Am I a warmonger?

[Cictani]

Hi,

first this game is really great, however the "warmonger" thing isn't very realistic.

I fought Alexander and he attacked me first, so I fought back and conquered his empire. After that I was a really bad warmonger. But why? He started war. A warmonger is a person who starts war not someone who defends against someone.

If we had Civ 5 in real world, all allies would have been warmongers since they occupied germany in WW2. So every other nation should hate them for doing that. (Hitler began, but who cares? ;)).

Also they would be warmongers for at least 1000 years.

It is also strange that most civilizations that hate warmongers or don't like them do declare war very frequently.

[ajhartman65]

If you only "defend" yourself and do not physically take another's city(s) then you will never be branded a warmonger even if you start the war. Take a city by force and the penalties start to build up with each city taken.

[TheFergmiester]

He attacked you, but then you escalated and destroyed his entire civilization from existence for all eternity.

You warmongering *******.

[Damsteri]

Only thing what you can do without getting warmonger penalty is to kill units, unless you are cunning and do your nasty things without witnesses. You can't conquer cities (or city states), or you get a warmonger penalty.

In the BNW expansion you can see the size of the penalty for the conquering city when you hover your mouse over the city label. Levels are minor/major/extreme. It all depens on the other civilizations, some hate warmonger more than others. Other civilizations will usually tolerate minor penalties if you didn't start a war, and some warmonger civs will tolerate more. But if you conquer city state or kill a civilization by conquering it's last city you will get extreme penalty and everybody will hate you.

It's not normally wise to do a comparisions to real life because Civ V is a game, but... You get worst penalty for genocide if you totally eliminate a civilization or city state from the game. Well, Allies did win and Germany lost, but Allies didn't destroy Germany from the globe. Hitler tried to do that to jews and he is still hated for that. Extreme penalty to Germany and Minor to Allies? Occupation and extinction are different things.

[Oldmav]

Originally posted by andreas.weggel:

It is also strange that most civilizations that hate warmongers or don't like them do declare war very frequently.

You are saying nation's leaders are hypocrites? No way, really? lol Just like the real world. What other nation can start a war over weapons that were never found, yet tell other nations they can't attack other nations lol. Why do you think a bunch of people hate the US?

[HostPrivilege]

this always happends to me to. Makes it hard to trade and make allies.

[Ancientciv]

I'll admit that the warmonger thing can get irritating but it really isn't all that unrealistic. Let's see, the USA and the UK (and France, sort of) and the USSR defeat Germany and rewrite the map of the world (TWICE) and then the world loves them. Well not really. As all too evident.

As far as the game goes, just don't destroy a civ if you don't want warmonger status. Frankly, taking other civs capitals and mabe their second city will reap huge benifits, sink them inot the stone age (or iron or bronze age) and you will avoid major warmonger penalties (as well as a mess of recovery time, unhappiness, etc. etc.)

If you really want to get rid of civ, take their capital and next best city, pillage the crap out of them and then bribe others to kill them off.

Alternatively learn to love being a warmonger.

Which, not to be unkind, you are.

[Chop Suey]

If you eliminate a civ,all other civs will see you as a threat. You can avoid the warmongerer penalty by pillaging all of your enemy's farms/luxury resources and adding a hefty price to the peace treaty. This will cripple them as their population will decrease from starvation,and they won't have luxury resources to trade.

[The Kraken]

Even if the AI attacks first and you fight back they will call you a warmonger for some reason even if you asked them to back off nicely

[daniel]

What you do, Is in the very early game, find whoever is near you, and give them good trade deals. Don't settle anywhere near them, especially if they're a warmonger civ. Basically, if everyone around you is your ally, you're good. However, if all of your neighbours are warmongers, eg., Askia, Shaka, Nobby, etc., Restart... unless you want a real challenge.

[baterism]

One time I have guarded nuclear-powered Gandhi sitting in my border. Being at war with Washington and William, I spam trade route to Gandhi. At the end I safely sent my men to Alpha Centauri without getting nuked first. Moral of the story, trade routes do a lot .

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

You're a warmonger if you take over the enemy's cities, even if they initiated the war. Doesn't matter why you did so - saying that "he shot first" means nothing when you're the one pillaging and murdering. What's unrealistic is that the status is perminant (with few exceptions) and how the AI focuses on it as a problem, especially early on where, realistically, it was expected that empires would go to war with each other.

Now, Warmonger status does decay over time, but it doesn't decay noticably during a typical game, taking thousands of turns to fully disappear. If you want to avoid being a warmonger, don't fight for land.

[Baneken]

Frankly I've noticed tha it's pointless to care about warmongering penalties just kill the sobs and make sure you have large enough army to back it up, they'll stab you in the back at the congress anyway.

[Shahadem]

The problem is that the enemy AI doesn't really bother stopping a war until you have captured one of their cities, and once you have captured one of their cities your choice is either annex it, make it a puppet or burn it to the ground, the first 2 make every other civ see you as a war monger while the latter just sounds completely evil.

So there really isn't an effective way to end a defensive war without taking a city unless you want to remain in a war for an excessive number of turns. We really need the option to temporarily occupy a civ's cities for peaceful purposes.

But once you've already conquered one civ, you might as well finish the rest of them cause like in highlander, each one makes you stronger until there is only one left.

[SapSacPrime]

Well firstly you should always try and get at least one other civ to join you in your war, you will probably have to pay them but it helps in more ways than just a reduced warmonger penalty.
Another good tip would be to try and encourage the AI you are fighting to fight an allied city state, let them conquer them then liberate; rinse and repeat until everybody views them as the blood thirsty one, then commence capturing their best cities (but always leave them with at least one -- its far more satisfying watching them struggle and awaiing the inevitable "our people are wearing your blue jeans").
What bothers me the most is the fact you can have a military clearly capable of wiping every other civ off the face of the planet, yet they still refuse deals and give you lip; realistically if a world leader with giant death robots on your border currently guarded by musketmen pops over to chat you put on your happy face and give into whatever he wants.

[Murdock]

Yup, you're a warmonger. Even if the AI attacks first and you just fight back.