The warmongering penalty is really dumb

[V-K ◉_◉]

I think that penalty is way too ridiculous it takes incredibly long for it to disappear, if you take a few cities the other civs hate you for the entire game, they keep denouncing you and starting war against you or putting settlements inbetween your cities like a**holes.

And when you destroy those cities you get the warmonger penalty for another 1000 years. It's just an incredibly dumb mechanic. Imo you should make it so that after a while the penalty disappears exponentially otherwise you are stuck with that for a million turns.

[deadsanta]

The worst part of it is how it kicks in even when you take a city as a defender in a war. I mean how can I be the warmonger if the other guy attacked me? I get one guy being pissed that you are living in one of his old cities, but why the hell would the rest of the world consider you a warmonger for doing so? Stupid.

[paugus]

This topic has been discussed to death since release, but what the hell, here you go.

If you occupy a city, even if you feel "justified" the rest of the world is going to view it as abhorrent. What you're describing as "taking a few cities" is forcibly taking a population of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people and removing their ability to self-govern, changing their culture, their lands, their city itself... Why you think you WOULDN'T get a warmongerer penalty for "taking a few cities" is the part that doesn't make any sense to me.

[katzenkrimis]

If you always have a strong military, none of this matters.

In fact, you probably hate everyone yourself.

So just let them keep dogging on you. Then you'll always have good reason to turn their territory into a parking lot.

Get that entertainment district going. And get those 2 civics slotted that provide a total of 50% less war weariness. There is another civic that negates the war weariness for battles inside your borders, too. And it doesn't stop there. There are more things you can do. Play as India so they get royally war wearied when fighting against you.

Be a sea faring Civilization and wipe out every coastal city in the game. Burn their cities to the ground. Watch everyone beg as they throw luxury resources and money at you.

Rule the oceans. You'll be unstoppable because the AI is useless.

Build an Aerodrome and rule the skies. Bomb everyone. Go nuts.

There will be no war weariness problems.

[V-K ◉_◉]

Originally posted by paugus:

This topic has been discussed to death since release, but what the hell, here you go.

If you occupy a city, even if you feel "justified" the rest of the world is going to view it as abhorrent. What you're describing as "taking a few cities" is forcibly taking a population of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people and removing their ability to self-govern, changing their culture, their lands, their city itself... Why you think you WOULDN'T get a warmongerer penalty for "taking a few cities" is the part that doesn't make any sense to me.

Do you know how many wars have happened over the centuries and how "common" it was?
Look at Russia irl and how much they've conquered, or Turkey and many other countries. The people in Europe fought each other for centuries. They are not hated by everybody, they have good relationships, trade deals etc. Why? Because time doesn't stand still and people move on. In this game the other civs hate you for thousands of years and you can't really make any deals, alliances etc, it doesn't make any logical sense. Look at the Roman Empire, look at how much territory they captured, yet many other civilizations looked up to them and saw them as strong.

Also why do people on the other side of the map give a ♥♥♥♥ if I have a war with a neighbouring state? I'm not saying there should be not warmongering penalty, but the way it is now is completely stupid and I honestly have no fun playing the game. This type of penalty would maybe make sense after 1950 but not before.

When someone declares war on you and you win, everybody hates you and wants to kill you. Nonsense.

[weird name]

Firaxis tried to be like paradox and introduce war exhaustion but they failed the mechanic does not fit well in CIV at all.

[paugus]

Originally posted by V-K ◉_◉:

Do you know how many wars have happened over the centuries and how "common" it was?
Look at Russia irl and how much they've conquered, or Turkey and many other countries. The people in Europe fought each other for centuries. They are not hated by everybody, they have good relationships, trade deals etc. Why? Because time doesn't stand still and people move on. In this game the other civs hate you for thousands of years and you can't really make any deals, alliances etc, it doesn't make any logical sense. Look at the Roman Empire, look at how much territory they captured, yet many other civilizations looked up to them and saw them as strong.

Also why do people on the other side of the map give a ♥♥♥♥ if I have a war with a neighbouring state? I'm not saying there should be not warmongering penalty, but the way it is now is completely stupid and I honestly have no fun playing the game. This type of penalty would maybe make sense after 1950 but not before.

When someone declares war on you and you win, everybody hates you and wants to kill you. Nonsense.

Wars being commonplace doesn't mean they're celebrated. Turkey and Russia have trade relations out of necessity, and if you think Russia doesn't get "warmongering" penalties for invading other countries to this day, I'd say that's a pretty rosy view of Russia you've got going, and not everyone in Europe is a huge fan of Turkey. People do move on, and they also don't. American slavery happened over a century ago, and people are still quite angry about it. Just as many people HATED the Romans, and they were constantly under attack by "barbarians" throughout their history. Being strong and being liked are not the same.

Why do people in far away countries get angry when the US launches drone strikes in the Middle East? Because people don't like war, and they don't like militaristic aggression.

