#Rebalance/redesign war with multiplayer in mind

74 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

winged pagoda
#

I play almost exclusively multiplayer with pretty skilled players and war is completely imbalanced to the point of being anti-fun. In the CPL discord server almost every game that makes it to modern and completes an actual win condition is Military. The games that don't make it are almost always defined by war as well.

As an anecdote, I'm playing Hawaii Isabella (maya first age) in exploration going up against Ming (who was greece first age, Ibn Batutta). End of the age I have a city with 9 medieval walls, all filled with units in the districts and around them, all tier 3 units with 2 level 4+ commander providing Order and defensive bonuses and I have a +4 in war weariness against my opponent. Despite all this, he is 2 shotting my walls with his Ming Xunleichong getting bonuses from a variety of sources (no military endeavors in the game, so just city states, commander buffs, etc.)

He took a 9 medieval wall city entirely surrounded by my own tier 3 units without a single siege unit and only lost 1 or 2 in the process while I lost probably 15+ units.

Every multiplayer game I play against skilled opponents devolves into somebody winning via military, whoever somehow ends up stronger, and there's really not much more you can do about it. In the example I gave, the CS bonus he obtained is something that by definition I cannot and now I just lose the war.

Units in online speed are incredibly easy to spam as well, which makes the game drag on as all these players spam units to try and win a military victory since it's the only viable path for winning the game at the moment. Turtling and out simming your opponent to some other victory is actually impossible as a strategy against a competent opponent.

Please take a look at rebalancing/redesigning war deeply, with multiplayer in mind. Even the micro, which commanders were supposed to lower, is actually increased because of them. Having to micro units in and out constantly makes war exhausting and anti-fun

torpid quest
#

The removal of counter units was a huge step in the wrong direction. Strategy games thrive on rock-paper-scissors style mechanics. This version where it’s just who can stack the highest number doesn’t work for me.

winged pagoda
#

I agree, it’s literally who can get the highest number wins. And it’s just straight up impossible to compete in certain scenarios so you just auto lose

crimson panther
#

I will say, unit spam is mostly a problem with online speed, on Standard it’s much harder to mass them. I’ve only played a few games on Online and did in fact find it miserable. But yeah I agree, the main issue is that the power scaling is really off. Cavalry (more expensive now but still stronger than equivalents) or certain uniques, just wipe the floor with everything. They nerfed Rome legions, but now Greek hoplites are insane, etc.

In the given scenario, you probably should have wiped their city states/independents before they could stack huge buffs but ofc that’s not always possible. There is no unit “counter” mechanic to help the defender or a smart player as Joshua states which I agree is the main problem.

random hull
#

Yeh online speed basically not scaling war pacing the same as standard is a bit of a conundrum. The same thing happens in marathon but in the opposite direction where unit spam is basically impossible, so whoever has prepared better has an advantage.

You can buy units twice as often, move them twice as often, attack with them twice as often, it makes sense this leads to a more combat centric experience.
Maybe all combat units should cost relatively more in online speed (and relatively less in marathon) to reflect their distorted impact on the game.

#

Thought:
War is like Advertising

If everyone does it equally, it cancels out and it's less effective for everyone.
But if only one person does War it's a very effective dominance tool.
So arguable any increase in cost would make combat less attractive, but never completely remove War. Because if you have a monopoly on military you are a threat. So maybe increasing the cost across the board could work.

wild yarrow
#

I don’t think anti-cav changes much. They were a non-factor in VI. Even in VI, melee units boiled down to resource availability and tech timing.

I think there needs to be better distinction between infantry and cavalry, but I think there’s a couple CS boosts that are overtuned.

For example, I think there’s city-state ones and Agoge II (Hoplite boost for city-states) gets out of hand too quickly. I also think Order is too strong. It’s worth a full tech level and ~twice as strong as the unit-specific assault bonuses.

