[NFP] You've caused grievances to others...

[GunsGermsandSteel]

This bit of the grievance system needs a rework. Being denounced by every AI in the game just because I caused another player grievances feels very infantile. The diplomacy system was supposed to be better in G&S but it's basically - either your friends with everyone or you are enemies with everyone. There's no room for diplomatic complexity.

It doesn't make sense to me that a civ on another continent denounces me because I've been settling to close to my immediate neighbor. There needs to be dynamics added to this. And positive/negative affiliation needs to be taken into account. As in if that player is friendly to the player you caused grievances to it is taken more seriously. Whereas if those two players are at negative terms with each-other what you do to them doesn't bother the other.

Grievances shouldn't all just be in a single pool. There needs to be local and global grievances. Local grievances would be things like settling to close or taking non-capital cities. Global grievances would be things like taking a capital or denouncing that player.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Pfeffersack]

This bit of the grievance system needs a rework. Being denounced by every AI in the game just because I caused another player grievances feels very infantile. The diplomacy system was supposed to be better in G&S but it's basically - either your friends with everyone or you are enemies with everyone. There's no room for diplomatic complexity.

It doesn't make sense to me that a civ on another continent denounces me because I've been settling to close to my immediate neighbor. There needs to be dynamics added to this. And positive/negative affiliation needs to be taken into account. As in if that player is friendly to the player you caused grievances to it is taken more seriously. Whereas if those two players are at negative terms with each-other what you do to them doesn't bother the other.

Grievances shouldn't all just be in a single pool. There needs to be local and global grievances. Local grievances would be things like settling to close or taking non-capital cities. Global grievances would be things like taking a capital or denouncing that player.

Just some thoughts.

I'm not saying that the system has no issues (e.g. decay is too fast and sets already in before the 1st turn has passed, it is beyond me why certain actions give a permanent relation penalty on top, grievances against an ally attacking your suzerained CS are quite useless and so on), but you have to make quite a few transgressions to cause 3rd parties hating you for grievances against certain other civs. Settling close and refusing to stop gives 25, which quickly decay in the ages where most settling happens and even if you settle more cities in the same direction it is hard to pile up a lot of grievances only because of this. And if it is because you promised to stop settling close by and break that promise afterwards (which causes 100 grievances, IIRC)...well, than it is ok for my taste that even far away civs dislike you as untrustworthy.

 

[ehecatzin]

I think one of the causes is that you can get all sorts of alliances, I would honestly like to see a differentiation between alliances and cooperation agreements (which is really what most of the current alliances are).

Make it so that military alliances are the only "Alliance" and the one that weights the most when making those denouncements. And let us have more than 1 military ally as the game progresses to create blocks.

As a nice detail existing alliances could change names to...more flavourful things, like say religious alliance turns into "Theological exchange"


and the more I keep thinking about it...yes the diplomacy system needs a hard look into to fix.

 

[Josephias]

Grievances could be expanded and improved a lot, I agree. But I don't think this means the current system needs to be corrected.

It is not perfect or overly interesting, but it is fine and I underestandable in certain way: grievances are "bad press" on you. If you are a bully in the school, or a shark in work, every newcomer to the work will, more before than after, hear of your bad behaviour. The world is not as isolated civ X in another continent has met you and no other... as gossip intends to reflect, your very own civ is full of traders, agents and spies from other civs, that will quickly spread the word about you are not a trustworty / just person to Civ X envoys. That's what the modifier represents.

Yet, as you comment: Yes, improvments would be most welcome. In example:
- grievances to civ Y impact on civ Z should be impacted by how much Civ Z likes civ Y.
- I'd love to have a sistem in wich grievances toward you also count in the impresion you make to other liders (i.e: Montezuma and Harald may look down of you if you did nothing to "repair" the grievances someone inflicted to you, but Ghandi might respect you more because of that).
- there are things (pillaging first comes to my mind, probably also failed spionage), that should add certain level of grievance, and they do not.

