I want to be nice, but...

[Pyrodrew]

I usually want to be a nice guy in my games, but there are sooo many huge advantages to being at war: territory growth (*huge*), leaders, reduces # of obsolete units, forcing your victims to give you techs/tribute for 20+turns, raising units from vets to elite status, etc.). This leaves little reason to not be at war with *someone* all the time.

For being peaceful you only get avoiding your culture growth cut in 1/2, but I've seen few here able to get a cultural victory anyways. And my culture is usually one of the best even when I am less peace-like.

Ideas...

Peace Points - Civ2 gave points for Civilizations who could remain at peace (or was it world peace?). Either way, why did they remove this from Civ3?

Peaceful Leaders - Assume a typical warmonger gets 6 leaders per game (?I know some get 10 others get 0, lets assume it's 6). What if a Civ who remained at peace with all other civs could gain a Peaceful Leader after x turns? If y=number of turns in a typical Civ game, then x = y/6.


Opinions? Other ideas?

[Spiffor]

Mmmmh... Maybe not a "peaceful" leader, but a "builder" leader : being at peace 90 turns (540/6) is pretty easy, and in most games, almost every Civ will get a leader after the first 90 turns. Maybe we should have other events to trigger the appearence of a leader non resulting from war : building a certain wonder, earning some number of culture points in total, having some per-turn culture points in one city, discovering (not trading) a certain difficult tech etc.
Varying the triggers would probably add some depht to the builders strategy, and having leaders simply for peace could be a good idea. But earning a new leader simply after 90 turns is not the good calculation, as many civs will get one at the same time. Maybe something else, like being x+x/2 turns at peace in a row, where x is the number of turns the second most peaceful Civ was at peace in a row at its best... Wow, I don't think I was clear, here's an example : the Indians are the second most peaceful Civ you know, having waged peace 40 turns in a row ; when you have waged peace 60 turns (40 + 50% of 40), you get a peaceful leader.
Just ideas, but I still think leaders for peacemongers should be less numerous than leaders for warmongers, since peacemongers would be then tremendously advantaged to build wonders. Any suggestions ?

[David Murray]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew
I usually want to be a nice guy in my games, but there are sooo many huge advantages to being at war: territory growth (*huge*), leaders, reduces # of obsolete units, forcing your victims to give you techs/tribute for 20+turns, raising units from vets to elite status, etc.). This leaves little reason to not be at war with *someone* all the time.

What about things like war weariness? Staying under monarchy or communism impacts upon your economic performance. Built lots of culture-enhancing improvements and you can assimilate enemy cities. Besides, war is rather unpleasant unless you have the upperhand.

[Pyrodrew]

being at peace 90 turns (540/6) is pretty easy, and in most games, almost every Civ will get a leader after the first 90 turns.

If the Civ is never at war, then it can never get a leader even after 90 turns. If another Civ declares war on that Civ then that Civ is no longer at peace & thus the Peaceful Leader bonus wouldn't apply.

here's an example : the Indians are the second most peaceful Civ you know, having waged peace 40 turns in a row ; when you have waged peace 60 turns (40 + 50% of 40), you get a peaceful leader

Although that's a good idea too.

I still think leaders for peacemongers should be less numerous than leaders for warmongers, since peacemongers would be then tremendously advantaged to build wonders.

But the peacemonger sacrafices land & growth expansion (which means less resources & score points too). Would you prefer 20 more cities producing 20 more units with 4 more resources OR a wonder? I think giving the peacemongers a *few* more wonders for their smaller empires wouldn't unbalance things at all.

What about things like war weariness?

War weariness only impacts you if: 1>a large number of enemy units are in your territory for a long time OR 2>several of your units are in enemy territory. Even a pacifist can be hurt by war weariness under (1) & that also means you're probably doing something wrong. And (2) - I find no problem being in a democracy & at war once I have Cavalry (movement 3). My units are not IN enemy territory if I take over their city! And IF I fail, that means they are only there for 1 turn. And luxuries keep my people plenty happy. By Industrial Age & Modern Age the human player gets most the wonders - meaning Statue of Liberty too. Not including police stations to help. The little productivity I do lose from a happy citizen going to content is extremely minimal compared to everything I gain (mentioned in 1st post).

