into a peace treaty.

and took a few of their nearby cities (wouldn't give me a good deal for peace).

Grey,

Was it Gorgo? She won't ever give anything up in a peace deal. Some of the others are real stingy too, but she's a stonewall.

 

[nzcamel]

Just discovered how frustrating it feels to be called a Warmonger by the AI after one of the AI declared war on me, invaded with an army, and I defeated their army and went and took a few of their nearby cities (wouldn't give me a good deal for peace). Anyway, I went nowhere near their capital, and I didn't even pillage their improvements. Two of the cities gave me a light warmonger penalty, and one game me a moderate.
Does this seem right to you?

Also, did the AI civ who declared war on me get called a Warmonger too? The war was their idea.

This is an old debate. They DOW you and then you turn the tables and take a couple of their cities. Yes, you became the warmonger. Is that all that surprising? If you had pillaged their lands extensively, and in the peace treaty stripped them of everything movable (gold, luxuries, relics, works of art) while returning their cities, you would be a respected defender. Instead you chose to use the opportunity to expand your empire by conquest. Warmonger is as warmonger does.

See, if it's the first time they've declared war on you, sure. By the second or third time with out you DOWing on them in between I think most countries do view taking, say, a strategic city at a choke point that makes you a much harder target, as being fair. So I think that -depending on the circumstances- Greywulf's frustration is fair. Of course can the game handle adding that lawyer of complexity? Where AI civs could recognise that you've been DOW'd on several times unfairly, and so a more permanent solution is reasonable? Idk the answer to that, but I doubt it. And no doubt some human players would exploit that if it were built in.

That the solution is to burn and pillage everything in sight kinda adds to the irony. But, meh...it gives you something to work with.

 

[sixty4half]

That would definitely get abused. It's not hard to piss off most of the AI leaders. Not even considering their Agendas all you gotta do is settle close, buy neighboring tiles, send missionaries, kill their missionaries

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Should be something of a reduction for being a defender, like a "defender CB" applied or something. That way you're not totally off the hook for taking land, but given the circumstances it's more understandable than just declaring and taking it unprovoked.

Or we could drop it as a concept and use threat level based on actual empire strength, but that's probably too novel a concept for civ so we'll get a somewhat inconsistent/not actually historical mechanic that gets paraded as historical regardless instead :/.

 

[ZubieMaster]

Does this seem right to you?

No it's not right, you are right and the game logic is wrong (purposefully). The game fears exploiting conquest since warfare is too easy -- players could goad the AI into war then conquer without warmonger penalty if it was not the case, so we're stuck with this "fix". You will find a lot of illogical game rules to artificially hinder warfare instead of fixing the bad warfare AI that's at the root of the problem. Bottom line, since it's the rules of the game, your only solution is to accept it and play "the right way", play peaceful SimCiv builder style, or mod the game to fix it (or just not play).

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, if you have a new neighbor that swelled up by conquering your old neighbor, you probably wouldn't like that either, regardless of who started it.

In vanilla it was a joke because you could get branded a warmonger for helping an ally (WTH?) but these days if you have mutual hate/war ally the warmonger penalty is so low. With join ongoing war, this is almost a non issue unless you wipe them off the face of the earth.

 

[Victoria]

They will give you a good peace deal if you destroy their army and pillage their lands.

This will also cause -10 loyalty to all their cities through starvation (-4) unhappiness (-6) ... you may even be able to take a few cities ... without taking a few cities. This is because when they flip to free cities there is no warmonger for taking them, nor are they deemed the enemies I believe. (but a new thread may prove otherwise)
A bit of Amani and a bread and circus project and you will be pretty close.

 

[Greywulf]

This is an old debate. They DOW you and then you turn the tables and take a couple of their cities. Yes, you became the warmonger. Is that all that surprising? If you had pillaged their lands extensively, and in the peace treaty stripped them of everything movable (gold, luxuries, relics, works of art) while returning their cities, you would be a respected defender. Instead you chose to use the opportunity to expand your empire by conquest. Warmonger is as warmonger does.

Shouldn't you get some diplomatic penalty for pillaging all their resources instead though? Seems quite aggressive to me.

Agreed. I've found the best way to avoid this is to strip resources, as you suggest, and redraw borders by swapping all available tiles before returning the city...you still grow your empire but without taking cities...

The only bothersome part of this is that you can't swap over districts or wonders. You should at least be able to dismantle a district along the way.

Nice suggestion! I will try this...

Grey,

Was it Gorgo? She won't ever give anything up in a peace deal. Some of the others are real stingy too, but she's a stonewall.

Actually in this case it was Korea who declared war and invaded. I can't remember the exact deal, but it looked stingy to me.

No it's not right, you are right and the game logic is wrong (purposefully). The game fears exploiting conquest since warfare is too easy -- players could goad the AI into war then conquer without warmonger penalty if it was not the case, so we're stuck with this "fix". You will find a lot of illogical game rules to artificially hinder warfare instead of fixing the bad warfare AI that's at the root of the problem. Bottom line, since it's the rules of the game, your only solution is to accept it and play "the right way", play peaceful SimCiv builder style, or mod the game to fix it (or just not play).