Edit: Also with hardwood in patch 1.2, I think it would be interesting to have the unit strategic resources work the same way instead of giving a +CS. That puts them halfway to the “classic” strategic resources without the hamstringing effect of not spawning near it.

tepid saffron
#

As someone who plays single player exclusively, I find going down the military path to achieve victory extremely challenging. The highest level of difficulty I have played is immortal and while it's not impossible to conquer settlements on that difficulty it takes several turns. In the meantime the AI has already completed some other legacy path so it is really annoying but I still enjoy playing nonetheless.

I don't believe that war should be balanced. The more powerful military should win. In the SP case I should be able to roll over the AI if I have taken the steps to build up my military and pursue every tech and military bonus available but I haven't found this to be the case at all because somehow the AI already has cav units which spawn out of nowhere or if you're going up against the mississipians, they have an endless supply of fire arrows with which they can singlehandedly hold a town. So the issue is actually the opposite of what you are experiencing in MP.

Ultimately though, this is a game and it should be fun to play. Maybe the solution is to have customization for SP and MP games which hopefully they will give us in the future. I think for now we just have to work with what we have and learn to get better at our game play.

random hull
# tepid saffron As someone who plays single player exclusively, I find going down the military p...

AI at higher difficulties have increased yeilds, AND your tech tree is more expensive. So they are racing through the tech tree AND have more income to buy units, which ALSO get a combat bonus.
You might have noticed "you're trailing on science" message even when you're keeping pace with science yeilds. It's because they literally pay less for the tech than you

In summary - AI cheats, because making AI smarter is too hard

inland zenith
#

Sounds to me like at least part of the problem is that non-siege units are effective against fortified districts.

inland zenith
#

As for stacking bonuses from resources, the idea in my head is as follows: "Iron: Once per turn, you gain +2 combat strength in a single fight involving your Infantry unit. (More Iron benefits more fights per turn.)"

winged pagoda
tepid saffron
# winged pagoda Don’t take this the wrong way but this sounds like a skill issue to me. I have n...

It very well could be a skill issue. I'm new to the civ franchise with this being the first title I've played. I am able to defeat the AI but at a high cost and I'm not exactly sure what more I can do to gain the upper hand other than to send more units and this takes too long so by the time I finally win the battle, I ultimately lose the game. However, the gripe isn't so much that the AI is too difficult, it's more about having a more powerful military that is easily repelled by a single fire arrow. I'll keep playing because I think the game is so fun with so much nuance, no 2 games are ever the same. It would just be nice if the military was tweaked to represent something more real (e.g. tier 2 and 3 units have a clear advantage over tier1, sanctions actually hurt the AI, etc.)

Since you mention skill though, isn't this the crux of the issue that this thread attempts to address?

torpid quest
#

I think the game needs to be balanced well for both the high skill deity + multiplayer community as well as for those that play on the lower difficulties. Perhaps those are contrary in some ways but that should certainly be the aim.

winged pagoda
# tepid saffron It very well could be a skill issue. I'm new to the civ franchise with this bein...

My main issue is twofold:

  1. when playing MP there are no inherent advantages for your opponents like AI get (tech boosts, an increase to unit strength based on difficulty, etc.) and when you remove those, military becomes the most effective strategy to win BY FAR. It should be equal to other strategies for victory like culture or science
  2. military in general I don’t find fun and lacks strategy because it boils down to just a giant stat check, which is what you experience on higher SP difficulty honestly. There really isn’t counter play. There’s no rock/paper/scissors. It’s just whoever has the bigger number wins. When you apply this to MP there are certain buffs in particular that by definition only one person can get (e.g. city state buff to infantry) and it may not be possible for you to suz them first or kill them, so now you just die.

I do agree that the game in an ideal world should be balanced for high skill SP, high skill MP and lower difficulties for sure

torpid quest
winged pagoda
# torpid quest IRL, war was incredibly expensive which is not represented in the game very well...

This would be devastating for the person on defense though. So you declare war on me and now my economy gets nuked because I was prepared?

