Do you kill the weak?

[Sherlock]

I had a bad start (what a surprise) with only two even ok city locations.

The Shoshone were my nearest neighbor and they were city spamming like crazy and really crowding me.

So I went to war with them, now I have a pretty decent army.

The closest other Civ to me is also the weakest - Assyria.

I'm tempted to take their capital, not that I want it - but if I don't someone else will, then I'll have an aggressive AI close to me.

What do you think? Should I give peace a chance?

 

[dasaard200]

Never leave an enemy alive, behind you .

 

[yosefm]

If it will really be taken by someone else it might be worth it. But you can also in certain conditions keep strengthening the weak against his neighbours with luxes and stuff, and even defend him militarily.

In my last Emperor game I had open borders with Morocco, and most of my army was stationed there to defend agains the Russians, after I restored 2 Moroccan cities to Ahmad's control. This allowed me to DoW the Russians when their army was weakest (attacking a city) and without danger to my empire which was buffered from Russia by Morocco and a couple of CSs.

I was going for a SV but I still wiped out most of Russia after that, they had nice wonders in Moscow. Leftover cities on a distant island were handled by Lizzy.

 

[danaphanous]

I like keeping the weak remnants of my fallen enemies around. Along with avoiding huge diplomatic penalties for finishing them off, it was probably a city I would have burned anyway, and it can be nice to have AI trade-route destinations, extra votes in congress, and a target for the other AI. On Deity it's tricky though because anyone you leave will try to settle more cities and generally be annoying as well but as long as you massively outtech them and keep a strong military they rarely dare to attack you so arguably it doesn't matter as long as you keep their capital.

 

[Sherlock]

I decided to keep some units nearby and if it fell I'd liberate it.

Turned out it was a big water map and no one came over to fight, so Assyria still belongs to Assyria.