I don't think that the AI should declare war and invade you if their army will be quickly mopped up by your army, but should aim for times when an invasion is more likely to be successful. As it happens, I had been neglecting my military, and the little I had were fairly spread out. Fortunately it wasn't a huge army, nor more advanced in tech, and I had money to quickly buy some troops, and cities that could build units quickly nearby. So Korea invaded me at a time when I was vulnerable, yet I was able to turn the tables on her and then try to get some compensation for her surprise attack ~ also, it was on the Asia true start locations map, and those Korean cities I took were well into Chinese territory (I'm playing as China in that game).
It was the Khmer who then proceeded to call me a Warmonger. I didn't expect that from 2 light penalties and 1 moderate...guess it adds up pretty quickly.

 

[CPWimmer]

Using completely made up numbers here, but if you assign Light as being 5 and Moderate is 10 and Heavy is 20, you went from 0 to 5+5+10 = 20 (Heavy) pretty quickly.

 

[Banazir864]

I've said this in an earlier post, but not having any options for neutralizing a kamikaze neighbor is a problem (with the best options being pillaging, which should realistically carry warmongering penalties just as much as taking cities, especially in the later ages, and transferring tiles, which realistically is like taking cities on a smaller scale). IMO, the best option would be to have additional peace options for defenders such as:

- Demilitarize: Limits the total military strength the aggressor is allowed to possess for X turns.
- Dismantle: Forces the aggressor to release cities as free cities (or, ideally, city states or a new civ).
- Regime change: Sets the aggressor's opinion of you to positive, greatly reduces their AI's warmonger score for a while, and lets you change their hidden agenda.

 

[Greywulf]

I've said this in an earlier post, but not having any options for neutralizing a kamikaze neighbor is a problem (with the best options being pillaging, which should realistically carry warmongering penalties just as much as taking cities, especially in the later ages, and transferring tiles, which realistically is like taking cities on a smaller scale). IMO, the best option would be to have additional peace options for defenders such as:

- Demilitarize: Limits the total military strength the aggressor is allowed to possess for X turns.
- Dismantle: Forces the aggressor to release cities as free cities (or, ideally, city states or a new civ).
- Regime change: Sets the aggressor's opinion of you to positive, greatly reduces their AI's warmonger score for a while, and lets you change their hidden agenda.

Cool ideas there.

 

[nzcamel]

I've said this in an earlier post, but not having any options for neutralizing a kamikaze neighbor is a problem (with the best options being pillaging, which should realistically carry warmongering penalties just as much as taking cities, especially in the later ages, and transferring tiles, which realistically is like taking cities on a smaller scale). IMO, the best option would be to have additional peace options for defenders such as:

- Demilitarize: Limits the total military strength the aggressor is allowed to possess for X turns.
- Dismantle: Forces the aggressor to release cities as free cities (or, ideally, city states or a new civ).
- Regime change: Sets the aggressor's opinion of you to positive, greatly reduces their AI's warmonger score for a while, and lets you change their hidden agenda.

Cool ideas there.

But probably unworkable with the current A.I.

 

[Icicle]

Shouldn't you get some diplomatic penalty for pillaging all their resources instead though? Seems quite aggressive to me.

This is what bugs me about it. If I ravage their lands, burn all their crops, desecrate their places of worship, burn down their libraries, smash their mines, burn their fishing boats, and condemn them to centuries of slowly crawling back from a state of abject misery, likely leaving them with uprisings and violence, I'm a saint.

If I bring them into my prosperous empire where they are, according to the game "Happy" to be there and make them part of a flourishing land of science and culture where all are well fed and taken care of I'm a warmonger.

Something just doesn't ad up here.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

This is what bugs me about it. If I ravage their lands, burn all their crops, desecrate their places of worship, burn down their libraries, smash their mines, burn their fishing boats, and condemn them to centuries of slowly crawling back from a state of abject misery, likely leaving them with uprisings and violence, I'm a saint.

If I bring them into my prosperous empire where they are, according to the game "Happy" to be there and make them part of a flourishing land of science and culture where all are well fed and taken care of I'm a warmonger.

Something just doesn't ad up here.

The reference point for warmonger penalties isn't the viewpoint of the population of the cities, but rather the viewpoint of the other leaders, who want to hold on to their cities and view with suspicion anyone who's accumulating cities by taking them from someone else.

 

[Icicle]

But they'd be okay if I pillaged everything they own?

"You shall never take our size 1 city that's going to rebel in 3 turns you vile wretched baby murderer!!!!!"

"Oh no worries chap we're ignoring it completely! Instead we're headed for your homeland to pillage your industrial heartland and breadbasket and forever ruin your culture and relegate you to fighting stone age barbarians which is all you'll be when I'm done!"

"Oh bless you, Peacebringer."

Yeah, still isn't tracking for me.