Why does Civ 6 hate war so much?

[intellectsucks]

Sorry for a post that is partial rant, partial legitimate questions but what is the deal with Civ 6 being so heavily biased against war?

1. Warmonger penalties are entirely too severe. Any war you declare after the ancient era adds a massive diplomatic penalty that degrades so slowly, it might as well be permanent. This penalty also bypasses any other diplomatic relations you have. A better system would scale the penalty based on a leaders relationship with the target. For example: Teddy Roosevelt is unfriendly towards Phillip II but Pericles is friendly towards him. If you declare on Phillp II you should have a lesser penalty with T.R. and higher one with Pericles. You should also have little or no penalty with Civs that have denounced the target. Instead war means, in almost all cases, instant and permanent hatred from all the other civs.
2. Walls become entirely too strong way too fast and have too few counters to them. Once cities get Rennaissance walls, units do essentially zero damage against them and bombards are way too weak. Any obstacle in their way (hills, trees, etc) turns their range into 1 tile, limiting the number you can realistically use to siege a city and they can easily be killed with two shots from the city ranged attack. Is the only solution to wait until artillery and flight to take cities? If so, this is really annoying. War should be a viable option in any era.
3. Moving a large amount of troops is an absolute nightmare. So many early and mid game units have movement ranges of 2 or 3 and get crushed by the many, many tiles that have movement penalties. How do you effectively move your army quickly?

Sorry for the complaints, but I just learned the hard way that siege towers are useless after medieval walls. I was playing an emperor game and my army of knights, muskets and cavalry was getting slaughtered on Pericles' invulnerable defenses.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Warmongering = Fun

 

[knighterrant81]

Sorry for a post that is partial rant, partial legitimate questions but what is the deal with Civ 6 being so heavily biased against war?

1. Warmonger penalties are entirely too severe. Any war you declare after the ancient era adds a massive diplomatic penalty that degrades so slowly, it might as well be permanent. This penalty also bypasses any other diplomatic relations you have. A better system would scale the penalty based on a leaders relationship with the target. For example: Teddy Roosevelt is unfriendly towards Phillip II but Pericles is friendly towards him. If you declare on Phillp II you should have a lesser penalty with T.R. and higher one with Pericles. You should also have little or no penalty with Civs that have denounced the target. Instead war means, in almost all cases, instant and permanent hatred from all the other civs.
2. Walls become entirely too strong way too fast and have too few counters to them. Once cities get Rennaissance walls, units do essentially zero damage against them and bombards are way too weak. Any obstacle in their way (hills, trees, etc) turns their range into 1 tile, limiting the number you can realistically use to siege a city and they can easily be killed with two shots from the city ranged attack. Is the only solution to wait until artillery and flight to take cities? If so, this is really annoying. War should be a viable option in any era.
3. Moving a large amount of troops is an absolute nightmare. So many early and mid game units have movement ranges of 2 or 3 and get crushed by the many, many tiles that have movement penalties. How do you effectively move your army quickly?

Sorry for the complaints, but I just learned the hard way that siege towers are useless after medieval walls. I was playing an emperor game and my army of knights, muskets and cavalry was getting slaughtered on Pericles' invulnerable defenses.

Since the start of Civ VI (and even going back to Civ V) a recurring complaint among experienced players has been that the AI is terrible. Specifically, the AI is bad at war, which really means the AI is bad at defending itself. Many changes to Civ VI over the years have focused on improving the AI - which, whether they have succeeded is certainly debatable, but clearly there has been a focus from Firaxis at making the AI much less of a pushover. I'm working on a Zulu Domination Victory right now, and I'm certainly noticing that there have been some improvements. When I say "improvements" it means "I can't just mindlessly steamroll the AI anymore, I have to stop and take a breather once in awhile". I don't generally play Domination Victories, mostly because I don't enjoy them and they are too easy. For years, the "easiest" way to win this game was simply to abuse the AI's most glaring weakness: self-defense. In my own beginner's guide, I favored aggressive early strategies because this is (or was) the easiest, most straightforward route to victory.

