Warmonger penalties and Casus Belli doesn't work

[KrikkitTwo]

I agree with this. Warmongering penalties need tweaking, but if someone declares on you and you wipe them out there shouldn't be penalties.

There definitely should... you are profiting from war (a warmonger).

There needs to be a better control of the situation through CB... giving you a reduction/elimination in the DOW and Taking cities (and Liberating cities should always be a bonus..more so if you said you would)

 

[esoba]

I think there should be fewer warmonger penalties if you weren't the aggressor, but if someone declares war on you and you conquer their entire empire despite repeated attempts at peace I think you're still warmongering with the best of them.

Ok, ok, maybe not zero warmongering penalties, but they should be very minor. Or if those penalties do increase as cities are conquered, there is a way to equally offset them by returning the cities back to the owner at the end for a steep price for peace. Heck even vassalage would help solve that.

 

[kaltorak]

I think there should be fewer warmonger penalties if you weren't the aggressor, but if someone declares war on you and you conquer their entire empire despite repeated attempts at peace I think you're still warmongering with the best of them.

mmh, not bad thinking, I agree that makes sense. Then, change the capture city warmonger penalty for rejected fair peace offer warmonger penalty. That would make some sense, yes

 

[kaltorak]

There definitely should... you are profiting from war (a warmonger).

There needs to be a better control of the situation through CB... giving you a reduction/elimination in the DOW and Taking cities (and Liberating cities should always be a bonus..more so if you said you would)

No, I didn't benefit. I was playing totally peaceful, they made me stop my buildings/wonders/infrastructure and spend all my gold on rushbuying units. Now I am behind on all my peacefull plan, and instead of wasting all that money, I take a little compensation in form of a city or two. That is not playing as a warmonger

 

[esoba]

mmh, not bad thinking, I agree that makes sense. Then, change the capture city warmonger penalty for rejected fair peace offer warmonger penalty. That would make some sense, yes

Dare I bring up Paradox's war score that helps to determine a "fair" war score. I do think that would make a lot of sense if done appropriately. However, I get some deals that are insulting in and of themselves, which wouldn't be fair to say I'm more a warmonger because of getting an awful peace deal.

 

[Lyoncet]

What I'd like to see more than anything would be putting warmonger penalties on a curve instead of on a straight line. As far as I can tell, DoWing twice is twice the warmonger penalty as DoWing once. Same for taking two cities vs. taking one city.

What I'd rather see is DoWing one enemy resulting in a smaller penalty, assuming you've built up some bad blood by denouncing them or getting denounced yourself. Same for taking a few cities off that one enemy, or even a bigger conquest spree. But then if you DoW and start conquering another civ, and then another, that should spike your warmonger penalty hard.

It works from a gameplay perspective. Warmonger penalties are there to put the breaks on snowballing conquest runaways. By making limited warring less backbreaking, you're giving the player (and AI opponents, mind you!) some breathing room for adding a little smaller-scale warring into the mix. At the same time, you're still imposing real consequences on sustained warmongering.

IMO, it also works from a realism perspective. The Greco-Persian Wars, where two bitter enemies fought back and forth endlessly, didn't really raise any eyebrows. People just saw it as what the Greeks and Persians did back in those days. But Alexander's conquests definitely earned him a reputation as a warmonger.

[Edit] Actually, I think retooling the increase in warmonger penalties as per isau's point is just as important. Because of how they work as "damage over time" spells that lose potency until they come to rest at zero, the numerical increase per era is way too big. Reducing the per-era reate of growth would help a lot.

 

[Flak Fox]

I certainly agree that the Casus Belli system needs a good bit of work, but am I the only one who's ever had AI Civs (whom I didn't meet) declare war on me, which is indicated by my own leader spouting on about declaring war (presumably on myself) when that happens?

In two separate games now, I'll have the "war were declared" sound play, followed by my leader (sometimes talking as the other Civ I haven't met) saying something like (for example): Germany can no longer tolerate your insolence...

And then 50 turns later when I finally meet Germany, I get the same generic "you met me come see my capital" dialog, but when that commences, I am at war with Germany?

Finished one marathon game, started 2 other games, and I've had this happen in 2 games so far.