[Inverse Icarus]

it was world peace. they had that stupid blue bar for it.

and for some reason i can't get a leader in my current game. i'm china, and i'm running around with a ton of elite riders, slaughtering 3 AIs at once, and NOTHING.

[Spiffor]

I think giving the peacemongers a *few* more wonders for their smaller empires wouldn't unbalance things at all.

That's what I wanted to say. A few would be good. As many as for warmongers would be unbalancing

[Drug zBla]

"War, what is it good for?" - is defintely a rethorical question when it comes down to civ3.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Drug zBla
"War, what is it good for?" - is defintely a rethorical question when it comes down to civ3.

I agree! Imo, you can hardly win a game if you dont go to war. Besides, you're 99% sure that one civ or another will attack you someday, so might as well do it first. Offense is always the best defense.

Spec.

[PerpetualNewbie]

Yeah, I think about that quite a lot, too. If you don't wage at least one ancient war, you are really at a disadvantage. And in ancient, there is no big advantage to *not* being at war. Just a single road pillage early enough can be a big deal, even if you don't kill a single troop. Wiping out a mine or irrigation is even better, particularly if the AI is trying to drag water across the plains to one of his towns. Pillaging luxuries and resources is obviously a big boon. Crippling economy early and often is much easier than trying to outbuild him, if outbuilding him is even possible. There is no builder equivalent to pillaging.

And that completely ignores the great leader "problem". Maybe if they were more frequent, and less powerful, like instead of "Hurry" giving up to 1000 shields, it gave a decent boost, I'm thinking 100 shields, it would still be worth it to go to war, but building would stil be a possibility. Maybe if a great leader gave you the ability to create an "army" of 2 units, and each leader sacrificed into the army gave you the ability to add another unit. Of course, I tend to make my first army with just a single unit, anyway, so it would not make that much of a difference at that point in my games.

I kind of wish there was a way of making a builder strategy winnable at higher levels. I'm not sure peace points is the way, though, since that encourages opponents to declare war, or force you to declare war. Higher culture points would *not* work, since that just makes warfare *necessary* to put the culture leader down a peg or two. Heightened dependence on trade would *not* work, since it becomes much easier to take over resources than to try to work out a deal with antagonistic AI personalities. Desertion/defection of military units would be a mistake, IMO, since it would just mean that you go in with totally overwhelming force. Higher costs of military upkeep? That might work, at least until the advent of railroads (another overly powerful feature). Unit build costs reduced by a function of per-turn city culture would *mandate* conquest of highly built-up cities.

One thing that *would* help to some extent is to take away the insane benefit religious civs get for changing gov't. Playing Japan, for instance, you change whenever war weariness starts getting you down, no real penalty. But then again, that does nothing with respect to ancient era wars when wars are the most effective.

Raising the cost of units relative to city improvements would help though it is already nearly hopelessly skewed towards buildings. A library costs 80, swordsmen and horsemen, the units of the day, cost 30. A cathedral costs 160, a knight costs 70. Let's see, should I build two knights or a cathedral...? And if you are either scientific or religious...

Maybe taking away the upgrade path, or at least part of it. Yes, they already split the warrior, horseman and navy paths, but I find myself building spearmen whenever I have nothing better to do, and once I upgrade them to riflemen, those stacks become effective attacking forces vs. the troops they encounter, particularly when augmented with upgraded catapults.

Reducing the effectiveness of military depending on how far they are from the capitol, similar to corruption? I suppose that would help, though it would slow the turn computations down to a crawl, and makes leaders for rushing a capitol on the front lines incredibly valuable. It also makes it incredibly unfair to a civ that starts on an isolated island, or has a poorly-placed capitol.

Zone of control for all garrisoned units for the entire 21-tile city limits? That has some possibility, though if you have enough units garrisoned to do that, you aren't really playing builder, anyway. You might as well go to war. Maybe if Zone of Control damage immediately reduced the attacker to 1 HP, rather than just subtracting one HP. Nah, just forces you to attack with overwhelming force. Does reduce the effectiveness of siege bombardments, though...

I can't think of much of a way to decrease the importance of war in the game that doesn't do more harm than good, with the possible exception of devaluing great leaders. If they were less powerful, that would certainly reduce the value of

Don't get me wrong. I love the game. I just think it is not really designed to be a peaceful empire-building game. If you want to do well, you have to abandon modern squeamishness about war, and take your cue from history -- roll up your pantslegs and wade about in a big pile of blood and gore...