Since that guide was written, they have made the AI a bit better at defending itself. Namely, the AI favors ranged units and walls much more now. So, how do you counter this? well, first you have to go back to Civ 101 - the Timing Push. If you are planning to attack the AI, especially at higher difficulties, you need to time your attack for when you have a strategic advantage, which almost always means a tech advantage in practice. The other big thing the AI is bad at is prioritizing research, so that is what you exploit. If you aren't going to be able to execute a timing push anytime soon, your best bet (*gasp!*) Is to expand peacefully and out-compete the AI in the economic sphere. THAT hasn't been true for a very long time in Civ, so I take that as a good sign.

I keep seeing this stuff about Bombards being weak, and then I realize that I have no idea, because I never use Bombards against Renaissance walls. When I use them, the AI still have Ancient walls...

 

[TomTorres]

Sorry for a post that is partial rant, partial legitimate questions but what is the deal with Civ 6 being so heavily biased against war?

1. Warmonger penalties are entirely too severe. Any war you declare after the ancient era adds a massive diplomatic penalty that degrades so slowly, it might as well be permanent. This penalty also bypasses any other diplomatic relations you have. A better system would scale the penalty based on a leaders relationship with the target. For example: Teddy Roosevelt is unfriendly towards Phillip II but Pericles is friendly towards him. If you declare on Phillp II you should have a lesser penalty with T.R. and higher one with Pericles. You should also have little or no penalty with Civs that have denounced the target. Instead war means, in almost all cases, instant and permanent hatred from all the other civs.
2. Walls become entirely too strong way too fast and have too few counters to them. Once cities get Rennaissance walls, units do essentially zero damage against them and bombards are way too weak. Any obstacle in their way (hills, trees, etc) turns their range into 1 tile, limiting the number you can realistically use to siege a city and they can easily be killed with two shots from the city ranged attack. Is the only solution to wait until artillery and flight to take cities? If so, this is really annoying. War should be a viable option in any era.
3. Moving a large amount of troops is an absolute nightmare. So many early and mid game units have movement ranges of 2 or 3 and get crushed by the many, many tiles that have movement penalties. How do you effectively move your army quickly?

Sorry for the complaints, but I just learned the hard way that siege towers are useless after medieval walls. I was playing an emperor game and my army of knights, muskets and cavalry was getting slaughtered on Pericles' invulnerable defenses.

Don´t wanna sound like a know-it-all, just my 2 cents

1. Warmonger penalties should be high and long-lasting. In reality grievances against warmongering nations also last for generations - you still find people nowadays that are carrying hefty prejudices against others because of wars long or not so long ago - I know Dutch people (my mom lives in the netherlands) who still heavily dislike germans because of the 2 world wars, germans which dislike french because of the Napoleonic (!!!) wars, and here in Austria most ppl have a subliminal dislike for Turks because of the Sieges of Vienna (1529 & 1683) 500(!!) years ago.
Imho warmonger penalties should be more drastic the later it is due to advanced communications in later eras. If you bully a foreign power in the industrial era everyone will most likely know it within days whereas in the ancient era most people in other regions didn´t probably knew that you even exist.

2. Look up the Turkish (Ottoman) Sieges of Vienna mentioned above - Despite heavily outnumbering the tiny Austrian forces inside Vienna the Ottomans were never able to get past the -yeah you guessed it right- CITY WALLS. This happened twice in the 16th and 17th century where it wasn´t easy anymore to conquer fortified cities.
Use the small windows of technological advantages to time your attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

3. It´s good that we have to check the terrain characteristics and plan wars accordingly , would be way to easy otherwise

 

[Bibor]

Let me quote civ4 here:

It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls."
-Aristophanes

knighterrant is right. Timing is everything. For example, saving up 600 gold for a crossbow push 10+ turns before the enemy gets its own crossbows (edit: i dont think this particular example works on deity, but you get the point)

 

[AlanC9]

1. Warmonger penalties should be high and long-lasting. In reality grievances against warmongering nations also last for generations - you still find people nowadays that are carrying hefty prejudices against others because of wars long or not so long ago - I know Dutch people (my mom lives in the netherlands) who still heavily dislike germans because of the 2 world wars, germans which dislike french because of the Napoleonic (!!!) wars, and here in Austria most ppl have a subliminal dislike for Turks because of the Sieges of Vienna (1529 & 1683) 500(!!) years ago.

