"Peaceful New World"

I started out trying the Venice on King difficulty. First 50 turns everything was peachy. Then suddenly Attila went on a rampage taking out a 5th of the city states in the game. He now controls one part of the continent with only me in the way towards the otherside of the continent.

Meanwhile on the other side we have 3 separate wars going on. The warmongers are the Aztecs, Celts and Japan. Austria is about the get eradicated in the next few turns, my only friend Ethiopia is barely holding on and Carthage is just derping around.

Then forward 50 turns and suddenly out of frigging nowhere Alexander shows up with a huge army and declares hes protecting every city state in the game and then proceeds to go on a mad crusade vs Attila.

This is by far the most fun game ive had in civ and im just sitting in the middle of the map with my one city and a worker...

So well I guess I'll post some "proof" about my experiences.
Mind you that I only played two games so I don't mean to say that this is anything conclusive, but you must start from something before we reach a sample big enough, perhaps someone else will follow after me.

Anyway it's not my habit to save often and to take screenshots so I'll use the replays.
This is my first game as Morocco.



As you can see in about 3 turns Shaka conquered two Assyrian cities. The war started at around turn 123, not exactly early, but not late either. Shaka obviously wanted to have his impi before starting a war.
Note also that for the most part there were no reasons to fight wars. I had no contested borders, Portugal was pretty much isolated, the Zulu themselves wouldn't have started a war if they didn't expand so quickly because their capital is on the western coast (BTW one of those cities is actually a conquered CS). The only ones that had a reason to fight were Poland and the Shoshone but they are both peaceful.

That city near the Assyrian borders was actually the last city I founded and the Assyrian were pretty much already busy with the Zulu by that point.

The last screenshot provides a proof that it wasn't a "quick" game, for those skeptics.


Second game as France:



This was actually supposed to be a "small continents" map, but I ended up spawning on a huge landmass for some reasons.

Turn 97 Assyria had already declared war on Brazil. That conquered city is actually Brazil's capital.

Morocco, Portugal and Indonesia are isolated. Shoshone and Venice are peaceful. Moreover the Borders between me and the Shoshone were full of mountains and a war on that front would have been awful for the attacker.

Anyway I DoW the Assyrian, and repelled them back with composite bow, swordmen and catapults.
Very rarely I fought wars with earlier technologies in my G&K games.

The last screenshot as usual provides proof that this was standard speed.

Later on Brazil conquered the last remaining city of the Assyrian (I didn't want to get the penalty for eradicating a city).
I conquered Venice encountering almost no opposition, and strangely enough nobody was really pissed about that.
Indonesia DoW on Brazil and conquered one of its colonies.
Brazil, Shoshone and Morocco then jumped in like vultures at the chances to conquer the remaining Venetian cities. They didn't put much efforts on that however as the war protracted for long without any conquest.

Brazil, Portugal and Morocco all settled on a free part of Indonesia's continent. Gahja Mada DoW on Brazil and conquered its colony.

At that point the Shoshone asked me if I wanted to Join them in a war against Indonesia. I had no interest in the land itself, but I thought it was a good idea to strengthen my bonds with the Shoshone and I supported them in naval warfare.

Indonesia in the end offered me a city in exchange for peace which I accepted because that city had uranium.

Portugal was my main enemy for the cultural victory and also the civ with the strongest army and technology. I chose Freedom and Maria chose Order. We've been at each other's throat for the whole late game.
We never went to war but I also never let my army fall behind hers.

Hmm, my second game, this time as Indonesia. It's turn 118 and Brasil has just been wiped out. Assurbanipal razed two of Pedro's cities, and Casimir took Sao Paulo.

I can't say I'm experiencing the Peaceful New World you guys rant about.

In my yesterday game as Venice large map on king/epic,Carthage attacked me at start with 4 warriors,3 archers and general I had 1 archer in city and 1 archer 10 tiles away I managed to buy walls and survive.Pedro my 2nd closest neighbour pretty much kept Carthage in check right after I made peace with Dido.After that until end of the game no one declared war on me anymore but I had always a standing military outside Venice 7-10 units.Almost the whole game I had 6 very friendly AI since I was going for it,Aztecs were neutral and everybody was warring Russia and later Portugal since Maria was with Russia.It was pretty much the whole game like that.Near the end when Russia weakened America,Isabella who was like a best friend to Washington the whole game,attacked him and after that everybody was wearing Venice's blue jeans and listening to their pop music.