 

[Larsenex]

I would like the Casus Beli to work in both reducing the penalty AND to have it RAPIDLY gone AFTER yoiu end your wars. Right now I am about 285 turns in and I simply do not care if the ai hates me. Ill just keep building a very strong military and expand and solidify my continent.

 

[Flak Fox]

I would like the Casus Beli to work in both reducing the penalty AND to have it RAPIDLY gone AFTER yoiu end your wars. Right now I am about 285 turns in and I simply do not care if the ai hates me. Ill just keep building a very strong military and expand and solidify my continent.

That was literally my problem with Civ V, and why I never took to it. You do one thing, take out one city state, etc, the whole world hates you forever.

Meanwhile, the AI is allowed to conquer as many city states as it wants without anyone so much as pointing a finger. All of my Civ V games ended the same way, me destroying the world to unite the planet under one rule and putting an end to the endless denunciations.

 

[Larsenex]

Yea well fortunately I am right around the corner from the Nuclear program.. I think India is on my list of new glowing glass parking lots!

 

[pietro1990]

I prefer totally the other way around. If I declare a war, I AM a warmonger. If somebody else declares war on me, and I win the war, it's his fault.

IMO, increase the declaring war penalty and reduce or even remove the capturing cities penatly. Or make it only take capitals into consideration.

In my actual game I have declared 0 wars, 3 times was I attacked, and now everybody denounced me bc I won the 3 wars and captured some cities. I didn't even harm them much by taking the capital or anything, just the border cities that were sending troops.
Totally illogical and antifun mechanic.

how about just removing war penalty

and make a severe penalty for "declaring war on a friend" like in civ 4 thats good enoug.

 

[Wellfooled]

I certainly agree that the Casus Belli system needs a good bit of work, but am I the only one who's ever had AI Civs (whom I didn't meet) declare war on me, which is indicated by my own leader spouting on about declaring war (presumably on myself) when that happens?

I've had this happen (and based on the forums, many others have as well), but I think its safe to say that this is a bug and not an intended event. The running theory is that the game somehow makes you the declared target of the war instead of another player, thus why you can get war declared on you from a Civ you've never met.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

So Germany conquered Geneva, and I was it's suzerain. I denounced Germany. Soon, Russia declared war on Germany. Sensing an opportunity to get back my ally, I gathered a few troops near (the now conquered) Geneva. Germany asked me what my troops are doing nearby, I said war, assuming my Casus Belli from denouncing them would apply there. But it didn't, and it counted as a surprise war
I got a -24 modifier from Russia for warmongering (and just +8 for declaring a surprise war on their enemy, like WTH?). I captured Geneva and liberated them, my modifier dropped to -23. Like wow . This whole system is just here to screw over players remotely successful in warfare, looks like.

As a side note, if I had lied to Germany about my troops then used my Casus Belli from the diplo screen to declare war, the penalty would have been lesser right?

 

[Wellfooled]

As a side note, if I had lied to Germany about my troops then used my Casus Belli from the diplo screen to declare war, the penalty would have been lesser right?

Or better yet, ignore his request altogether. You'll take much less of a diplomatic hit ignoring him than if you break your word. In my experience Liberation wars also result in zero warmonger penalty if you stop conquering once you've got the target city back (but I haven't tried yet to liberate a city state, I hear it might not be working right?)

 

[AriochIV]

Part of the problem is that the AI faction's "morality" is incompatible with their own actions. They'll attack you and then accuse you of warmongering. ("I do not think that word means what you think it means.")

The other problem is that given that wars will happen, the current warmongering penalties just destroy diplomacy in general. In every game I've played so far, every civilization hates every other civilization. We've got these elaborate diplomatic mechanisms which are useless, because everyone hates everyone else.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Or better yet, ignore his request altogether. You'll take much less of a diplomatic hit ignoring him than if you break your word. In my experience Liberation wars also result in zero warmonger penalty if you stop conquering once you've got the target city back (but I haven't tried yet to liberate a city state, I hear it might not be working right?)

I can ignore his request? I did not know that. That makes the whole thing much less of a hassle.

