On these settings and aim, is it possible to win without at least 3 wars in a typical game:

Civ IV vanilla
Leader: Gandhi (spiritual / industrious)
aim: culture victory
Random AI Leaders (for some reasons, Monty is there in EVERY game I played)
Map type: Lakes, Size: huge
No barbs, no other change in default settings

I am playing at Monarch now (won at Prince earlier) and find that it is impossible to play a "peaceful" game I had hoped for. I have to be prepared for war virtually as if I am a warmonger !

Sigh. Perhaps. I guess. Although if there is a limit on wars, I would play Always peace. But that would be cheating with Gandhi, not?

sanjay_111,

Here are two links that may be of interest to you:

Godotnut's Guide to Totally Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/peaceful_deity_cultural.php)

Nonviolent Gandhi (aka as no military Gandhi) (http://www.compoundeye.net/civ/nonviolent/index.html) This was played on Monarch difficulty.

I hope these links help you achieve your goal. :)

sanjay_111,

Here are two links that may be of interest to you:

Godotnut's Guide to Totally Peaceful Deity Cultural Victory (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/peaceful_deity_cultural.php)

Nonviolent Gandhi (aka as no military Gandhi) (http://www.compoundeye.net/civ/nonviolent/index.html) This was played on Monarch difficulty.

I hope these links help you achieve your goal. :)


Kesshi, Thanks for the links.

I have read both earlier. I was hoping to achieve with only one "cheat" - no barbs. But both the above seem to also handpick the opponents. Gandhi definitely does and Godotnut also seems to do it.

Perhaps I will do it too. With Monty and at least one of Alex or Nap on my map every time, it IS perhaps impossible.

I am playing at Monarch now (won at Prince earlier) and find that it is impossible to play a "peaceful" game I had hoped for. I have to be prepared for war virtually as if I am a warmonger !

You can win on Monarch without beeing involved into a war yourself. That does however not mean that you dont need to be prepared for one. If you are weak, someone will come for you. So have a strong army to scare away idiots. (not need to be huge, just strong enought to not drop out in the power graph)

You can not be friend with everyone - what you need is to gain a pair of good friends without making the rest really angry.

Be nice to people. Trade a lot (better you sell them a expensive tech getting some "Fair trade +" than they come bullying for it). Look for Favourite Civics of your neighbors. I.g. you want to accumulate as many diplo + as you can without pissing someone else off.

Expand fast early on, as you cant gain lots of land later (culture flipping might still be a option tho)

Don't adopt a religion, till you are sure it is safe (I.g. your friends must be in same religion, and you need some diplo + with the infidels to offset the different religions anger).
Aggressively spreading a religion to try and build a one-religion world might be a good approach.

Then go for a peacefull victory. Diplo might be within reach. Otherwise i would try Culture rather than Space (the sooner you win, the less time they have to dow on you ;))

You can win on emperor without wars.

If you want to win peacefully, you need to meet two goals:
Get a reasonable number of cities out before all available land is distributed.
Prevent others from attacking you.

Goal number one calls for very rapid early expansion, but on Monarch difficulty it is almost always possible to get at least 6 reasonable cities out before running out of space. If you can block off a sizeable proportion of land, even more cities are possible.

Goal number two requires military deterrence and some diplomacy. Getting a tech lead is rather important because it serves both at the same time: you'll have up-to-date units, keeping your power rating high, as well as technologies to give away to other civs to bribe them to war with eachother.

You're well advised to build Barracks in all of your cities during (and immediately after) the initial expansion phase, because they greatly contribute to your power rating in the beginning. This is especially nice if you're lacking Copper and Horses, because in that case you can't inflate your power rating with the associated early units. The power from the Barracks (and some Archers) will buy you the time to get to Iron Working without being attacked.

Obviously it's also wise to stay out of any religion, and only adopt one when you can be reasonably sure that it won't draw any religious zealots into a war with you.

At the end of the day I would say that the peaceful expansion (= land grab) is the harder of the two problems. Staying at peace is often easy after the religious fronts have consolidated and you're alive and well in the tech race. After all, even if you go for an early war (or two) at some point you'll want to keep peace with everybody unless your goal is domination or conquest.

The difference lies in if or if not to take the liberty of an early (or medieval) war to extend the empire past the threshold needed for a builder-type victory.

Religion is a very powerful tool in diplomacy if used right. It's the easiest way to get to Friendly with civs so that they don't attack you, but make sure your religion doesn't tick off one of the more powerful civs unless you have other ways to keep them happy (favourite civics etc). It also helps to keep warmongering civs like Genghis Khan and Montezuma in war through bribery, just to keep them away from you. Because of this I often have a one of two civs that really hate me, but since I have a friendly civ and/or a warmonger on my side to bribe into war I don't have any problems.
In my experience, hardcore warmongers like Genghis Khan *will* come after you if you don't keep them busy with war bribes. Bribing such civs is pretty easy too, since they're quite backward.