Also to give an example of the rock paper scissors I’m talking about let’s take civ 4 as an example. In the ancient era these were the units you had and their bonuses:

archer (ranged)
Spearman - 4 strength - 100% bonus against mounted
Axeman - 5 strength - 50% bonus against melee
Swordsman - 6 strength- 10% bonus against cities
Chariot - 4 strength- 2 movement instead of 1
Horse archer - 6 strength - 2 movement

Yes stats still matter but there’s counterplay here. If my opponent builds a bunch of swordsman to take my city but I have a bunch of axeman to defend I will win.

If my opponent has a bunch of mounted units to flank me but I have a bunch of spearman then I will win, but god forbid I built a bunch of axeman and archers and he has a bunch of mounted units now I lose.

torpid quest
# winged pagoda This would be devastating for the person on defense though. So you declare war o...

well frankly that's what did happen to defenders in wars. so for starters i'm not against punishing defenders somewhat. Perhaps the penalties for negative money can be negligible in defensive wars and crippling in aggressive wars? Or only 1.5x in your own territory (to show great supplies) and 2x or 3x in enemy territory.

Still in favour of a rock-paper-scissor approach like you say but such a system may not solve war being too strong in general by itself.

winged pagoda
#

There's a balance to strike here between realism vs fun vs balanced. Just because war hampered economy in real life, doesn't mean it would be fun and balanced to destroy a defenders economy in game just because. It would also make gold an even more powerful yield than it already is.

They've already tried to do things like increase gold cost for mounted units, but I don't think gold cost or maintenance is the resolution to this issue in general.

torpid quest
#

One of the main points of your post is that war is too powerful. So surely there needs to be some kind of change that makes war harder, less beneficial or in general not as powerful as other methods of playing the game?

Bear in mind an attacking force requires more units than a defending one due to defenders advantage.

winged pagoda
#

Part of it is making war more difficult but part of it is making it more interesting beyond a stat check.

If your opponent has more stats, good night. No amount of walls or units will save you. There’s no counterplay other than don’t let them get the stats, but that’s not entirely in your control either.

I haven’t even touched on how era transition mechanics can exasperate this issue even more for the attackers advantage.

sand badge
quick bloom
#

being a top player on CPL discord for multiplayer, I can say that when top players are playing vs each other sim becomes better than war, warfare clearly is not the main strategy here.

military win condition in modern era is a different matter entirely, and it is only rivaled by science win atm in top skill lobbies - if you ban bombers (which are unbalanced atm) military victory becomes a lot harder - given AI is disabled and cant just farm them. NOW ofcourse if there is a low skill level player in the lobby, you can farm for winning - thats a different thing again, thats kinda same as playing with AI

I could say to the poster him self, with all due respect, that perhaps there can be skill issue involved in thinking warfare is much stronger. when players in a multiplayer game are of inbalanced skill levels, warfare becomes much more viable for the higher skilled players.

also to point out that the point about MING infantry, is directly related to gaining combat bonuses from city states and with combination of momentos.

if you want multiplayer to be highly competitive you need to ban either momentos or atleast certain momentos that enable for example this type of play. You cant use this as a wider example of multiplayer inbalance.

also its generally not a problem in competitive ffa lobbies. since players off the CS

Order promotion seems fine, the whole point of having it being same level as one layer of tech is to make comebacks more viable and snowball less viable in multiplayer. and it has worked very well in civ 7 in this regard. I really love multiplayer in this game since you are almost never irrel and can always comeback.

also generals and battles are 100x more tactical and strategic in this game than previous iterations. and if you get completely stomped, there could be a skill gap between defender and attacker. for a high skill player is everyday that you can defend vs much higher combat bonuses, defending is a lot easier than attacking in civ 7

winged pagoda
# quick bloom being a top player on CPL discord for multiplayer, I can say that when top playe...

With all due respect RedPhoenix I was playing in a game against Arjou and Kage and Unknown was spectating and in this particular instance there was nothing that could be done. They agreed it was imbalanced.

If sim is strong then why is every victory condition that’s hit even in your games and other high level games always war?