Immortal is the new emperor. May have to go up to Diety but really never played at that level. I mean I don't know what else to say. I was playing as Greece just now, I am behind a good 3-400 points the entire game as expected, but not a huge disparity.

1. 1 scout, 1 archer the entire game in terms of units
2. Tall, 3 city turtle style with Liberty tree
3. Diplo victory at 1908. No other AI is close to victory.

Mind you, I had a perfect strategy, gobbled up all the CS's, built massive culture. Passed Freedom Ideology. But barely any wars. Why didn't the Iroquois or Swedes ever invade earlier? They basically become my BFF and there is no threat until the 19th century, where my Idealogy finally ticked off the opposite continent and Rome started killing my CS's. It was too late though, already owned all the CS's.

In my first game, there have been a few wars between Civs. I just finished a war with Morocco, though that is one that I started (because he keeps sending his army of Missionaries around my region). But other Civs have been going to war. Two that I have not yet met yet (playing on continents and I am just now approaching the Renaissance) have already had their capitals captured.

Side Note: I like the fact that the victory screen now shows a smaller icon over the larger one to indicate who has that capital.

Anyway, The other game that I have played has not had any war yet that I have seen, but that is partially because it is a premade map and there are issues with that. There aren't any barbarians, so it seems that more civs are concentrating on building.

Anyway, I think that the AI tends to weigh the decision better. They will declare war, but only if they determine the risk or loss is worth any potential gain.

I like that the AI is more focused on a victory condition and a cultural or diplomatic VC civ in a game isn't going to send wave after wave of grunts crashing into my ranged defenders for now VC benefit. The civs should do what is best for their VC, people just seem upset that the can't avoid the warmonger penalty by baiting their neighbor into war now. If you want to fight, start it. I'm just not seeing what some people seem to be seeing. I get DOWed quickly when it makes sense for the AI to do it.

While I agree certain aspects are more peaceful, I would argue that the AI is doing it for more political reasons. In my first game I was buddies with India and Austria for the entire game with The Dutch being the main antagonists throughout history.

While we did go to war a couple of times, a lot of the most devastating things happened through the World Congress. Once he took out our other ally, Japan, we pretty much ruined him. The three of us banned the two luxuries that he had a ton of, passed the standing army tax, passed a different world religion, and eventually embargoed him and chose a different world ideology. His happiness was pretty awful, he never had money, and couldn't get his religion spread. I think it was honestly more harmful than going to war could have been.

Long story short, it appears that they're a lot more loyal, a lot less irrational, and weigh options a lot better. War is still there, but the World Congress is just as an effective way to hurt people and the AI definitely acknowledges that.

I think the more important question is: is everyone winning their games (by whatever victory condition)? It's not bad to have a peaceful game (but it is to have a passive/timid one) but that should assume that an AI civ is beating you to culture, diplomacy or space. Is that happening in your games?

Buccaneer said:

I think the more important question is: is everyone winning their games (by whatever victory condition)? It's not bad to have a peaceful game (but it is to have a passive/timid one) but that should assume that an AI civ is beating you to culture, diplomacy or space. Is that happening in your games?

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The game I won, diplomatic 1937, I was full era ahead of my rivals, 30+ turns away from space race, being able to buy space ship components helps. I also would have one have won a cultural victory in 50-80, although that would have required killing my neighbor France.

In the two other games I played till the early AD, I was definitely winning in everything except for military (dominant religion) on continent. Not sure about the other continents. In the other 5 games too early to tell.

Pity us poor marathon, huge game players. nothing significant happens until at least 250 to 300 turns in. Except for raging barbs early game is a lovefest. And darn my bad luck, I can never seem to have any close neighbors to start trade with until about the end of Midevel age.

I did get into a tiff with Dido in one game and she obliged me by dancing around my city until I reduced her army to a lean, mean single melee unit who hightailed it back to mama. Yawn.

Buccaneer said:

I think the more important question is: is everyone winning their games (by whatever victory condition)? It's not bad to have a peaceful game (but it is to have a passive/timid one) but that should assume that an AI civ is beating you to culture, diplomacy or space. Is that happening in your games?

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I don't think the AI would win on King or below even if the player played sandbox all game. However, I think for emperor and above the player would be hard pressed to win a peaceful sandbox. The AI will start wars and one of them will get ahead.