 

[leandrombraz]

In the march 2017 patch they added some nuance on how warmongering penalties are applied:

Adjusted Warmonger penalties for Diplomatic status:

• When applying a warmonger diplomatic penalty for EITHER declaring war or capturing a city, reduce that penalty if you are enemies with the target of that warmongering as follows:
  • -20% warmongering if this is against a player you have denounced
  • -40% warmongering if this is against a player you are at war with
• NOTE: This is not used in situations where you are fighting a Joint War against the target power or when Sumeria joins as ally in war (in both those cases the penalty is still zero).
• EXAMPLE: Macedon is at war with Persia. If India goes to war with Persia sometime in the middle of this Macedonian/Persian War and captures a Persian city, Macedon will reduce its warmonger penalty against India by 40%.

I don't remember how that works now with Grievances, but iirc, that still in the game somehow. I believe that the "grievances to others" penalty is reduced in these cases, but I'm not sure.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I wishy they would bring back BE's version of diplomacy. I thought that worked WAY better than the nonsense we have now. Yeah, it could get old constantly getting messages but thr denouement system is so lame.

 

[Kjimmet]

There is one aspect that I really don't like in Grievance system:
Let's say I have conquered multiple cities from France, then Norway from different continent meets me. Norway does not know about existence of France.
You would expect that I have zero grievances with Norway, but no, he denounces me for my warmongering. How does he exactly know about my military victories in France? And why does he care?

 

[ezzlar]

There is one aspect that I really don't like in Grievance system:
Let's say I have conquered multiple cities from France, then Norway from different continent meets me. Norway does not know about existence of France.
You would expect that I have zero grievances with Norway, but no, he denounces me for my warmongering. How does he exactly know about my military victories in France? And why does he care?

Because people can talk to each other?

 

[Kjimmet]

Because people can talk to each other?

Yes, they can but if they only know the enemy of French aka my civilization but not French themselves, they would be more familiar about negative things of French civilization than positive. And what if people in my civilization don't talk about the war because it is far away from them? Only logical solution for Norway denouncing me is if my people HATE me, and they are badmouthing about me to the Norwegians.

So we basicly have three scenarious that are most likely:
1. People in my civilization see French as an evil empire that must be destroyed. Norwegians see and hear only what my people/propaganda say.
2. People in my civilization ignore, barely acknowledge or are not aware of the war. Norwegians never learn about war or know too little about it to comment about it.
3. People in my civilization are aware of the war AND they hate it, and they try to pull other unrelated powers to war. Norwegians take the side of foreign power they have never heard of.

 

[Bibor]

Tweaks would be welcome, sure, but its not that bad as long as you follow these points:
- if you are a warmonger, act like one
- if you want AI love, take cities only in defensive wars
- either take very little from a war, or take it all
- make alliances before declaring major wars

 

[AlanC9]

Sure, we can play around it. But having a binary choice between being a warmonger and not being a warmonger is bad. Being less if a warmonger because I had my troops burn farms, temples and libraries rather than just storming the city is bad.

 

[HereticalAppendicle]

Agreed, the entire diplomacy system needs to be massively improved if not completely re-worked. The grievance system is way too simplistic and binary (and in many situations just sort of arbitrary). Not very realistic or satisfying.

 

[Uberfrog]

Tweaks would be welcome, sure, but its not that bad as long as you follow these points:
- if you are a warmonger, act like one
- if you want AI love, take cities only in defensive wars
- either take very little from a war, or take it all
- make alliances before declaring major wars

In addition to the above, Joint Wars are a great way to avoid grievance penalties entirely with at least one AI.

 

[Bibor]

In addition to the above, Joint Wars are a great way to avoid grievance penalties entirely with at least one AI.

Yeah, especially if your warmonger buddy draws all enemy units to his front <3

 

[oSiyeza]

It seems to me that Fxs have an Idea of roleplay, where the supposed proper behavior of a leader is to be nice and peaceful and progressive.

