[Vanilla] Warmongering penalties seems wrong

[Abaxial]

I have no problem with warmongering penalties when one declares war. That is warmongering. But it seems wrong to accumulate penalties when war is declared against you. In my current game I had four civs all declaring on me out of the blue at the same time, Lord knows why. Two of them were so far away they couldn't actually attack me, so I could easily hold off the other two. To bring them to the peace table I had to attack their cities. Once you capture a city, you only have two options, keep or raze, and both give you penalties. I reason it is perfectly fair to hold on to some enemy territory to punish the aggressors, but guess what - pretty soon all the civs in the game are serially denouncing me for being a warmonger.

Since the penalties fade so slowly (if they do at all), once the situation reaches this state, it seems there is no further sanction. So I might as well attack all over the place, since any further penalty is meaningless. If the penalties are applied so severely, they cease to have any deterrent effect. Surely it would be better for the game if warmongering didn't saturate so easily?

 

[leandrombraz]

You don't have to attack their cities to bring them to peace, only increase your strength and kill their units. Attacking the cities is your choice and will be seem as aggression. Alternatively you can conquer the cities then give it back on the peace deal or even trade for better cities, the penalty will be removed.

 

[liv]

yeah if you take cities you are a war monger and it does not matter who started it (I feel like this is true in real life as well)
But RF does leave you with a possibility to get cities without penalties in flipping
I was able to attack a free city and capture territory that way after two AI were at war and occupied cities flipped. Kind of a fun way to expand and still have a squeaky clean reputation.

 

[Stringer1313]

Israel took over the West Bank after they were declared war upon, and their continued occupation of the West Bank causes some to think of them as warmongers. They would argue they were entitled to the land b/c they were attacked first, and so on. Just saying that it's not a totally counterintuitive concept.

FWIW, in my game I took over 2 cities after someone declared war on me, and my warmongering penalties were surprising light for some reason (like -9)

Perhaps warmonger penalties from taking over your aggressor's cities should become greater if you're in an advanced age

 

[Disgustipated]

You don't have to attack their cities to bring them to peace, only increase your strength and kill their units. Attacking the cities is your choice and will be seem as aggression

This is not evident to many people. There is a policy card for raiding for a reason. They even combined the 2 policy cards so you get bonuses for both pillaging improvements and districts. Pillage every single district in their Empire and they will feel it for a long time.

But I can't deny the lure of conquering cities. It's not like I don't do it. I am a warmonger after all. I'm just saying there are alternatives.

 

[bonafide11]

Unfortunately you just have to accept that if you choose the path to become a warmonger, all other Civs are going to hate you for being a warmonger. I wish there was a way you could make alliances with other civs where they would overlook it (which was possible in Civ IV), but it doesn't seem possible.

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's because you have no CB to attack yet. Force peace asap , denounce, and come at them in 10 more turns. It's not like you'd be ready to war when they declare anyways.... if you were, well, maybe they were right!

 

[Gorbles]

You don't have to attack their cities to bring them to peace, only increase your strength and kill their units. Attacking the cities is your choice and will be seem as aggression. Alternatively you can conquer the cities then give it back on the peace deal or even trade for better cities, the penalty will be removed.

This. Nobody is forcing you to take cities.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Yeah, as everyone's already said, the warmonger penalties come from capturing cities. So don't do that. To get an AI to capitulate, you only need to spank them and wait 10 turns. Destroy their army, bust up some of their trade routes, burn some tiles, then take their money. You get gold for trashing farms, science for breaking Campuses, etc. Just cracking some heads can be pretty lucrative, you don't need to take a whole city.

Also, liberating a city reverses a large amount of your warmonger penalty. If you're attacked, look for cities the attacking Civ has taken from others (that includes City-States).

 

[leandrombraz]

I think it would be fair though if the penalty for taking cities was reduced if you didn't declare the war, then increased for each city you conquer, like 50% discount for the first city, then 25% in the second and the third is normal penalty

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I think I found an exploit/bug.
Alexander conquered Hong Kong and triggered the City State emergency. I accepted and was at war with him without a declaration. After I liberated Hong Kong I was still at war and took some more cities from him without any warmonger penalty.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

You don't have to attack their cities to bring them to peace, only increase your strength and kill their units. Attacking the cities is your choice and will be seem as aggression. Alternatively you can conquer the cities then give it back on the peace deal or even trade for better cities, the penalty will be removed.

You know what? Taking cities then giving them back to the original owner during the peace deal might take off their loyalty on that city. Or does it? I need to try that next game.

Think about it. That is an easy way to steal a neighbors city that you could not do in Vanilla. With less loyalty, you can put a governor nearby in your city, start a bread and circus, to drag it down even more. Sometimes the AI sends a governor and sometimes they do not. That is a excellent way to ninja a city if you want to play peaceful.

If you play Mapuche they don't have to do this obviously. All they have to do is keep killing your units. It's all downhill from there.

 

[nzcamel]

Israel took over the West Bank after they were declared war upon, and their continued occupation of the West Bank causes some to think of them as warmongers. They would argue they were entitled to the land b/c they were attacked first, and so on. Just saying that it's not a totally counterintuitive concept.

Lol, they're close to the only country who that applies to!