The first game of BnW I played, the Zulu wiped out two civs before I could meet them. They also declared war on two other civs. Later on, three different civs (Indonesia, Arabia, and Morocco) all declared war on Venice, and Arabia captured their capital. Portugal was at war with Morocco or the Zulu for most of the game.

In my second game, Rome has declared war on Byzantium and France and reduced them each to two cities, and has bullied my CS allies repeatedly. Attila conquered someone on another continent before I could meet them. An overabundance of peace has definitely not been a problem for me.

godman85 said:

emperor/epic/pangea/huge/16 civs/ 11 warmongers/ 5 peacful civs

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I have always had feeling like you are playing in empty world if you use standard civ count. That was the case with Civ4 too but its worse with Civ5. It doesnt make sense to go to war when you basically have no neighbours

It takes until renaisance or something before the earth is full enough to be ready for conflicts and wars. After installing BNW I started with Mongols in small pangea but I figured out its not going to be fun... I cranked it up: 10 civs + 16 CS in small pangea. Lets see, if I got classical & medieval wars and conflicts now

Well, I was going to make a post agreeing with the people saying the AI is too peaceful but then I played 200 turns of a new game. The two games I've played so far have gone completely different:

First one, multiplayer/shuffle/small/quick:

Civs were: Spain(me),Germany(friend of mine), America,Mongolia,Persia,Iroquois

There wasn't one war until about 1850AD, and both my friend and I declared it(on Washington). Each civ pretty much had it's own continent and we all had very profitable sea trade routes with one another. We went after Washington as he stopped trading with us/had a ton of tourism. I had spent the majority of the game with 2-3 early game units and I attacked with 3 Privateers, a treb, a knight, and a rush-bought Gatling. My friend distracted Washington with some crossbows shooting across a 1 tile wide channel. I met no resistance taking his capital, my friend said he shot down about 10 warriors. Even worse the CB who had been guarding Washington's capital fled when my troops landed. After I took the cap he started producing minutemen, better late than never? Also worth noting that shooting off that war ticked off the whole world. We took one city each from Washington(the cap for me, NY for my friend) but the AI were acting like we wiped him off the map. OT: Without Barcelona I'd probably be far behind, having that city there let's me move ships around the world very quickly. Wouldn't have had much luck trading if I hadn't built there.




The second game I played changed my mind entirely.

Singleplayer/Ice Age(Wide Continents)/Large/Standard/King

Civs: Austria(Me), Songhai, Assyria, Mongolia, America, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Russia, and France

Here there were 4+ wars going by turn 75. Most of the AIs were ganging up on Khan as he was attacking CSs. I captured a city from the Songhai as it had Kilimanjaro in it's borders.(and it was a good choke point off my isolated part of the continent) Somehow Khan was able to hold off 6+ of Assyria's siege towers though he did get a city razed. He also managed to take a few cities from Germany while being at war with half the world. Not much later Assyria got tired of Khan and turned on Germany instead, taking Berlin and a few of the surrounding cities.

About the same time Songhai signed OB with Assyria and marched his whole army across his borders to attack Khan. Bad move on his part, I took and razed one of his cities and headed for the capital. When I noticed his troops coming back from across the map I paid Assyria to attack him, they were cut off and slaughtered.

Throughout all of this I've maintained a good trade relationship with both Khan and Assyria, and had a DoF with Assyria for most of the game. Despite the fact they could easily take me out we remain friends(because they have 4 cargo ships trading with me?), they even leave the CSs I pledged to protect alone(while conquering every other CS they meet unless Khan gets to it first) I know they know they exist as they sent a great prophet to a few of them(hey those no longer only target capitals!)

Even more surprising, I eliminated the Songhai from the game and only Sweden seems to care. It seems that they have fixed the warmongering penalty so that the AIs take into account the warmongering of the other players as well as their own attitude on it. The WC was just founded and it's mid-Ren era, this is what the map looks like ATM:
Songhai's previous capital the left-most of my cities(red color). My capital the right most.

So, it seems the AI behavior is more situational. A welcome change IMO as it means you can't plan out your game before you play it. Anything that makes the AI more unpredictable(as long as they act rationally) is an improvement IMO. In the first map I played we all had very profitable trade routes with one another, going to war would cost you 30g+ a turn. In the second the Civs are fighting as you'd expect but still maintaining good enough relations to keep their economies alive. I'll try and edit in some more pictures later. STEAM is acting a bit buggy(probably because of the sale)