Skill gap can definitely exasperate this issue I don’t disagree, but there are things that even skill cannot overcome.

I mean we played a teamer and I was on a team with Arjou and Kage and the entire thing was driven by war and at the end of it Arjou got rolled because the imbalance between mounted units vs melee and the way attack bonuses stack.

It’s just a giant stat check on who has the bigger number. You had more horse resources and Charlemagne, therefore you win, nothing could be done it was just a slow slog until you took him out and we were relatively even on the other front. I almost took a city but the cav strength difference you had was too much to overcome and I got pushed back.

There is a ton of strategy I agree, but it’s so incredibly micro heavy and it’s a giant stat check with little counterplay if you are outmatched in that regard.

I respectfully disagree with your take on war not needing rebalancing efforts.

quick bloom
# winged pagoda With all due respect RedPhoenix I was playing in a game against Arjou and Kage a...

as I said you are referring here only to greece, warclub and citystates combo -> that translates to very powerful ming when you get bonuses from 2 military CS on melee and ranged on same unit.

you are trying to prove a point with a hyperbole that only excist anyway in teamers, where 3 players can protect the citystates - in FFA greece is a lot more balanced.

Nothing further to add really.

and I just said military victory is easiest to achieve for the reasons I outlined in previous message.

if military victory is achieved before modern era, its 95% due to skill gap between players. most players dont fully understand and utilize combat mechanics in the game when playing, i noticed this last time I played against you also. you should have 100% defended against me, but you didn't. and it wasnt because of game mechanics, but lack of understanding them or utilizing them to your advantage.

winged pagoda
quick bloom
# winged pagoda We only played together twice, once when I subbed in for a guy 85% of the way th...

if everyone in game was a pro player, they would have known what greece is going to do with citystates, yet they didn't stop it from happening. that either means they were not pro players or they wanted to let you die (or didn't care enough if you do - hence playing for their own benefit).

the citystate play is the only mechanic in the game that currently gives you on a highroll / and uncontested position -> if combed with ming a very strong (not unbeatable, but hard to beat) advantage.

you can lessen this problem by banning momentos, and its a lot more balanced.

torpid quest
#

Feels like this is getting off track but to confirm, @quick bloom are you saying you like current combat without any changes?

p.s. i did like the debate

winged pagoda
#

Fair enough Red we can take this convo elsewhere because I agree it’s off topic, appreciate the input and different perspective

quick bloom
# torpid quest Feels like this is getting off track but to confirm, <@271375353279283201> are y...

Hey Sir josh 🙂

I feel, the current combat is far better than civ6 or civ5 - its one of the biggest improvements in civ 7. Fighting wars is actually really strategic and interesting. And very high skill based (in multiplayer especially, being a competitive MP player my self).

But I also think some tweaking and adding of new units and stuff to it can be great. I liked they increased the cav unit cost for last patch, was a good balancing act in general. was too easy to 1 turn horse units in online speed.

and to @winged pagoda - this is right on point, I'd say. you are just trying to dodge the bullet I feel 😄 the reason I made my post here is that I don't want the greatly improved combat, to be watered down. Since that, atleast for me, would ruin a large portion of the fun I have playing civ 7.

I greatly appricate if firaxis improves the game overall though, largest problems in the game are however in the UI/UX, bugs and missing features etc. but combat system can use some tweaks too for sure. The commander management would be 100% better if there werent input bugs with it, like when you try to select to take units out of the commander, it keeps unselecting the unpack command constantly in multiplayer - when other players are trying to do their moves same time.

btw for the discussion about different unit types, like anticav being merged into infantry (for example tercio) I think it was one of the better design moves. it also makes the game a lot more tactical and improves the gameflow. also its a lot more realistic, in real life pike and shot, was not an anticav unit. it was simply the only infantry unit of the time (at end mostly muskets, with pikes mixed in to protect sides)

btw @winged pagoda, this discussion has a 5 min timer, so we cant really extensively chat here. and I'm propably not gonna stick around to chat here much more anyway. I agree with you, I think we made our points on the topic. lets give room for others to make theirs.