In actual game terms, if you get the cities ceded to you, it reduces the warmongering penalty for conquering them in the first place. Stay at war until the AI is willing to cede all of them. Accept the fact that the rest of the AI doesn't like watching you wipe out other nations, because it's completely justifiable from both a narrative and gameplay viewpoint. "Winning" a defensive war entails fending off the invading enemy. Once you go on the counterattack and start razing their cities, it makes sense that people aren't going to continue going "Oh, serves 'em right, eh? Shouldn't have war dec'd China like that, Saladin."

[Occred]

The war weariness and warmongering penalties definitely need rebalancing. Honestly, since they're focusing so much on AI and diplomacy this time around, I'd love to see - in an expansion that brings back the UN - puppet\satellite states that you can set up in parts of conquered civs that reduce your warmongering penalty somewhat (because you technically didn't conquer them) and gives you a little AI patsy to order around.

[paugus]

Originally posted by flowdab_:

gives you a little AI patsy to order around.

The AI is already a patsy. Making them more passive and manipulable is a step in the wrong direction, imo. They're never going to make the AI "tactically" as smart as a human, so making them psychotic is the next best thing. I'm a fan of uncooperative AI. I know some people play Civ for the empire-builder/diplomatic game, but I'm not one of them. In fact, even when I'm lacking a resource I rarely try to get it from another Civ through a trade when I can usually just take it by force.

[The Reluctant Geek]

In the real wold things are different from a game world. Warmongering is a mechanism to make it more challenging for players if they take the domination route. Otherwise, players would be free to take over fully formed cities in key places, with key resources, and suffer no penalty for doing so.

On a related note, does anyone know whether stealing settlers gives a warmonger penalty? I played a game where I didn't steal any cities, but mugged several settlers and Ghandi still frowned on me as a warmonger (they weren't even his settlers).

[paugus]

Originally posted by The Reluctant Geek:

In the real wold things are different from a game world. Warmongering is a mechanism to make it more challenging for players if they take the domination route. Otherwise, players would be free to take over fully formed cities in key places, with key resources, and suffer no penalty for doing so.

On a related note, does anyone know whether stealing settlers gives a warmonger penalty? I played a game where I didn't steal any cities, but mugged several settlers and Ghandi still frowned on me as a warmonger (they weren't even his settlers).

Game mechanics are different than real world mechanics, but to some degree they try to mimic them, until the point where gameplay is sacrificed for historical accuracy. Honestly, even through all the denouncements, warmonger penalties don't slow down my domination victories. Just because people are pissed at me doesn't mean I can't steamroll them, which is the plan anyway. Denounce me if you wish, Peter, but Eastern Orthodoxy has to go.

Stealing a settler doesn't give warmonger penalty afaik, but the war dec to take it will unless it's ancient era. I think Gandhi's agenda is separate from warmongering penalties, he just hates you being at war period. Same with Teddy, he instantly comes onscreen to lecture me even in ancient era when I war-dec someone on our home continent.

[Gopher]

the warmonger penalty isn't strong enough. In Single player it can be over powered, because typically you're playing untl the end of the game in a single player game. However, in Multplayer it's a laugh. I am yet to see a game actually finish in MP, most people just quit once someone becomes too strong and the "zerg, build large military" strat is still OP as hell. Basically Religion is useless in MP as well, since you will be behind if you spend any time at all setting up your religion when you should be focusing on science and economy, for your large military.

[Wintyer]

yes i know you get attack and capture on of there citys and the whole world thinks your a warmonger for the next 100 turns if i ever meet the person who did this i am going to spit ont here shoes

[CivNut123]

lol lol lol I just made peace with two civs that DECLARED WAR AGAINST ME and now the civs are saying that I have a war mongering penalty. I haven't declared war on a single state.

[Charlemagne]

The game is too geared towards hating the player. Even if you behave like a perfect gentleman/lady, they right away start to get unfriendly. It all starts with most of them getting a bad impression of you (minus modifier to relations). I haven't made a stat but off the hat I would say initial impression is about 70% of the time bad, 20% neutral and only 10% of the time good. It is quite rare to see a civ that got a good impression of you. I wonder what is at stake here and if you can do anything about it. Then the agendas set in, it is impossible to please everyone, or most, heck it's even hard to meet a single agenda, perhaps only by coincidence. AI agendas most of them run against sensible gameplay by the player. Why wouldn't you build wonders? China gets angry. Why wouldn't you get as many luxuries as possible? I'd say it's even mandatory. Aztec gets angry. You can't build a huge army early in the game, even if you wanted to. Egypt gets angry. I hate her animation, she looks like she has ants inside her panties. Etc.

Patch notes say they made improvements to warmongering penalties. I think they made them worse than before.

[CivNut123]

I think the developers just hate war. The best option seems to be to choose your alliances based on which ones dovetail with your own playing style or civ the best.

The kicker for me was finding an Arab scientist who grants a boost to every single modern (?) era tech. I mean seriously, even Einstein woulldn't boost that much.