But the warmonger penalty gives diplomatic penalties with nations who had noting to do with the war, s long as they have contact with you. Do Chinese care about the Siege of Vienna, either way?

 

[knighterrant81]

Don´t wanna sound like a know-it-all, just my 2 cents

1. Warmonger penalties should be high and long-lasting. In reality grievances against warmongering nations also last for generations - you still find people nowadays that are carrying hefty prejudices against others because of wars long or not so long ago - I know Dutch people (my mom lives in the netherlands) who still heavily dislike germans because of the 2 world wars, germans which dislike french because of the Napoleonic (!!!) wars, and here in Austria most ppl have a subliminal dislike for Turks because of the Sieges of Vienna (1529 & 1683) 500(!!) years ago.
Imho warmonger penalties should be more drastic the later it is due to advanced communications in later eras. If you bully a foreign power in the industrial era everyone will most likely know it within days whereas in the ancient era most people in other regions didn´t probably knew that you even exist.

2. Look up the Turkish (Ottoman) Sieges of Vienna mentioned above - Despite heavily outnumbering the tiny Austrian forces inside Vienna the Ottomans were never able to get past the -yeah you guessed it right- CITY WALLS. This happened twice in the 16th and 17th century where it wasn´t easy anymore to conquer fortified cities.
Use the small windows of technological advantages to time your attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

3. It´s good that we have to check the terrain characteristics and plan wars accordingly , would be way to easy otherwise

Okay, some thoughts.

1. Using history to argue for in-game changes in Civ may not the best way to defend your point. Although it may seem counterintuitive, Civ is not an educational game (at least, not directly, like, say, Oregon Trail or something). At the level of detail in Civ, you could really use history to argue for almost anything. It works better to point out ways to change the game that make it more fun and interesting on its own merits.

2. As I pointed out earlier, Civ actually has struggled with making war too easy and rewarding. What you are running into are all the balance changes the developers have thrown in our way after launch.

 

[TomTorres]

Okay, some thoughts.

1. Using history to argue for in-game changes in Civ may not the best way to defend your point. Although it may seem counterintuitive, Civ is not an educational game (at least, not directly, like, say, Oregon Trail or something). At the level of detail in Civ, you could really use history to argue for almost anything. It works better to point out ways to change the game that make it more fun and interesting on its own merits.
.

I only used history to point out why things in-game are working as they do - to reflect history/reality in a certain way.
If this came over kinda rude or smart-assish, i´m sorry, wasn´t meant that way

 

[GunsGermsandSteel]

@ OP

1. I agree with this. More so that its overly simplistic/universal. You attack someone and then EVERY other civ denounces you regardless of their affiliations. Definitely needs tweaking. Here's an example. Just last night I declared war on Inca who the Aztec had a red faced negative opinion about, but the Aztecs a had a yellow faced opinion about, and I might add are a warmongering civ themselves, denounced me for attacking the Incas. It just felt weird. It's one thing if the Incas don't like me for the rest of the game. It's a whole other thing if the Aztecs now cause me to loose diplomatic favor because they are 'judging' me for something they uphold as a civilization. Even more so was weird that they denounced me for attacking one of their rivals.

2. I only partially agree. There is some historical accuracy here. My problem with walls is when you reach bottle necked areas where there are hills/encampments/cities all right around each-other. Honestly, I've stopped the bloodbath and just waited till artillery comes around and I can smash it from a distance. Again, also somewhat historical as there are places that were extremely difficult due to bottlenecks/terrain. The other thing is stronger walls does give the AI more of a chance to defend itself. Really though it just postpones domination until artillery/bombers.