winged pagoda
#

I am not trying to dodge haha, happy to keep having the conversation here if you would prefer to keep the discussion visible! I just didn’t want to flood this thread with messages the devs or other people may not want to read but maybe people enjoy the discussion?

spare crow
#

Would suggest moving it to another place very much please, feedback threads aren’t the best place for massive discussions ^^

signal cargo
#

IRL, hugely militarized societies suffered sizeable economic and social penalties. I suggest progressively increasing (more than linearly) costs in gold, food, and happiness based on (a) the ratio of military units to population, plus (b) total military unit count. This would inhibit the ability of larger CIV's to simply runaway with military victory, and make smaller CIV's more competitive when pursuing non-mil VC's.

random hull
random hull
#

In my opinion other than unit maintenance there shouldn't be any unmitigatable cost of war (war attrition), that's the whole point of the war support system. Why add new systems when you already have a system for that thing. Just make the existing system cater for what you want.
Big military players are running away with the game too much? Add "diplomatic incident" checks for "big military player" behaviour that rewards the affected civ with influence that they can spend towards war support (there are already a bunch of scenarios where this happens but they could add more)

Basically leave it to the players to put pressure on each other rather than the game just making war prohibitively expensive by default.

torpid quest
#

war support is not fit for purpose for a problem like this. Combining both the cost of war and reduced combat strength by a single number just doesn't work.

random hull
torpid quest
random hull
# torpid quest If i am winning a massive war that would cost me a lot of money. That could be r...

I think of war weariness more about your people being upset about you being at war than about the financial cost of war.
You can have healthy war support (your army and civilians are happy),or you could have negative war support (your army and civilians are unhappy), whether you're winning or losing the war.

If you can afford to out-influence your opponent AND out-military them, then you're doing well. There's no friction from your army or civilians they're all happy to cooperate with you and your war efforts.

Also, I am sometimes losing a war but have a decent influence income and that can help soften the enemy a bit and give them some motivation to accept peace terms.

torpid quest
random hull
#

War Support and your Army Size can move independently of each other, that's all I'm saying.

A really big army can implode under its own weight OR it can thrive. These 2 possible scenarios are perfectly captured by War Support. And the fact the opponent can help influence which of those scenarios happens makes a lot of sense.
Diplomatic incidents, political pressure, rallying your troops, giving speechs to your citizens, propaganda, cultural norms, etc etec all of this is abstracted via "War Support".

If there was just a flat metric where armies get more expensive as they get bigger, is that not just a more complicated version of the current production costs and unit maintenance? What fun/intrigue does that add to the game?

--
Let's just agree to disagree because this isn't the first time we've argued over war support and clearly you're not a fan of the mechanic, I'm not going to convince you otherwise.

torpid quest
#

I am happy to agree to disagree. As you say, we are unlikely to change each other's mind on this. I would like to conclude with a graph that I was working on though. Currently, with the support system as it is, you can only be directly on the Green line of this graph, and you can't be in the Green or Orange boxes at all. Even in the Red and Blue boxes there are degrees of position that a Nation could be in. The Green and Orange boxes do represent places that real empires have been in which cannot be replicated.

image.png
random hull
#

Why can't you have high military strength(big army) and low war support?

crimson panther
# torpid quest I am happy to agree to disagree. As you say, we are unlikely to change each othe...

Sort of agree with this analysis + graph but disagree on one key point- in Civ 7 War Support is not actually based on Military Strength or any measure of current success/failure in the war (though as evidenced by peace negotiation, there IS some kind of analysis of that happening behind the scenes).

It’s based on Influence which is a resource mostly separate from Military matters except for gaining it when surprise war declared or actually LOSING Influence when taking settlements (something which would logically indicate the war is going well for you, but actually can harm your relative war support). Rather, Influence is mostly just a product of tech/economy to get buildings/wonders up or cheesing it completely with Hub Towns (though that’s a topic for another thread).