[Cookie Monster]

My advice is not to be nice anymore. Just kill all the ai's as soon as you can. If you don't they will certainly kill you.

I used to love playing civ2. I'm pretty good at it, could do better but I hold my own. I usually play on prince level in civ2.

Civ3 however has taught me like I've never seen before how computer programmers can create a game that will give a human being a heart attack or nervous breakdown. No matter what you do, no matter what advice you receive just do one thing. Kill off the ai and don't worry about building or researching anything. Just go to war.

Maybe you can tell I'm really mad but every game I play ends up in my death. I'm sick of this. Fix 1.17f and

[David Murray]

Well, I can play on Warlord and build happy relations throughout the entire game by trading and being polite.

I heard on "Does Doug Know?" today that 80% of Americans think of themselves as rude. Maybe if you all brush up on your manners you won't have to be at war so often....

[Pyrodrew]

I can play on Warlord and build happy relations throughout the entire game by trading and being polite.

Sure that can be done on Warlord. And you can also gain territory through culture... but it's reeeeeaaaallllllyyyy slow. It's not a matter of trying to get trading & happy relations, but simply what is the most effective & efficient way to play. I would rather be a polite warmonger with happy relations then any type of peace builder.

My advice is not to be nice anymore. Just kill all the ai's as soon as you can.

That's what strategy is pulling me towards, which is fine now. But the less viable options there are available in MP the more predictable everyone's paths become. Some advantage should go to the path less taken.

I heard on "Does Doug Know?" today that 80% of Americans think of themselves as rude.

Well if it's on TV it must be true!

Other ideas...

Increase the costs of Military Wonders - this would make the non-military wonders more attractive. But then wouldn't the warmonger simply build more units to conquer these Military Wonders that other Civs have... if they don't do that already?

Increase the costs of barracks - now warmongers will have to pay more $ or time before they get their vets. However, Sun Tzu provides free barracks. On the other hand, SunTzu takes time to get & in multiplayer only 1 warmonger can have SunTzu. This may make that warmonger a much bigger threat, but other warmongers can team up against him to balance the power.

I also like the game & don't mind war. It's just in history also shows there are times of peace for a Civ once in a while. Must "who is my next victim?" be the only question to answer?

[bobbyd1947]

I was complaining about essentially the same thing in another thread. In this version of Civilization, it is virtually impossible, if one is playing above warlord level, to win without aggressively destroying or severely maiming other civilizations on one's continent. That is NOT the type of game I choose to play. In Civ2 I could almost always win a science victory at the emperor level by building a strong defense, and wars were invariably short and decisive. In this idiocy, wars go on for decades , even when the A1 has no chance of victory. Civ2 was like an ultra-sophisticated chess game; this is more like Super Mario Brothers.

[David Murray]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew


Sure that can be done on Warlord. And you can also gain territory through culture... but it's reeeeeaaaallllllyyyy slow. It's not a matter of trying to get trading & happy relations, but simply what is the most effective & efficient way to play. I would rather be a polite warmonger with happy relations then any type of peace builder.

I don't know if killing everyone is the most efficient way to play. I find that, personally, corruption and the hassle of having to move armies around detracts heavily from the idea of military domination. After all, what's the point in causing all that aggravation just to own a bunch of cities weighed down by corruption?

[Ninot]

Well, ive heard arguments that Rome began its decline the moment it stopped expanding its borders. The spoils of war always kept the people happy, the new slaves from a conquered region were a decent bonus, and a threat would be extinguished (perhaps... Republic of Rome didn't have the habbit of invading areas that weren't a threat, that was more of an Imperial thing)


The benefits of war (over defeatable enemies) are indeed, huge.

[Pyrodrew]

I don't know if killing everyone is the most efficient way to play. I find that, personally, corruption and the hassle of having to move armies around detracts heavily from the idea of military domination. After all, what's the point in causing all that aggravation just to own a bunch of cities weighed down by corruption?

Not necessarily killing everyone, but constantly being at war & gaining new territory. True, after a point corruption strangles any profit from the cities. However, you still gain points/power from the land, resources, gain technologies/gold from tribute of your victims, still gain leaders to complete wonders & your forbidden palace, and still take away land/points/culture/units/power from your enemies by doing so. Who cares if they are corrupt, leave them corrupt. Remember # of cities corruption is minimal compared to distance corruption. A large empire allows for a well placed capital & forbidden palace to yield heavy profits & benefits.

