Better to eliminate a Civ completely or leave them one city?

JeSuisNapoleon · Apr 9, 2014

I was speaking generally. There is no set number of turns.
Like Memoryjar said, keep hitting his units, cities.

Feel free to bring up the trade wind and ask what deal will end the conflict each turn. you will almost always get a better deal.

Also keep in mind that if they have nothing left, then they cant give you anything. At that point your just milking them for unit XP for your army.

beetle · Apr 9, 2014

Gary King said:
In what cases would you still eliminate a Civ?

Since no one mentioned it, late game Civs with one trash city sometimes cause grief with spies and CS coops. One game with England my level 2 spies in the same CS were not able to prevent coops, so I took the diplo hit and eliminated her.

Memoryjar · Apr 9, 2014

In what cases would you still eliminate a Civ?

Mainly for fast Cultural or Diplomatic victories. Wipe out all civs but one, shorten a game.
Cultural : keep alive AI with few culture, annihilate all others.
Diplomatic : Kill all but one, allow you to have united nations and world leader election when you reach atomic era instead information era.

chadsteam · Apr 9, 2014

In BNW, is it true that if I eliminate my single continent sharing neighbor before any other civs are discovered, I won't take the diplo hit?

I'm having problems with Greece spamming cities on our small continent and think it would be easier to just take their Capitol quickly, rather than this stupid cat and mouse game of taking every new planted city and razing it to keep our small continent open for my expansion goals.

**Plus their Capitol is sitting in a very good location

Gary King · Apr 9, 2014

Memoryjar said:
In what cases would you still eliminate a Civ?

Mainly for fast Cultural or Diplomatic victories. Wipe out all civs but one, shorten a game.
Cultural : keep alive AI with few culture, annihilate all others.
Diplomatic : Kill all but one, allow you to have united nations and world leader election when you reach atomic era instead information era.

If you kill all Civs but one, I'd imagine it's often faster to just go for the Domination victory then? Unless the one Civ is alone on an island somewhere, for instance, or you are already really close to the other victories.

Memoryjar · Apr 9, 2014

Gary King said:
If you kill all Civs but one, I'd imagine it's often faster to just go for the Domination victory then? Unless the one Civ is alone on an island somewhere, for instance, or you are already really close to the other victories.

Yes, it is. I do this because I mostly play Civ V for friendly competition on this site (hall of fame and game of the month). So next to this, I start a game with an objective : win in a victory condition as fast as possible.
With experience, I feel full domination too easy and basics, so I like to mix domination with another victory condition, diplo and funnier, cultural.

klaskeren · Apr 9, 2014

most of the time just take the capitol and move on, there is not really time to take excess cities, only if they are in the way

beetle · Apr 9, 2014

Memoryjar said:
Yes, it is. I do this because I mostly play Civ V for friendly competition on this site (hall of fame and game of the month). So next to this, I start a game with an objective : win in a victory condition as fast as possible. With experience, I feel full domination too easy and basics, so I like to mix domination with another victory condition, diplo and funnier, cultural.

IMHO, this is a very artificial setup, and thus a poor answer to the OP question. Of course, this is the status quo with HoF and GoTM (which I also think is counterproductive, but both are quite popular, so maybe thats just sour grapes on my end.)

Gary King · Apr 9, 2014

klaskeren said:
most of the time just take the capitol and move on, there is not really time to take excess cities, only if they are in the way

I usually try to do that, but often times the capital is buried deep between several other cities. Should I just leave the peripheral cities and move right past them, or take them and puppet/raze them?

Normally I will take the cities between me and the enemy's capital because at the very least, the territory I gain can be useful for healing my units faster, for faster movement (since I can use the roads/railroads now), and for stationing my airplanes.

So I will usually try and blaze a straight line towards the capital, but still take cities along the way, because why not?

Memoryjar · Apr 9, 2014

beetle said:
IMHO, this is a very artificial setup, and thus a poor answer to the OP question. Of course, this is the status quo with HoF and GoTM (which I also think is counterproductive, but both are quite popular, so maybe thats just sour grapes on my end.)

I understand. It's how I play this game. Answer was not for OP, but question when you need to wipe a Civ. If you want something different but a fast diplo or cultural victory, there's actually no advantage to do this.

It's a game. Everyone can play it like he wants.

JeSuisNapoleon · Apr 10, 2014

Also, I think its worth adding that even on Pangea, you can wipe out a AI before they have met anyone to avoid the diplo hit, its just nearly impossible. Since every AI will be exploring, they are going to meet someone by turn ~40 almost no matter what.

If you had some unusually fast early army (egypt?) and a very isolated target, it could be done.

nokmirt · Apr 10, 2014

I_pity_the_fool said:
Remember that the warmonger penalty you get for taking a city is proportionate to the number of cities your enemy has left. If you're invading a warmonger, one trick is to take all his original cities, then invade the puppets and liberate them. That way you get a bonus for destroying his last cities instead of a penalty.

Interesting, I never thought of that.

