Why am I the warmonger?

[spfun]

I have a really big issue with this design. The AI love to settle absolutely atrocious city locations right in between your own cities. I don't care if realistically i shouldn't be razing cities, for gameplay reasons I need to sometimes raze cities, I don't find bad city locations fun. I shouldn't then be considered a warmonger for the rest of the game for horrible AI decisions. Not only are the AI currently broken with joint war spam from T20 onwards( if your near anyone ) I can't even play defensively anymore due to bad design decisions. Every game ends up the same, I'm forced to take candy from a baby instead, keeping horrible cities i don't want or been denounced for the entire game. Just so stupid.

With Deity been a joke due to broken AI, i've tried to go back to playing Tall and small until the late game to let the AI catch up, but its annoying having no diplomacy due to razing a city, among other things... Like defensive War weariness -7+ when I haven't lost a unit.

 

[Victoria]

I've noticed that Civ VI right now is a lot like Civ V was on release: cliques may form early on, but by about 100 turns in everybody hates everybody else and it never recovers.

I am playing a peaceful Brazil game on diety at the moment and noticed the first impressions modifier is better than before the patch. This allowed a much easier start to the game. I survived assault until about turn 125 when china and gorgo ganged up, I suppose because I had just started running away with culture. I fought them off, with good rewards but no city ( not strong enough force). I did get good loot though. I could have taken a city but why? I had more than them and am now winning. While I have war weariness I have no warmonger points. Weirdly Gorgo has now asked to be my friend, natrually refused. China has is not very happy but most civs are neutral with positive modifiers meaning they should be friendly later.

The decay is too long and its just a pain.
The warmonger penalties are way too high too early if you consider the poor decay.
Raising a city is a lot worse than taking a city as it should be but oh man, you are never going to recover from doing that.
I am a diplomacy defender against a lot of vitriol but this is poor design. To allow a person a little fun in the classic age and then the entire nation to be treated like a pariah for ever is just wrong. Wrong and not good for the game. In Civ V it was much better, you did decay better,

Does anyone know the decay mechanics for diplomacy?

 

[Louis XXIV]

I always felt that was a short coming of the Civ series. If you're the one being aggressed upon then you should have severely reduced warmonger penalties whenever you go on the offensive.

You get reduced penalties in the sense that there's no declaration penalty. But conquering cities is still conquering cities.

I'll use a real world example. In the Franco-Prussian War, Bismarck is still viewed as the aggressor. He's seen as someone with a conscious plan to make war against France and conquer German-speaking territories. But France declared war on Prussia, not the other way around.

 

[TomKQT]

I always felt that was a short coming of the Civ series. If you're the one being aggressed upon then you should have severely reduced warmonger penalties whenever you go on the offensive.

As Louis XXIV already said, there still is a difference. If somebody attacks you, you don't get any warmonger points at all. You can defend, you can decimate his army, but nobody will think you are a warmonger, you are just defending.
But if you turn your defence into offense, invade his territory and capture his cities, you are suddenly not any better than he is, are you?
I think it makes perfect sense the way it is (talking just about this particular thing, not the whole diplomacy in Civ6).

 

[dturtle1]

I wouldnt mind the Razing Penalty if the AI would just found better Cities, a lot of them suck I agree with the most of the Warmonger Penalties though tho i agree the Decay could be much better. You shouldn't still be paying for your misdeeds in the Classical Era in the Industrial Era...Move on already In saying that I am not having too much trouble in my Current Monty Game. I have expelled 3 Civs from the game and still haven't be made into a Warmonger Pariah yet., It is of course still in the Classical Era tho, This with me taking all the Cities(7), We will see if they still like me when i rock up with a few +10 Luxe fueled Knights in the Medieval Era

Ohh and agree Totally with taking all the cities should make you into a Warmonger. I think the System is actually quite well done, just needs a bit of tweaking to get the decay right.

 

[Woobyluv]

I'm alright with the warmonger penalties. Here's a little analogy..

If I hit you, and you fight back and win. Fine, yeah, I'll buy ya a drink and in a couple weeks we'll be laughing about how stupid it was for me to hit you.. I'm an ass, but we're alright.

If I hit you, and you fight back and win, then go burn my house down. I won't take that as a warning. Me & my mates will be knocking on your door before long.

It's precisely this attitude that would force me from the beginning to declare "Deus Vult!" and eradicate your civ from the earth.

 

[TimTurry]

Related, but a little tangent, am I Warmonger for life? Or does Warmonger go away after a certain number of turns?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Warmonger penalties in this game are pretty obviously broken.

It is in serious need of tuning.

 

[Cymsdale]

When you capture cities, it puts you so far ahead in the game that it makes sense to me that the AI should do whatever possible to push you back. Warmonger penalties are fine if there are actual consequences (AI all declare war on you, actually liberates cities you took...) But at the moment, all they do is whine and pass you notes in class telling you how mean you are.

 

[Disgustipated]

But at the moment, all they do is whine and pass you notes in class telling you how mean you are.

LOL true, but I do find I get better trade deals with civs that are friendly to me. My game I just completed I went with the notion of not declaring any wars as a way to cripple myself so I don't get out too far ahead. It was a more interesting game. Of course some people still hated me, but 2 civs actually liked me and gave me halfway decent trade deals. Thing is, at the moment, trade with other civilizations isn't as critical as say Civ5 (where one time they layed an embargo on me and I was hurting until I finally managed to get the embargo lifted).