3. Use smaller armies. Use great generals for their movement benefit. Gets corps/armies.

 

[JesseS]

1) Declare some joint wars or use emergency wars/casus belli to your advantage. If you can't, declare a formal war and see who will join in. (Side note: if you denounce an opponent, you can start a formal war that same turn if someone else who has denounced them is willing to do a joint war). You can often get other AIs to join your wars for 1 gold and, once they're also at war, you take far fewer grievances with them. If your opponent and ally share a border, it can help you militarily a fair amount too. If you're diligent about checking the trade screen throughout the game, you can often find an AI willing to pay you all of their gold to start a joint war at some point. All of this is locked behind an opaque system of AI valuation of joint wars, but is a great way to war without having the entire world hate you. Also, if you lock down a few friendships before you start warring, you'll almost always be able to keep those friendships until you don't want to anymore.

2) With Renaissance wars, you definitely want to hit the AI before they get Renaissance walls. Bombards work decently with a Great General. Also, the AI will always target your unit with the lowest strength, so scouts/rangers make good decoys if you find yourself in a grind. I find the bigger lull where offensive wars are almost impossible is the medieval age, when catapults get shredded by ancient walls and crossbows, and your only melee unit is outdated swordsmen. I think the cavalry nerf that made them not work with siege towers/rams was appropriate, but it made the gap between swords and muskets and catapults and bombards really painful on the offense.

3) Army movement can get pretty annoying. Some things that help with the actual warring are always sending at least one trader out for a war road beforehand, using builders to chop out forest and jungle around your border, and getting the appropriate Great General for movement. I find that the worst part about army movement is the horrible auto-pathing in this game, which means you basically have to move your troops one unit at a time.

 

[intellectsucks]

Hey guys, I appreciate the debate. Some follow up thoughts:

1. Regarding historical accuracy justifying the warmonger penalties, this is true to an extent, but not the extent that it justifies the mechanic in Civ 6. Having the target Civ hate you for all eternity after you declare on them is understandable, but applying the same penalty to civs that have denounced the target or are unfriendly towards the target? Nonsense, particularly in earlier eras like classical or medieval. Historically, nations and empires have been THRILLED to see their enemies be the targets of war. Think of the French and English during the American revolution. The French despised the English and were thrilled to see them bogged down in a war across the ocean, even before the French provided aid to the American cause. Had this happened in Civ 6, the French would have denounced the Americans immediately and probably joined the war against them shortly after it started, an absurd scenario by historical standards. There is also a case to be made for the number and SCALE of the wars and I'm fine with that; at a certain point everyone is going to hate you because it's clear your goal is global domination. However, it shouldn't come so early during your war efforts.

2. I understand the timing push and understand that you need to focus your efforts on out-teching and out-culturing them to achieve victory, but there should be an in era counter to each offensive and defensive tactic. The defensive buildings of each era have a counter: battering ram or siege towers. The counter to Rennaissance walls is: advance to a new era? A better balance would have been to make bombards do decent but not catastrophic damage to walls but have great defense against ranged attacks and weak defense against units (probably specifically cav units). The balance would be that the walls and ranged units would be effective against melee units, the bombards are effective against walls, and the enemy units are effective against bombards. That puts the focus more realistically on strategy and tactics than how it's currently set up. I hate to compare the two, but Civ 4 had a much better balance between offensive and defensive strategies and there was no point where you need to advance to another era in order to counter any eras units/defenses.

3. I'm having trouble getting great generals, since I only build 1 or 2 encampments. I've also been trying, with limited success to surround the cities as that prevents them from gaining back 20 health each turn. Should I abandon that as a fools quest?

Don't get me wrong, I like that there is more balance to the win conditions than in previous versions, where it seemed that war was the preferred method, I just think that now domination victories are far MORE difficult than others.

 

[JesseS]

1. Regarding historical accuracy justifying the warmonger penalties, this is true to an extent, but not the extent that it justifies the mechanic in Civ 6. Having the target Civ hate you for all eternity after you declare on them is understandable, but applying the same penalty to civs that have denounced the target or are unfriendly towards the target?

Yes, warmongering penalties can get a little ridiculous sometimes, but joint wars and prior-declared friends offer a very easy way to get around it if you care to do so. Basically, I look at domination games as being either 1) crush everyone starting in the classical era, don't worry about grievances, just make as many trades with newly met civs on the first turn you meet them or 2) build out peacefully for long enough to get some friendships, leverage those into "justified"/allied wars, before turning on your allies to finish off the game.