 

[AriochIV]

The one time I liberated a city-state; it was useless the entire rest of the game; it never built any units or repaired any of the damage from the fighting. I had to keep forces there to fight off barbarians that occasionally wandered in.

 

[Lyoncet]

Part of the problem is that the AI faction's "morality" is incompatible with their own actions. They'll attack you and then accuse you of warmongering. ("I do not think that word means what you think it means.")

The other problem is that given that wars will happen, the current warmongering penalties just destroy diplomacy in general. In every game I've played so far, every civilization hates every other civilization. We've got these elaborate diplomatic mechanisms which are useless, because everyone hates everyone else.

It also causes the AI to self-destruct for no good reason. In my first full game, Roosevelt went from being on decent terms with most civs to being loathed by everyone. Why? He surprise DoWed me in the Industrial era as a result of his having forward-settled me. I beat back his Warrior and Battering Ram carpet and took all his money; he spent the rest of the game as a worldwide pariah.

 

[leandrombraz]

IMO warmongering penalties are a stupid mechanic that should absolutely not exist. From either a gameplay or realism pov. The only reason it does is because human players can beat the AI at combat so effortlessly. So for more of a challenge.

Then you should try Beyound Earth Rising Tide, if you didn't already. It have the opposite of a warmonger penalty, it's actually beneficial to wage war. Having a big army and waging war increase how much other civs fear you, which can be used to cooperate(friendship) and ally with other Civs, just like you can use respect (how much a Civ likes you) to cooperate and ally, only downside is that an alliance by fear is unstable, with a chance for backstab.

 

[leandrombraz]

I have been looking at this closely and it is actually not quite the case that the AI hates you forever for war. At least not directly.

What appears to be the case is there is a hidden number that represents your relationship with the civ. Any + - you see on screen is the change per turn. So if it's -16 that means you are losing 16 influence per turn. This is totally different from Civ 4 or Civ 5 and it was only after a ton of scratching my head that I figured it out. The diplo screen offers no clues that this is how it works.

Warmonger penalties degrade at a rate of 1 per turn. So -16 (for example) becomes -15 and then -14 so on. But the way you need to think of it is like a Damage Over Time spell in an RPG. It's doing damage to your invisible hit point total in the background.

Now here's some hilarious numbers. The war monger penalties tend to come in multiples of 4 (4, 8, 16, 24, etc). But if I'm right about the invisible "hit point" system, an increase from 8 to 16 is the difference between 36 points of damage and 136. LOL. So that would kill any relationship and it's no wonder civs are struggling. I don't think they realized this when they coded it...

BTW sending the civs gifts appears to work the opposite way, like a Heal Over Time spell. The bonus of the gift decays quickly from the diplo screen. But if you give to Ghandi (for example) and get a +10 modifier, decaying at a rate of 2 per turn, you heal 10+8+6+4+2 diplomacy with him, for a total of +30. Do that a few times and he'll eventually love you (space out the gifts so you get the full +10 with each gift).

When people say they are being "denounced" do they mean actually denounced, or just the leader popping in with a warning message?

If you trigger someone's agenda, they will pop in to tell you they are annoyed. It is possible that this confers an immediate loss to the invisible "influence pool," I can't be certain yet. However, it is different than an actual denouncement. It basically is a warning that means "a damage over time spell has been applied to your relationship with this leader." If you don't do something about it they will gradually grow more annoyed.

I think the thing that is crazy confusing unless you understand what it happening in the background is that after eating a penalty, the penalty appears to be dropping, so it feels like your relationship is getting better. But that's not true. Anytime the net total of your modifiers is a negative number, you are losing influence. So when the modifier on screen drops from -16 to -5 and you're thinking well they should probably be okay with me now, they actually aren't. They're still losing influence, a bit slower than before, but still on the next turn they will like you even less. It's all very confusing because the way the relationship screen is designed, the numbers look exactly like in Civ 4, where you could just add them up to determine your current relationship, but here that total seems to represent the per turn change.

Thanks for actually trying to understand how the system works, instead of just complaining that the AI isn't acting in the way you want then to act. My next playthrough I'll pay attention to this, see how hard is to manipulate and control the AI feelings towards me.