How to deal with grievances ?

[M82]

So, I was just chilling, doing my own thing, when an AI decided to put a settler right on my border and found a new city. We were already in the medieval era so I had my own cities going already and I decided to just ignore it (they created the city on a place with no resources, no good food or production...)

Eventually though they started denouncing me, being generally hostile towards me and they brought 3 military units to their city. So I decided to rally all of mine, denounce them, wait 5 turns and then declare war. I took their city, but following this, everyone started being hostile towards me and it turned into a 1v3, I won this, but it snowballed into more and more grievances as I took city after city. I'm pretty sure everyone hates me now. How are you supposed to deal with this ?

[johnarhoades]

That's the game. You can't expand much without warfare, after a point. Sometimes you can get an AI civ that has a grudge against a mutual enemy, but that is rare.
If you are doing relatively well compared to the rest of the civs, it will make it more likely you will be everyone's enemy.

[grognardgary]

Turn on GS and the loyalthy mechanic means the city will flip to your control in fairly short order.

[Sstavix]

If you're going for a domination victory everyone will hate you anyway. Gather their grievances in a gilded chalice and drink the tears of your enemies.

If you aren't going for a domination, then you should seldom go to war. If you do, then there should be a reason, like territorial expansion or the special casus belli you can get for being in a golden age. Surprise wars are a really good way to get on everyone's bad side, especially if you take your opponent's capital. But if you're taking capitals, there's a good chance you're going for domination anyway....

Keep in mind that sometimes you can encourage your opponents to declare war against you. Then you generate fewer grievances and if you have allies they might even join in to help you. Again, as long as you don't take their capital, the rest of the world will view you in a more favorable light, since you didn't start the fight.

[jmerry82]

Yeah. If they bring units right up to your border that then just wait there, that's a sign that the AI is getting ready to declare war; they just need to bring up the rest of their army. And if they declare war on you, that's enough of a grievance balance in your direction that you can take a city or two for "free".

It's also a good idea to declare a friendship or two away from the war; friendships are formal agreements that can't just be canceled before they expire, and they generate a lot of positive relations. It's not hard to maintain a friendship/alliance or two even if you're conquering multiple rivals.

In the grand scheme of things, there are only two things grievances actually do:
- A relations penalty, both directly with the aggrieved party and indirectly with others.
- A loyalty penalty in cities originally founded by the aggrieved party.
Both of these are capped. You can steamroll right past them in a domination game.

[Steve]

Originally posted by MAGNUM_DONG_69:

So, I was just chilling, doing my own thing, when an AI decided to put a settler right on my border and found a new city. We were already in the medieval era so I had my own cities going already and I decided to just ignore it (they created the city on a place with no resources, no good food or production...)

Eventually though they started denouncing me, being generally hostile towards me and they brought 3 military units to their city. So I decided to rally all of mine, denounce them, wait 5 turns and then declare war. I took their city, but following this, everyone started being hostile towards me and it turned into a 1v3, I won this, but it snowballed into more and more grievances as I took city after city. I'm pretty sure everyone hates me now. How are you supposed to deal with this ?

On the turn the AI places the city, it's imperative to engage the settler's owner in diplomacy and ask them to promise not to settle near your cities anymore. Most times, they'll agree, which means you're stuck with only the one city (which you would then clean up culturally by pressuring the city's borders and making them disloyal -- works quite well) and an AI civ that's in the wrong as far as most of the others are concerned.

Sometimes, they'll tell you to piss off, which is carte blanche for war.

[grognardgary]

Note Grievances with no longer extant civs Does not cause grievances to civs that never met them.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by MAGNUM_DONG_69:

So, I was just chilling, doing my own thing, when an AI decided to put a settler right on my border and found a new city. We were already in the medieval era so I had my own cities going already and I decided to just ignore it (they created the city on a place with no resources, no good food or production...)

Eventually though they started denouncing me, being generally hostile towards me and they brought 3 military units to their city. So I decided to rally all of mine, denounce them, wait 5 turns and then declare war. I took their city, but following this, everyone started being hostile towards me and it turned into a 1v3, I won this, but it snowballed into more and more grievances as I took city after city. I'm pretty sure everyone hates me now. How are you supposed to deal with this ?

Most of the time you can just ignore grievances. They'll bark a lot, but they's rarely bite.

[gdshore]

There is a way to conquer territory without creating grievance, have a settler with your army (protected very well) raze the enemy, build a new city in the area and not always in the same spot. The AI can (often) sometimes build in really crappy locations. With no occupied cities you do not create 'occupied grievance'. Be warned, you can outrun your Imperial influence, new cities will have reduced to negative loyalty. One final note, you can not raze a capital, however you can lay waste to it. Attack capital, knock down its defence till it can no longer shoot back at you. Lay waste to everything within the capitals shadow. (this will/can result in, gold, science, faith ect.) Offer peace. Most time they will accept. Lick your wounds, look for next most likely target. Once you have pulled this off, and own most of the land, it is relaitively easy to steamroll the capitals to achieve DOMINATION!

[Sticky Wicket]

I highly recommend this mod. It's the only way to deal with the idiotic grievances system.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2982685807

[davemon]

Originally posted by gdshore:

There is a way to conquer territory without creating grievance, have a settler with your army (protected very well) raze the enemy, build a new city in the area and not always in the same spot. The AI can (often) sometimes build in really crappy locations. With no occupied cities you do not create 'occupied grievance'. Be warned, you can outrun your Imperial influence, new cities will have reduced to negative loyalty. One final note, you can not raze a capital, however you can lay waste to it. Attack capital, knock down its defence till it can no longer shoot back at you. Lay waste to everything within the capitals shadow. (this will/can result in, gold, science, faith ect.) Offer peace. Most time they will accept. Lick your wounds, look for next most likely target. Once you have pulled this off, and own most of the land, it is relaitively easy to steamroll the capitals to achieve DOMINATION!

It's probably not as easy as you describe this, but I like this strategy, it's clever.

[gdshore]

You are right, it's not easy or simple. In knocking down defences you can accidently capture same. Using bombardment units reduces this, still there may be a bombardment unit inside the city, can get hurt. Finally they may not accept your 'magnanimous' offer to end the war.(this can happen if they still have many cities left untouched.)

[grognardgary]

My mission is to conquer them as I come to them before either of us has met anyone else which gets increasingly more difficult as you go up the difficulty slider.