So basically, rather than missing areas on your graph, War Support doesn’t even reflect how the war is actually going or how the militaries are matched- it doesn’t correspond with your green line at ALL but rather a separate resource/system. Though of course it will impact army strength, potentially a lot, it can be outweighed by other bonuses. So I’m not really sure what to do about this, but ultimately I do agree War Support is just a bit of an inadequate mechanic.

torpid quest
random hull
# crimson panther Sort of agree with this analysis + graph but disagree on one key point- in Civ 7...

Inadequite because influence is too easily available to the larger army? Or inadequate at a fundamental level?

I'm of the opinion the mechanic could be very effective if it's tuned and the inputs are balanced around it.

Also...
"Diplomatic Incidents" which give influence to a player for "grievances against them" and other players supporting wars in my opinion is where the state of the war, and your war support, overlaps. In addition to surprise wars themselves impacting your starting war support. They aren't completely independent.

torpid quest
# crimson panther Sort of agree with this analysis + graph but disagree on one key point- in Civ 7...

The game has 2 distinct mechanics tied to war score.

Direct Combat bonus - the exact source not stated but we can say from: morale, better leaders, better tactics, political speeches, that kinda thing

War weariness - Loss of happiness across your empire which then translates to yield debuffs when negative.

Hence why i made this 2-axis plot. I agree with your 1st paragraph but for me this is just game mechanics doing their best. Germany crushed france not because of larger army or better tech (not really) but by better tactics, commanders etc. War score bonus can represent that and we can say "Germany paid more influence than France and hence won the war".

If we look at the Vietnam war situation, no amount of 'influence spent' (and they spent a LOT) or victories in the field could change the population's view that it was a bad war.

random hull
#

Vietnam War could be simulated somewhat via diplomatic incidents, which other civs can then use to apply pressure to you via War Support.
Being perceived as a bad civ by others makes your own civ pressure you to end the war.

Not nice thing = diplomatic incident

crimson panther
# torpid quest The game has 2 distinct mechanics tied to war score. Direct Combat bonus - the ...

Certainly it governs a lot, but that’s a unidirectional relationship- it’s only governed by some specific factors.

Also in reply to @random hull -Inadequate to govern the whole war because Influence is just one fairly niche thing. You can’t convert things like Gold, Happiness, or victories on the battlefield into more War Support (though I guess you can endure the penalties better, but not the minus CS). Only diplomacy/Influence.

Maybe it could work with many additions. Like you get a city project to hold a parade or something to improve morale, giving you +1 war support. Or taking an enemy city or capital would lead to some kind of event that can affect it. Just influence and a few other niche things like Gate of All Nations is too shallow imo

torpid quest
#

I think the question for me is: "Why should they be tied together like that?" I dont see a good reason, other than Dev time. It doesnt make any logical sense to me and i do love when my strategy games make logical sense.

crimson panther
# torpid quest I think the question for me is: "Why should they be tied together like that?" I ...

I think maybe it makes some sense for the existing War Support system to represent abstractly international relations/morale from embargoes and stuff like that, hence the happiness penalty can stay. Like the institutions and people at home are getting sick of the war?

But I see no reason why it should also affect directly the CS of your units. Maybe my soldiers don’t give a crap about the “world being against us”- maybe it makes them fight better (literally Prussia)

random hull
# crimson panther I think maybe it makes some sense for the existing War Support system to represe...

I think the logic is your military come from your civilian pool, and carry the same disdain as your cities.
Sure this isn't true to every war but it's a simplified mechanic anyways so I think that's fine.
The combat penalty is basically a "happiness penalty" for your troops

And your Prussia example. A militaristic civ can avoid the negative impacts of war support because of war support bonuses, which represent their hardiness and ruthlessness.