 

[Cymsdale]

The way diplomacy factors into trade deals feels strange. If they hate you enough, all the trade deals they "offer" become heavily lopsided in their favor. You should be trying to appease the warmonger with favorable trades, not piss him off by demanding free stuff.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

When you capture cities, it puts you so far ahead in the game that it makes sense to me that the AI should do whatever possible to push you back. Warmonger penalties are fine if there are actual consequences (AI all declare war on you, actually liberates cities you took...) But at the moment, all they do is whine and pass you notes in class telling you how mean you are.

Any model where utility and penalty for attaining are not viably scaled is not "fine". Warmonger penalties are a joke right now. 4 cities = 100 cities in terms of functional disincentive. How is that "fine"?

 

[Rathelm]

As Louis XXIV already said, there still is a difference. If somebody attacks you, you don't get any warmonger points at all. You can defend, you can decimate his army, but nobody will think you are a warmonger, you are just defending.
But if you turn your defence into offense, invade his territory and capture his cities, you are suddenly not any better than he is, are you?
I think it makes perfect sense the way it is (talking just about this particular thing, not the whole diplomacy in Civ6).

I agree, that's why I said I just wished it was less penalties. You still get egregious if you take cities when you were the one declared against. It should be at most medium or even low.

 

[steveg700]

The way diplomacy factors into trade deals feels strange. If they hate you enough, all the trade deals they "offer" become heavily lopsided in their favor. You should be trying to appease the warmonger with favorable trades, not piss him off by demanding free stuff.

Well, perceived warmongers frequently face embargos.

The point is to add a consequence to warmongering, not reward it further. It doesn't work out because the AI is not amenable to equitable trades most of the time anyway. This is especially true at higher difficulty levels, since a propensity for disliking you is part of the increased difficulty. It's something I particularly dislike about the higher difficulties, or at least something about the difficulty settings I wish you had some ability to cherry-pick.

Conversely, if you're doing well and gobbling up lots of spare luxuries, you can just gift them away easily enough. Personally, I view that as a bit of an exploit, because it's not as if the AI offers gifts to the player. However, there are few ways to gain positive diplomatic bonuses, especially once they already dislike you, and it seems that it's not necessary for the positive diplo bonuses to merely cancel out the negative ones. They have to exceed it by a decent margin.

 

[steveg700]

I agree, that's why I said I just wished it was less penalties. You still get egregious if you take cities when you were the one declared against. It should be at most medium or even low.

If that were the case, it would very easily abused. People would prepare invasion armies and then manipulate the AI into war through provocative behavior. Passive-aggressive warmongering.

 

[steveg700]

Related, but a little tangent, am I Warmonger for life? Or does Warmonger go away after a certain number of turns?

Decreases over time. BUT, while they're loathing you, you are falling into a deeper and deeper hole. Once the AI denounces you for warmongering, that slaps you with another negative modifier.

 

[Rathelm]

If that were the case, it would very easily abused. People would prepare invasion armies and then manipulate the AI into war through provocative behavior. Passive-aggressive warmongering.

You can't manipulate a machine if the code for it to be manipulated doesn't exist. If the AI would only declare war when it wants to declare war then there's nothing you could do. Besides what domination player would wait for the AI to declare. The whole point of domination is to go on the warpath. This would only affect the peaceful playstyles.

 

[steveg700]

You can't manipulate a machine if the code for it to be manipulated doesn't exist. If the AI would only declare war when it wants to declare war then there's nothing you could do.

You can easily provoke the AI into a DoW. That's one thing there's ample code for. Denouncements, close settles, moving units near their border, messing with their city-states, sending spies...long, long list. Getting an AI angry is hardly an issue of non-existent code. Really, not sure what you're trying to contend.

Besides what domination player would wait for the AI to declare. The whole point of domination is to go on the warpath. This would only affect the peaceful playstyles.

False dichotomy. Players can and would and in the past had exploited AI beliigerence if it was a cheap way to gain some nice cities without any warmongering penalty. Whether such players would label themselves as warmongers or peaceniks is a moot. Players would do it, and at one time in Civ V players certainly did do it when they could get away with it.

 

[UWHabs]

I think if you do turn against someone who attacks you and steal their cities, then yeah, you should get called a warmonger. But I do think that it should vary more based on the CB choice, as well as based on city size/location. If I go and raze a size-1 city that was settled on my border, I should basically not get a penalty. But if I go and raze Shanghai, yeah, you should be reviled around the world. Or it should compound more based on number of cities - so if I take one city from a civ, you get a small penalty, but once you get 2, 3, or 4, then the penalty gets exponentially worse.

 

[elitetroops]

You can easily provoke the AI into a DoW. That's one thing there's ample code for. Denouncements, close settles, moving units near their border, messing with their city-states, sending spies...long, long list. Getting an AI angry is hardly an issue of non-existent code. Really, not sure what you're trying to contend.

Getting them angry is not the same as getting them to declare war. The AI usually also hate each other, so if their relation to you has a big difference on how likely they are to declare war (I believe we don't know the exact mechanics yet), your actions to annoy them only makes you another possible war target. I've played several games where most AI are denouncing me all the time (with good reason) but nobody ever declared war.