I'm having trouble getting great generals, since I only build 1 or 2 encampments. I've also been trying, with limited success to surround the cities as that prevents them from gaining back 20 health each turn. Should I abandon that as a fools quest?

Just run a few general projects as part of your prep for a war, while paying attention to the great person screen. Three or four of them is usually enough to get a general. And no, besieging cities is super important for taking them down, though you need to be able to rotate units in and out while maintaining the siege. The toughest cities to take are those that you can't siege--lakes are the worst for this. Another tip is to pillage the districts all the way down. Each district adds +3 combat strength to the city.

 

[knighterrant81]

2. I understand the timing push and understand that you need to focus your efforts on out-teching and out-culturing them to achieve victory, but there should be an in era counter to each offensive and defensive tactic. The defensive buildings of each era have a counter: battering ram or siege towers. The counter to Rennaissance walls is: advance to a new era? A better balance would have been to make bombards do decent but not catastrophic damage to walls but have great defense against ranged attacks and weak defense against units (probably specifically cav units). The balance would be that the walls and ranged units would be effective against melee units, the bombards are effective against walls, and the enemy units are effective against bombards. That puts the focus more realistically on strategy and tactics than how it's currently set up. I hate to compare the two, but Civ 4 had a much better balance between offensive and defensive strategies and there was no point where you need to advance to another era in order to counter any eras units/defenses.

I don't know, I've really never had trouble knocking down walls with Bombards. I think Bombards are actually when Siege units start becoming worthwhile; Catapults are the weak link for me - they feel too weak to Archers, walls, and Crossbows. That's where Siege Towers and Battering Rams do so well because you can hide them under units with an anti-range promotion. So the rock/paper/scissors is Melee beats anti-cav beats Mounted, Walls and Ranged beat everything and Siege beats Walls. That seems plenty true for Bombards to me. Maybe this is an issue of Battering Rams are too good? You get too used to being able to abuse Walls early, so later when Walls actually hold up they feel too strong?

There is another counter of course - good old overwhelming force. If you are having trouble busting through try having more units. I usually build 3-4 Warriors, 3-4 Slingers, 3-6 Chariots and/or Horsemen, maybe one Spearman and then I just keep upgrading everything through the ages. Usually about 3 Siege does me pretty good and I tend to not really use them until I've gotten Bombards. Catapults (and Chariots) feel particularly weak by the time they come up, in general. This is all at Emperor level, by the way. If you are playing on Deity, it might be a Deity thing (due to the increased combat strength, for instance).

I do think Civ VI does the unit balance a little weirdly. Earlier games would have really clear upgrade paths and each era would have an upgrade for every unit. Now, certain unit types seem to skip eras - there's no Medieval melee infantry unit, for instance, and there used to be no Renaissance heavy cavalry replacement or Medieval light cavalry unit. This added to the feeling that unit upgrades are a HUGE deal in VI (that and they just seemed to have made the combat value gap between upgrades a bit too large). It is jarring that suddenly the AI gets Crossbows and you are stopped dead in your tracks, whereas a few turns earlier you were stomping them.

 

[AlanC9]

Yes, warmongering penalties can get a little ridiculous sometimes, but joint wars and prior-declared friends offer a very easy way to get around it if you care to do so

I haven't found any advantage to joint wars. If anything, they're a disadvantage since my game doesn't ever let me declare a Joint War that isn't also a Surprise War. I wonder if this is a vanilla problem which was never patched out.

As for the general topic, it's not so much that the game is biased against conquest as that the incentives are all wrong. Past a certain WM threshold, which can come very fast after the Classical era, and you might as well just ignore the whole mechanic and accept that everybody except Gorgo is going to denounce you forever.Take one city, and you might as well take them all.