To OP: Usually if I happen to eliminate a civ from the game, it is because their last city is in a bad location. The AI has bad habit of doing that. In my last game I did this to France, knocked off Paris and razed their second city at the outset. Then used a settler to build a city in a prime location.

Germany is a great civ for early warmongering. They maintain units very cheaply. Building an army by having brutes join your side is quite easy. In fact later on it gets a bit annoying, especially if you have a militaristic CS giving you units as well. I don't how many units I gifted to CSs for influence. Countless! In fact I had on CS with so many units, I could not convert it with a missionary to my religion. :lol:

Heretiv · Apr 10, 2014

Peace traded cities don't cause war monger hate, as it is a trade negotiation.

one trick is to take all his original cities, then invade the puppets and liberate them. That way you get a bonus for destroying his last cities instead of a penalty

Fascinating stuff, I should read these more often.
Should make war much easier.

There is also this question that I didn't see answered -

Should I just leave the peripheral cities and move right past them, or take them and puppet/raze them?

I find moving troops past an enemy city is hazardous because of the rocket attack from the city more than their own defending troops. Always safer to take the cities and puppet or raze on the way in 0 except of course for the tech, policy and indeed warmonger hits on the way.

JeSuisNapoleon · Apr 10, 2014

moving past cities is usually a disaster. be careful with that.

In the early game, its possible that there is open space, allowing you to move around a city to better target. In this case I would not DoW until I was in position. By mid game this is less possible due to expansion. This also leaves your line of retreat at risk and re-enforcement would have a longer path.

Speed of movement is *everything* in war.
This is why the great wall is great.
This is why hills and forest are you best defense and worst enemies.

What I do:
First war is a spanking to get that first border city in a trade deal. (raze / puppet / sell )
Second war is the real deal to get the now nearby capitol.

after that I can dispose of the first city if I have not already, assuming i find it worthless.

beetle · Apr 10, 2014

Memoryjar said:
If you want something different but a fast diplo or cultural victory, there's actually no advantage to do this.

One of my frustrations has been trying to get a relatively fast diplo or cultural victory out of the GotM setups -- that feels like a diplo or cultural victory. They end up being domination games where instead of conquering the last couple civs, one just purses the designated victory. Its not very satisfying IMHO.

erkanus · Apr 11, 2014

one trick is to take all his original cities, then invade the puppets and liberate them. That way you get a bonus for destroying his last cities instead of a penalty

Is it possible to liberate those city states Venice (or Austria) have? If so there is plenty of cities waiting for liberation in games that we have venice or austria as a rival

Memoryjar · Apr 11, 2014

beetle said:
One of my frustrations has been trying to get a relatively fast diplo or cultural victory out of the GotM setups -- that feels like a diplo or cultural victory. They end up being domination games where instead of conquering the last couple civs, one just purses the designated victory. Its not very satisfying IMHO.

Same feeling, this is why I nearly never play domination on diplo or culture victory. One recent exception were a GOTM, France - Immortal - CV. I screw my party with a bad management of Poland. So, other cultural civ (Brazil - Indonesia) were too fast for a peaceful victory and I was nearly to lost.
I wipe out successfully Brazil with help of Poland and bribe AI to go after Indonesia. It was a quite dom-cultural victory but a really fun game. I was on the bottom tier in the result, but it doesn't matter.

On the others side, cultural peaceful victory are really boring in the end of the game. More than diplo or science. It's really, push «next turn» and move this slow musician to AIborders.

Browd · Apr 11, 2014

erkanus said:
Is it possible to liberate those city states Venice (or Austria) have? If so there is plenty of cities waiting for liberation in games that we have venice or austria as a rival

No. Once Venice GMoV-buys a city-state or Austria diplo-marries a CS, the CS ceases to be a CS for all purposes -- it is now just a Venetian or Austrian city. If that city is conquered by another civ, it cannot be liberated. If that city is then re-conquered by another civ, the second conquerer may be able to liberate the city back to Venice or Austria, as applicable, but can't liberate it as a CS.

beetle · Apr 11, 2014

I do remember one early game where I was on a domination steam roll and had booted Persia from his home continent. I though he was done, so I didn’t bother to wipe him out, and it wasn’t like I cared about the diplo hit either. He won a cultural victory shortly before I would have captured my last capital. That was before I knew how (and that it was important) to keep an eye out for that sort of thing...

Gary King · Apr 12, 2014

beetle said:
I do remember one early game where I was on a domination steam roll and had booted Persia from his home continent. I though he was done, so I didnt bother to wipe him out, and it wasnt like I cared about the diplo hit either. He won a cultural victory shortly before I would have captured my last capital. That was before I knew how (and that it was important) to keep an eye out for that sort of thing...

That's pretty impressive if you can remove a Civ from their starting continent and yet they still win by building an empire elsewhere.

Better to eliminate a Civ completely or leave them one city?

Prince

Deity

Emperor

Chieftain

Prince

Emperor

Prince

Deity

Prince

Emperor

Prince

Emperor

Warlord

Prince

Deity

Chieftain

Emperor

Dilettante

Deity

Prince

Similar threads