I usually win on Monarch with 1 aggressive war on the start, and maybe a defensive war or two. Taking over your nearest neighbor really shoots you ahead.

With the settings you putted, it depends strongly of the oponents. If you have Monty nearby, unless you can entartain him elsewhere ( the key is here. You need to keep him busy, otherwise he'll attack you no matter what the odds are. Monty is just loony ....), it is dificult to convince the bonehead that Jags vs Rifles will not lead him anywhere :lol:

With the settings you putted, it depends strongly of the oponents. If you have Monty nearby, unless you can entartain him elsewhere ( the key is here. You need to keep him busy, otherwise he'll attack you no matter what the odds are. Monty is just loony ....), it is dificult to convince the bonehead that Jags vs Rifles will not lead him anywhere :lol:

Not so unrealistic historically. Montezuma thought that his warriors could fight of the Spanish Conquistadors and we all know haw that ended up. If you don't, try to find a Mexican that speaks the Aztek language.

Technically he could... most of Cortez army and all of his suply cam from nearby tribes that were not happy with Aztec treatement... in fact Cortez was badly beaten in the first time he had been in Mexico, before he started gathering local support.

And BTW Nahuatl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl) ( the Aztec language ) is still spoken today ;)

Yes, unfortunatly Random = Monty for I too, plus especially since BTS he is the definate top 'random leader/race' I roll if playing random.

It got to the point where my GF and I will start a multiplayer game, I will go 'random' then we both chant 'monty monty ' untill the game loads and up pops, you guessed it, Monty.

try to find a Mexican that speaks the Aztek language.Millions speak it.

I kept trying again yesterday evening. The problem is like this: if you want to keep building culture (temples, religions, wonders) you tend to start falling behind in military tech and if you focus on military tech and keep building modern units, then u start falling behind in culture.

There is really no other problem in fending off wars.

That non violent gandhi topic is one of the best topics i have read till date. Very well written and very well carried off diplo victory good job done by the author

Made it happen finally !

Not that I won - lost to Saladin by 5 turns. If Saladin's shipbuilding were delayed by another 6 turns, i would have achieved legendary culture in Delhi, Bombay and Madras and would have won.

But at least I played the entire game without a single war being announced on me. The answer is quite simple and became clear to me from the "non violent Gandhi" article and some of the posts here.

The simple learning is - don't adopt a religion ! Found as many as you can and spam temples but don't adopt any religion as ur state religion. I used to convert to Hinduism - my first religion and that pissed off many of the more fanatical civs. This time I did not and first time saw the likes of Saladin and Isabella without a sour face annoyed at me. They were cautious to pleased most of the time.

You lose one happy face in some of the cities till "free religion" becomes available. But there are many other ways of pleasing ur citizenry.

It also perhaps helped that the following three were not there in my game (which is nothing short of a miracle !!!) - Monty, Nap, Alex.

Thanks for all the help offered guys !

I have had a few totally peaceful Monarch wins, but it is definitely the more risky approach.

The risk comes from:

1/ 2+ AIs decide to go for cultural victory and 1 of them may even form a DP with the strongest AI or become its voluntary vassal. In this situation, when forced to war, my military production simply cannot match the strongest AI late-game to go on the offensive and raze the culture cities. Turtling is not an option.

2/ 1 AI wins an AP diplomatic vote. The thing I hate most is when I do not have the AI religion, I open border with the founder of that religion hoping he will spread it to me. Yes, he finally spread it to 1 of my cities and next turn, BAM, the diplomatic win vote is passed.

3/ An aggressive AI such as Shaka ends up vassalising everyone and becomes a monster, then goes free religion. I lose the religious dip bonus, and at pleased, DoWs on me with his huge veteran SoD.

I find that the easiest way to Monarch victory is to build SH, put down 2-3 cities, spam axe+sword and go straight for either the Hindu or Buddist founder (GP from SH for the shrine). After eliminating that AI, go for another AI, preferably either an aggressive AI such as Monty/Shaka to avoid the problem later, or a wonder-spammer, or another religion founder. Land is production, production is power.

1/ 2+ AIs decide to go for cultural victory and 1 of them may even form a DP with the strongest AI or become its voluntary vassal. In this situation, when forced to war, my military production simply cannot match the strongest AI late-game to go on the offensive and raze the culture cities. Turtling is not an option.

Agree, although this can, to some extent, be hindered by the use of spies (sabotaging productions and buildings that provide :culture:, as well as improvements in the BFC. Poison and unrest are powerful aswell, when the :) and :health: buildings are down.

2/ 1 AI wins an AP diplomatic vote. The thing I hate most is when I do not have the AI religion, I open border with the founder of that religion hoping he will spread it to me. Yes, he finally spread it to 1 of my cities and next turn, BAM, the diplomatic win vote is passed.

In that case I would go Theo. If you have AP religion, get it in all cities. If not, turtle Theocracy for protection. Since you are not on the offensive, the risk of taking a city with the AP religion is minimal. Watch out what you culture flip though.