 

[cylenalag]

I don't know, I've really never had trouble knocking down walls with Bombards. I think Bombards are actually when Siege units start becoming worthwhile; Catapults are the weak link for me - they feel too weak to Archers, walls, and Crossbows. That's where Siege Towers and Battering Rams do so well because you can hide them under units with an anti-range promotion. So the rock/paper/scissors is Melee beats anti-cav beats Mounted, Walls and Ranged beat everything and Siege beats Walls. That seems plenty true for Bombards to me. Maybe this is an issue of Battering Rams are too good? You get too used to being able to abuse Walls early, so later when Walls actually hold up they feel too strong?

There is another counter of course - good old overwhelming force. If you are having trouble busting through try having more units. I usually build 3-4 Warriors, 3-4 Slingers, 3-6 Chariots and/or Horsemen, maybe one Spearman and then I just keep upgrading everything through the ages. Usually about 3 Siege does me pretty good and I tend to not really use them until I've gotten Bombards. Catapults (and Chariots) feel particularly weak by the time they come up, in general. This is all at Emperor level, by the way. If you are playing on Deity, it might be a Deity thing (due to the increased combat strength, for instance).

I do think Civ VI does the unit balance a little weirdly. Earlier games would have really clear upgrade paths and each era would have an upgrade for every unit. Now, certain unit types seem to skip eras - there's no Medieval melee infantry unit, for instance, and there used to be no Renaissance heavy cavalry replacement or Medieval light cavalry unit. This added to the feeling that unit upgrades are a HUGE deal in VI (that and they just seemed to have made the combat value gap between upgrades a bit too large). It is jarring that suddenly the AI gets Crossbows and you are stopped dead in your tracks, whereas a few turns earlier you were stomping them.

That’s actually quite a refreshing change over Civ 3’s seemingly immortal fortified Spearmen lasting until the very end. I do agree that there are/were some odd gaps considering Civ 6 emphasizes some serious power creep through the ages. Perhaps the difference is too sharp of an incline?

Also +1 to bombards. By the time you research Metal Casting, you should still have opponents with Medieval Walls at best.

 

[The Civs 6]

If you think 6 hates war you should have seen 5:

• City ranged attacks (that also had more combat strength earlier) from turn 1 made super early rushes much more difficult; melee units in general were weaker against cities
• severe warmongering diplomatic penalties, which could quickly lead to a unified coalition against you. 6 has the emergency thing, but that is not quite as big an issue as the diplo penalties were, and those penalties would never go away, so you could ruin your diplo game with early aggression.
• Automated governors for conquered cities - you had to build courthouses, which were fairly expensive, to get control of your city without a severe global happiness debuff.
• Wide being weak. why bother conquering your neighbors when you have 4 cities, tradition, and are pumping out tons of science and culture while continuing to grow?
• Passive AI - you could very easily go through a 5 game without having to face the AI. This might be a little bit more contestable because 6 has the (bizarre) agenda mechanic which you can game. But even the 6 AI will just randomly mess you up sometimes.

The only difference in favor of 6 is that the 5 AI was truly terrible at the tactical side of combat, so you could expect a lot of fun and profit from any wars that actually did happen.

I'm just saying all this because I'm surprised at this thread's premise. To me, Civ 6 is way more a truly 4x game like Civ 4, where you have to bash your neighbors' heads in, than 5 was.

 

[IMADAJ]

Another tip is to pillage the districts all the way down. Each district adds +3 combat strength to the city.

I didn’t know about that until I read this post earlier today. It was the key to me winning my (first) King domination game several hours later. I was at a loss on how cities with renaissance walls had a higher defense than my Industrial Age units. Pillaging districts and forming corps was the key.

 

[AlanC9]

I'm just saying all this because I'm surprised at this thread's premise. To me, Civ 6 is way more a truly 4x game like Civ 4, where you have to bash your neighbors' heads in, than 5 was.

If anything, I'd say that Civ 6 makes war even more rewarding than Civ 4. 1UPT produces a positive feedback loop. As units survive and become more experienced, it becomes harder and harder for AI forces to cope with them if you've got anything even close to technological parity; a bunch of ranged units with four promotions are basically a firing squad. Unlike Civ 4 the AI can't just beat quality with quantity, since it can't bring quantity to bear.