So, this game is a war game no matter how you play it.

Walter R said:

Hmmm. In current game, my nearest neighbour Austria (that well-known early warmonger) DOWd me shortly after I founded York, somewhere around turn 45. It was great target practice for my archer but quite ridiculous given that the only way through was via an isthmus and she had all of two scary warriors. I guess it all depends on the game...

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I have not seen a 10 units push at T40 in BNW but this was really common back in G&K

andrew00100 said:

I have not seen a 10 units push at T40 in BNW but this was really common back in G&K

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Sorry, I took your previous post to imply that in G&K you don't get DOWd until Renaissance unless you're next to dear old Alex etc., whereas I find that I do. I (sadly) can't compare to BNW.

Raze one their cities. They will practically beg you to end the conflict. Usually I get two city offerings for this and if I refuse and rewrite the contract, I can choose at least three terrible cities or two good cities of my choosing. Try playing around with it and see what you can get them to offer.

bdporter said:

The problem with them not accepting reasonable peace deals after their invasion has been destroyed still exists in BNW for me, though.

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This has been much improved. I'm actually now seeing a lot more aggression from the BNW AI - I've been attacked before the Industrial Era in each of my last three games. But the AI seems to have a better conception of when to give up - in my current game I moved on Damascus to force Harun out of a war he and Ashurbanipal had started (he wasn't a threat, but he had a lot of CS allies who were pillaging my trade routes). With his immediate army gone and my forces in his territory, he accepted a straight peace deal (I didn't actually want Damascus, it was in a bad spot, so I made peace before taking the city). Ashurbanipal made peace shortly afterwards (it had been a pointless declaration of war to begin with - he had to attack me over a narrow strait and had pretty much no navy). I hadn't taken cities in either case, and Assyria still had the largest army (though by demographics about 10,000 smaller than when the war began), but they were in no position to do me any harm.

Of course as soon as the peace treaty expired Ash was back with Persia in tow (Harun had offered a DoF, and isn't a backstabbing sort). When I stopped last night Darius was in the process of losing his army and mine - granted to me by diplomatic marriage with Cahokia, which is in a very nice strategic spot - will soon have free rein to march on Persepolis and Assur, the two closest cities to Cahokia.

If you say it is a wargame because you were involved in a war, is it not then a research game because you research? Or a diplomacy game because you talk to others? War is just one part of the big picture of Civ. That is what makes it interesting.

Fletchi18 said:

If you say it is a wargame because you were involved in a war, is it not then a research game because you research? Or a diplomacy game because you talk to others? War is just one part of the big picture of Civ. That is what makes it interesting.

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I remain continually puzzled about people's apparent astonishment that a game intended to reflect the development of civilization, and whose characterisation as a '4x' includes 'eXterminate' in its genre description, actually features warfare, indeed even compulsory warfare. How many strategy games with this kind of setting don't?

To take the two series most commonly compared with Civ, Total War says it all in the name, while reviewers commonly refer to the Paradox "grand strategy games" as wargames and with much more justification than using that label for Civ. One of the Crusader Kings II suggested starts is the Norman Conquest, and shortly after starting as William you'll inevitably also end up as part of a war between France - of whom William is a vassal - and the HRE, while Europa Universalis IV heavily pushes war in its advertising - from the most prominent part of its promo graphic being a European handgunner and a specific reference to warrior kings in its blurb to pre-release "infantry skin" DLCs.

You can go a whole game without a war, but you'll have to have a huge military to do it. This discourages the AI from attacking you. Complain all you want, this is part of civ. It's always been part of civ. It's the reason I would say the majority of players play. But yeah, there are ways to play more peacefully and the most important tip there is-- build more troops. Just like in real life, you don't have peace without deterrance. IE: Bigger sticks than the warmongers.