There's ways you can engineer your civ through war support bonuses to not care about the world being against you.
But because it's a tug of war system, it's about who doesn't care the most. So if 2 heavily war support buffed armies go at it, one of them will suffer low morale.

errant palm
#

Tbh I love the war system I think it would solve every issue if the terrain bonuses would have a larger and more significant impact.

abstract acorn
#

I will say the Ming unit is super stacked and a tier 1 unit can get to like 80 combat strength on ranged attacks. But I do agree in Modern the military victory is the fastest and its not ideal. I think theres a balance right? in Civ VI its considered bad to war early even if you win, since you'll lose so much you fall behind even if you kill someone. How is this not the case, is it that war pillaging is better? Or taken settlements are better? or is it that the defenders dont get enough (like maybe fortifications or terrain should get a buff somehow)

drowsy rock
#

Rebalance/redesign war with multiplayer in mind

#

Changed title to be a little more specific. Appreciate the feedback on this and will make sure it gets passed along to dev team!

random hull
#

Also, I only recently learned influence is taxed for owning conquered settlements (doesn't seem to explain this anywhere in the UI). This seems like a nice way to gently add more pressure onto warmongers as it's harder for them to keep up with war support, and the war support hurts them more too because of the additional unhappiness from unfounded settlements.

Maybe the influence cost could be better signalled, and presumably tuning that tax is a balance tool at the devs disposal

Ironically it basically functions as social and economic penalties for war (which I was a bit opposed to) but because it only directly hurts you if the other player bothers to pressure you with war support it doesn't feel like the game is explicitly nerfing war.

crimson panther
# random hull Also, I only recently learned influence is taxed for owning conquered settlement...

I do not actually like this mechanic very much- in addition to being poorly communicated, as discussed above you are being punished for being successful in war which is counter-intuitive. Also it affects all your diplomatic activities.

I think it would make more sense for the player who lost the settlement to GAIN that amount to represent sympathy for their cause. It has sorta the same effect, but does not directly punish the one who is winning.

random hull
abstract acorn
quick bloom
#

I think the mechanic most missing from warfare is way to end wars if other player wants to keep the war going infinitely. Such as stability penalty like in Europa universalis. If you refuse a white peace after x number of turns of war, you get -2 unrest in all settlements or -1 war support

torpid quest
quick bloom
torpid quest
quick bloom
# torpid quest They can abuse the current system by pumping influence into war support, crippli...

Your suggestion would just double up on that. Whoever wants to cripple opponent doesn't as much mind getting hurt too.

Mp games are mostly played with bbg mod where war support is nerfed to -2 happiness per tick. (Mainly to reduce player exploitation) (Instead of the exponential formula) Good to know for the discussion.

It is very common in mp games that other players grief others with war support, just as you described. And then never agree to peace until other player bankrupts or rage quits. (Hence bbg nerf)

Thus we need mechanics to end these wars

torpid quest
#

Perhaps you’re right but I still maintain war weariness and war support should be separated. Perhaps the white peace solution should be that if you have no combat for some turns (maybe 5/10/15) you can force a white peace. And if they want to try and block this it costs a lot of influence.

abstract acorn
wild yarrow
#

There was a thread on peace deals/treaties a while ago. IMHO, a clean solution would be to gradually increase the influence cost of rejecting peace deals/treaties. (For context, the suggestion was to rework peace deals from their current “trade screen” approach to the influence-based diplomacy approach)

quick bloom
abstract acorn
random hull
#

Yeh I think issues with influence income create problems for war support, that just shouldn't be problems

shrewd wyvern
#

What if there were "quests" that guided you through getting all the combat bonuses for units? You could subscribe to a quest which tells you to get iron, the civic and befriend a military CS for the bonus. Speaking as someone who's not great at war i don't collect enough bonuses or have enough units.

brave basin
#

I noticed people talking about how war costs pretty much nothing, and that made me remember my idea: a small thing they could add is units outside your territory (or just in enemy territory) having a MUCH higher maintenance cost. Civ has always ignored the idea of "supplies" even though it was a vital part of many many wars in history. Why would having my army halfway across the world cost the same as having them defend in my very borders?