Dealing with aggressive leaders

[8-bit]

I'm bit of a novice and would like to know how to deal with aggressive leaders without being classed as a warmonger myself. In a recent game I had Japan on my land mass and we were friends and traded etc but then at around 1890 they suddenly and without warning just declared war. I was tempted very early on to wipe them out but like I said, did not want to diminish my relations with other states due to warmongering.

[knighttemplar1960]

After they have declared war, raze a city, seek peace on your terms. Raze a city, seek peace on your terms. Raze a city, seek peace on your terms. Continue in this manner until they accept peace. As long as you leave their capital in their possession the damage that your rep takes is the least possible. You can pillage all of their stuff, keep hammering their cities and getting your units promotions as long as you don't take their capital. If one of your city state allies takes their capital that's fine (try to ally with the city state that is closest to their capital). It won't ding your reputation.

Before they declare war make them as dependent on you for their happiness as possible by giving them gifts (if they get too unhappy for too long barbarian partisan units will appear in their territory and attack them even if you have barbarians turned off), send caravans to trade with them and keep your relationship up, bribe them to attack one of their other neighbors that is also an aggressive civ (this keeps them busy and lets you use your production to build defense or increase your tech above theirs so that their units are less of a threat). Keep your military score high so that they don't consider you a soft target. Build and man forts in strategic locations. (Like choke points in the terrain.)

Avoid forward settling them and if they take offense at the placement of one of your cities don't gift it to them but make sure that you keep your word about not settling cities near them until that agreement expires. Be extra nice to them during the era(s) when they have special units and you don't. Try to build defensive wonders (Great Wall and the Red Fort) to protect yourself and try to build the offensive wonders (Statue of Zeus, Temple of Artemis, Terracotta Army) before they can so that they can't use them against you.

Once you out tech them, if they declare war, they just become an XP farm for your units.

[8-bit]

Thanks.

I did fall behind in the military tech side of things as I assumed it was quite late game and we had been friends for so long I wouldn't need them. I'll know better next time around.

Going to restart a new game as I don't really want to watch my cities fall one by one, I only had three anyway! :/

[Washell]

Originally posted by 8-bit:

but like I said, did not want to diminish my relations with other states due to warmongering.

First, warmongering is applied to Civ's you've met. Alone with Japan on a continent, with nobody else met: no warmongering penalty.
Second, the earlier the age, the lower the penalty.
Third, the penalty decays.

It's best to kill off aggressive (neighbouring) civs as soon as possible, assuming it doesn't hamper your overall development too much.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Warmongering_(Civ5)

[8-bit]

Ah that's great info, thanks.

I'm not a great Civ player at all, and in past Civ games over the years I have started wars that have lasted years and yes, held my Civ's development back drastically.

[Treehugger]

If you see another civ's army marching towards your city, I tend to declare war just to save myself a couple of turns, as war seems inevitable anyway. That way I can maybe get to kill off prophets, raid a caravan or get easy kills before I get hit myself.

I never understood how war mongering works in civ 5. Seems like even if you conquer other cities as a non-agressor, other civ's get mad at you and start ganging up on you, several times over after that.

Uuh, I think, even if you are given a city as a peace offer, upon annexing that city, other civ's get upset by that. :|

[8-bit]

Agreed. I always thought this was a gaming element that the developers put in to add some challenge (?)

[Bfloo]

Originally posted by Treehugger:

If you see another civ's army marching towards your city, I tend to declare war just to save myself a couple of turns, as war seems inevitable anyway. That way I can maybe get to kill off prophets, raid a caravan or get easy kills before I get hit myself.

I never understood how war mongering works in civ 5. Seems like even if you conquer other cities as a non-agressor, other civ's get mad at you and start ganging up on you, several times over after that.

Uuh, I think, even if you are given a city as a peace offer, upon annexing that city, other civ's get upset by that. :|

My fav is when another civ asks you to declare war on another with them, then they denounce you for being a warmonger anyway.

[The Silent CivVer]

1) 'I never understood how war mongering works in civ 5. Seems like even if you conquer other cities as a non-agressor, other civ's get mad at you and start ganging up on you, several times over after that.'

How are you a 'non-aggressor' if you conquered another civ's cities?

Because they declared war on you?

For all the other civs 'know', you might have provoked them into declaring war on you as a justification for taking their cities.

If you don't want to be considered a 'warmonger', don't take cities. You can demand economic reparations in a peace treaty (gold, luxs etc)

2) 'My fav is when another civ asks you to declare war on another with them, then they denounce you for being a warmonger anyway.'

Well, if you're prepared to gang up with another civ against a third party, wouldn't that make you a warmonger?

Additionally, if a human was going around asking civs to declare war on a third party, wouldn't you consider them a warmonger too?

Denounce them back...

[Bfloo]

Originally posted by The Iron Duke Of York:

1) 'I never understood how war mongering works in civ 5. Seems like even if you conquer other cities as a non-agressor, other civ's get mad at you and start ganging up on you, several times over after that.'

How are you a 'non-aggressor' if you conquered another civ's cities?

Because they declared war on you?

For all the other civs 'know', you might have provoked them into declaring war on you as a justification for taking their cities.

If you don't want to be considered a 'warmonger', don't take cities. You can demand economic reparations in a peace treaty (gold, luxs etc)

2) 'My fav is when another civ asks you to declare war on another with them, then they denounce you for being a warmonger anyway.'

Well, if you're prepared to gang up with another civ against a third party, wouldn't that make you a warmonger?

Additionally, if a human was going around asking civs to declare war on a third party, wouldn't you consider them a warmonger too?

Denounce them back...

For 2, it is the principal of the entire thing.

[dasaard200]

I don't bother to 'denounce' anybody, if they settle near my turf after i ASKED them not to; that gets them a DW, as Arabia did, lost 6 cities, and are left with their 4th Capital and 2 dinky other cities when I let them beg for peace .

My next target were the Huns (who showed up in 12 of the last 15 games), and I had a bone to pick with them for screwing me by cultural victories; and I would NOT let that happen this game ... so I set up a rolling blitz upon my DW ... the Huns had 28 cities, but the Iroquois grabbed #28 before I could reach it, but I couldn't be happy without #28 (in a War of the Knife) being mine .

Thus a DW on Iroquois, who've had 3 cities ripped off past the Hun city #28, bringing my total up to 66 cities on an Inverted Earth map .

[valera-wrx]

Wipe their army and take GPT/resource tribute, dont take cities then there will be no warmongering. But it depends on total number of their cities. If they have 10+ cities, you may take a couple of them with very small warmonger penalty. Or if they have captured cities of other civs, you may pick their best cities, but liberate worse ones this might reduce warmongering to zero.
If managed right, you might conquer half of the map without being warmonger - if you fight with warmongers and make some liberations.