3/ An aggressive AI such as Shaka ends up vassalising everyone and becomes a monster, then goes free religion. I lose the religious dip bonus, and at pleased, DoWs on me with his huge veteran SoD.

Uh-oh. I've got no solution for that one. :wallbash:

As you said yourself, AIs such as Shaka and Brennus are best taken care of early. The hard way. :lol:

Actually, I played a totally peaceful space race victory as William on monarch last week just for fun (I realise that I have not won any games without DoWing on anyone in the past few weeks). I REXed, then turtled and made a DP with ZY, the AP controller. I managed to stay friendly with him the entire game and only had a token military force. However, ZY DoWed on other AIs 1 by 1 (except Isabella - who was on the other side of the map -and myself) and soon, every single one of them capitulated. The snowballing effect was frightening. For the last 2 wars, I tried to bribe him to make peace to avoid him winning a domination victory but he "prefers to win the game, TYVM"... I won the space race victory when ZY had 60% of the land and just DoWed on Isabella. :eek:

The problem with totally peaceful victory is that it leaves so much to luck even if I manage to stay out of trouble with diplomacy. It is certainly harder to win a peaceful victory than a warmonger victory in my opinion.

I was trying to play the current HOF Major Gauntlet at Emperor level and had a very peaceful game unintentionally. Unfortunately, the required victory is Conquest!

I was able to take an early lead by about turn 100 having eliminated my nearest opponent and building/capturing 6 cities. I was slightly ahead of all the AI players on tech up through the middle game.

Unfortunately, Fredrick built the AP, which I was not going for since almost everyone shared a common religion and I did not want a Diplomatic (Religious) victory. That was by biggest mistake. For the rest of the game Julius Caesar was the resident of the AP and he passed a resolution to "Stop war with Mesix" everytime I declared war on anybody...even when he was at war with them too. This prevented me from ever going to war and all of the AI players from ever declaring war on me.

Neadless to say, this was very frustrating for an attempte at a Conquest win.

Back to the drawing board.

You can win on emperor without wars.

I dont believe this, I've won an emperor game with almost every leader and I really don't think I've ever done it without a war whether it defensive or offensive there has been some bloodshed in every game. I would really like to see a walkthrough or screenshots from one of the few people that claim emperor can be won without a war with normal settings on a normal sized map.

Monarch on the other hand I have won without any wars, but even that is rare.

You can win in emperor without wars..... (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6475042&postcount=33)

Sorry for the lack of detail though....

And pls don't tell me this is a LHC and , thus abnormal. This map is a perfectly legit Fractal......

Absolutely, you can win Emperor without wars. The War Academy contains a strategy for a peaceful culture win on deity. Of course, culture is a bit different.

For a peaceful space win, I think you need an isolated or watery map. r_rolo's example is one of the former. As an example of the latter, I am playing the current PYL as Washington and absolutely owning the AI. When I won the Liberalism race I was 50% ahead in score and took Physics. Not that I beelined it. I already had Constitution, Music and Economics.

I'm planning on Domination (the challenge being to conquer from a start with absolutely no production aside from the capital - and it's only mediocre). Still, Space without war would be a breeze. Far easier actually.

For a peaceful space win, I think you need an isolated or watery map.

With good diplomacy and/or wussy neighbours, it ought to be possible on Terra as well.

Not that I've ever tried it. :ar15:

With good diplomacy and/or wussy neighbours, it ought to be possible on Terra as well. Hadn't thought about that but I'm sure you are right. The key is to be able to stake out a big empire through peaceful expansion. Portugal on Terra should be easy.

@OP:

The link in my signature is for a Monarch/Gandhi game. I never fought in a war that game. The key was staking out territory aggressively and building up a decent army. It also helped that the nutcases were on the other continent. :)

Gandhi, if left alone, can do some incredible things with a Specialist Economy -- whether through wonderspamming or traditional high-food specialist cities.

My game also featured liberal use of spies. Next time, I suggest that you have a few spies ready to go against your space rival to delay his construction efforts, since an invasion is out.

@OP:

The link in my signature is for a Monarch/Gandhi game.

I went through your entire game and absolutely LOVED it. I would love to play one like that but my skill level is a little low.

Somehow I always get invaded quite soon and while I can now fend off invasions, it really disrupts the empire.

I have nearly won on vanilla though even after being invaded a couple of times (missed by five turns, I am sure I can win in a couple of tries but switched to BTS now)

PS: Since you like roleplaying, here is a suggestion for you (I will try this myself too):

Indian civilization has been creative too. In fact, while spi / org trait of Ashoka is valid for brief periods of history, spi / philo would be valid for ENTIRE tenure of Indian civ. Same holds for spi / creative. I wish they replace Ashoka with a spi / creative leader.

However, you can mod Gandhi to be spiritual / creative and play a culture victory game with similar constraints that you had in your earlier RP game. Victory in this must be culture victory.

I have just learned through these forums how to mod the traits and will be trying today evening.