The size of your military is the most important aspect of your civ

[Dis]

OK I'm not basing this on any facts- but then again, when do I ever

But it seems to me that the size of your military determines if you win or lose. Even if you play peaceful you need a large military to keep the ai from bullying you. And for obvious reasons you need a large military to take over other civs. The size of your military also determines your effectiveness in diplomacy.

I'm thinking they use a system similar to civ2 (or was it smac?). Where they add up attack and defense values. Even when I upgraded all my spearman to infantry (I had a huge tech lead - and I had already conquered my entire continent- I use offensive units for defense anyways), the ai changed their attitude towards me. This shows they value the accumulated defense value of all your units.

The same goes with offensive units. Uprgrading all my horsemand and knights to calvary also changed the ai attitude. It does not matter if they have an embassy or not I believe.

This may be common knowlege, but I know some are struggling with the game. In civ2 I got by with minimal defense, and very little offense until I got howitzers. That is not possible in this game.

My advice? keep your units upgraded and build more. The ai will give you the respect you deserve. My only loss came up when the ai did not respect me because of my small military and ganged up on me and wiped me out.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by Dissident
But it seems to me that the size of your military determines if you win or lose. Even if you play peaceful you need a large military to keep the ai from bullying you. And for obvious reasons you need a large military to take over other civs. The size of your military also determines your effectiveness in diplomacy.

In my current game I had a very weak military in the 1st age & 1/2 of the 2nd age. Only Japan tried to bully me & as a result I got my friends to smash them into the ground. They now have 4 cities. Military impacts diplomacy effectiveness, but it doesn't "determine" it.

Only now I'm building up a military simply because I've run out of improvements to build AND recently was thrust into my golden age so I'm producing shields like mad. Right now, I have to be the bully since my game is soooo peaceful. Gandhi must be using his mind control or something. However, the French (Aggressiveness 1) recently declared war on the English (the weakest civ alive who has no strategic resources)... that surprised me, especially since the Russians (Aggressiveness 4) & Germans (Aggressiveness 5) are right next to the English & leaving them alone.

[Dis]

interesting

civs treat me like crap unless I have a large military. maybe I don't kiss enough ass?

[dexters]

I'm not sure if the amount of gold you have plays a role in how other Civs perceive you, but I agree with how the diplomacy system is set.

International politics is all about doing what you say, and having a military force or the financial backing behind your threats does matter. That is why the United States can be brutally effective in doing almost anything it wants to do.

In anycase, someone mentioned we need an option in diplomacy to threaten other Civs with nuclear strikes. I kind of like the idea. Too bad they didn't include it

[Pyrodrew]

The only tribute I've ever paid was to the Persians *once* & they only wanted my territory map & 7 gold flat. And their hoards of 4-2-1 Immortals would of had my few pikemen ripped to pieces... that's changed now that I'm the leading superpower. I don't "kiss ass", but I do talk with the other civs a lot, even if they are furious with me. It also depends on your neighbors as well, if they are the Zulus & Germany... you're going to be in plenty of wars regardless.

[The ANZAC]

Well, hasn't having a large military always been a factor in Ci2 as well?