[David Murray]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew

you still gain points/power from the land, resources, gain technologies/gold from tribute of your victims, still gain leaders to complete wonders & your forbidden palace, and still take away land/points/culture/units/power from your enemies by doing so.

The thing that gets me the most about being constantly at war is the fact that cities building troops end up being unable to produce city improvements. If it is a good strategy to remain at war against defeatable opponents, what then is a good remedy for the fact that one's cities may end up without coliseums, libraries etc...?

[bigvic]

Originally posted by UberKruX
it was world peace. they had that stupid blue bar for it.

and for some reason i can't get a leader in my current game. i'm china, and i'm running around with a ton of elite riders, slaughtering 3 AIs at once, and NOTHING.

Yeah, similar prob w/ my German game. Usually I like to chill and build early w/ the Germans, trying to get science and development kicking in, then start blitzing late, but this game I got squeezed early, found myself next to civs whose UU's would not appear til after I had a chance to eliminate or critically hurt them, so decided to open up fighting. Amazingly, before the ancient era was up. I had three leaders, all of which I dumped into armies in order to build the pentagon to make up for lack of early or mid UU's. Built both pentagon & heroic epic, at the expense of developing, and building great wonders. I assumed that w/ the heroic epic, leaders would come out of the woodwork to be used exclusively to rush buy wonders. Yeah, sure! Almost to the industrial age now, no freakin leaders and precious few elite promotions. Guess I just used up all my luck early, but sometimes I wonder. Seems like game hates Germany.

[Panzer]

I agree that you have to have at least 1 early war in order to get the necessary resources and cities. That's why I like to play as the Germans. If I discover another Civ that's too close for comfort, than that civ is dead. After I absorbed that Civ into my empire I start building improvements nd Wonders. So I usually conquer one Civ in the Ancient Era (two if that is required, although that has seldom happened so far.)

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by bobbyd1947
I was complaining about essentially the same thing in another thread. In this version of Civilization, it is virtually impossible, if one is playing above warlord level, to win without aggressively destroying or severely maiming other civilizations on one's continent. That is NOT the type of game I choose to play. In Civ2 I could almost always win a science victory at the emperor level by building a strong defense, and wars were invariably short and decisive. In this idiocy, wars go on for decades , even when the A1 has no chance of victory. Civ2 was like an ultra-sophisticated chess game; this is more like Super Mario Brothers.

Well stated

The experience you had with Civ2 is similiar to mine. It is idiotic that wars in Civ3 continue for decades without accomplishing anything.

[Beren]

OK, so war is important in Civ3. But it's like that in real life as well. Peaceful domination is much harder than military domination. I like Civ3 like this.

It is a disadvantage that games look a bit more alike, but you still can try to do it peaceful and it is actually possible. And about leaders, who cares about them. They never appear at all, an example:
I whiped out about 4 civs before I got a leader. Built an army, built heroic epic. I whiped out the other 11 civs and I didn't get a leader at all.
Now I don't know about different world sizes, but I don't like playing huge in the first place. (It is much more fun, fighting 15 civs on a tiny map.)

[bigvic]

Originally posted by Beren
OK, so war is important in Civ3. But it's like that in real life as well. Peaceful domination is much harder than military domination. I like Civ3 like this.

It is a disadvantage that games look a bit more alike, but you still can try to do it peaceful and it is actually possible. And about leaders, who cares about them. They never appear at all, an example:
I whiped out about 4 civs before I got a leader. Built an army, built heroic epic. I whiped out the other 11 civs and I didn't get a leader at all.
Now I don't know about different world sizes, but I don't like playing huge in the first place. (It is much more fun, fighting 15 civs on a tiny map.)

15 civs on a tiny map? How? I can't do that. Do you have some sort of patch or mod? Is this a European thing?

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by bigvic


15 civs on a tiny map? How? I can't do that. Do you have some sort of patch or mod? Is this a European thing?

you can use civedit to allow for as many civs as you want. go to rules edit, then its under the world sizes tab.
pretty fun to have a tiny map w/ 16 civs. maybe 2-3 cities max, bloody. of course, the ai I think doesn't realize how one city can shift power in that case, so it can be an easy(er) win on a difficult level

[bigvic]

excellent! funny how these things slip by one.