They have penalyced agression and conquest to a point where now, conquering two capitals in one game, removes you entirely from the WC and the diplomatic game without considering what age are you in, who started the war or who was the original owner of the city.

They have also removed vasals and puppet cities or any nuisance the domination strategy had in previous games.

They created an AI that can more or less achieve any victory condition with the exception of domination, as fas I know and according to the devs, they have never seen the AI win any domination victory ever, in any AI only matches, and they don't think this is a problem.

At the same time they have buffed defense desproportionately to limit dinamism, and they have put cero interest on coding air or naval capabilities in the AI, cause they don't expect the AI to use them.

I think, if you are agressive with an enemy of the AI you should improve the relationship with said AI, diplomatic relationships should be based nuisance d mechanics that make sense and are fun to play, not from the starting point of any agresion considered bad in any circunstance to anyone.

This and the overarching theme of avoiding most negative setbacks and frustration that may happen in game, made me think a couple of times that they were designing Civ 6, to be a game for the snowflake generation.

Or maybe they were just lazy / greedy and did not care much for the AI or the diplomacy...

 

[GunsGermsandSteel]

Tweaks would be welcome, sure, but its not that bad as long as you follow these points:
- if you are a warmonger, act like one
- if you want AI love, take cities only in defensive wars
- either take very little from a war, or take it all
- make alliances before declaring major wars

Good post. This does put the system in a somewhat better light. I still feel the system is overly simplistic and could have some added depth.

 

[FinalDoomsday]

You either go full war or no war, not much nuance but it seems very much Civ 6's style you go 100% into just one thing be that war, science, religion etc. Pick your lane and stick to it. By taking other cities the game is assuming you have chosen domination so its effectively warning all the AI's regardless of their relations that you're probably coming for them sooner or later.

 

[NukeAJS]

I disagree that everyone is your friend or enemy. I think that the everyone is your enemy happens when you declare war in the ancient era, discover a bunch of people, and then stomp your target. Luckily, grievance decay is very fast and you'll usually get denounced in quick succession. Being denounced in quick succession means that by the time they can denounce you again, all your grievances have decayed with everyone.

Classical era and beyond -- you gotta play the diplomatic game if you don't want everyone to hate you forever. That usually means trying to get warm relations with the people you don't plan on targeting anytime soon, befriending them, and declaring joint war(s) against mutually disliked targets. Your positives will outweigh the negatives in addition to accruing fewer grievances with all people on your "team". If they don't, you'll have a couple of turns of being friends so they can't denounce you until the friendship times out. When alliances become available, you'll accrue 0 grievances with an ally when you're jointly at war with them.

 

[Karmah]

There is one aspect that I really don't like in Grievance system:
Let's say I have conquered multiple cities from France, then Norway from different continent meets me. Norway does not know about existence of France.
You would expect that I have zero grievances with Norway, but no, he denounces me for my warmongering. How does he exactly know about my military victories in France? And why does he care?

I disagree. Both from gamey and RP standpoint, it's logical that they see you as a warmonger. The gamey one is obvious, you eliminated a player. The RP ones, people talk.

I disagree that everyone is your friend or enemy. I think that the everyone is your enemy happens when you declare war in the ancient era, discover a bunch of people, and then stomp your target. Luckily, grievance decay is very fast and you'll usually get denounced in quick succession. Being denounced in quick succession means that by the time they can denounce you again, all your grievances have decayed with everyone.

Classical era and beyond -- you gotta play the diplomatic game if you don't want everyone to hate you forever. That usually means trying to get warm relations with the people you don't plan on targeting anytime soon, befriending them, and declaring joint war(s) against mutually disliked targets. Your positives will outweigh the negatives in addition to accruing fewer grievances with all people on your "team". If they don't, you'll have a couple of turns of being friends so they can't denounce you until the friendship times out. When alliances become available, you'll accrue 0 grievances with an ally when you're jointly at war with them.

That looks more like the game I know