A few random questions

[yanner39]

Just to compare with other, most likely better players than me.

Do any of you ever settle a city that is not adjacent to a river or coast? I mean a city in the middle of nowhere where an aqueduct can't help. I ask because there are times where I could settle a nice resource rich spot but it won't grow due to lack of housing.

Next....an AI Civ declares war at the beginning and I defend myself. Is there a reason to ever peace out? I stay in war, build my army, and eventually take their cities. if I accept peace and declare war, don't I get the warmonger penalty?

Thanks

For the record, I only win very easily on Emperor.

Yanner

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I play Emperor, so we're same level.

1. I often do it if it's good land. Heck, I only leave blank spots if it's in the middle of unworkable mountains. For the housing problem, often the first thing I build/buy is a Granary, and improve some tiles for that extra district. Or maybe chop rainforest and harvest food resources. A city will grow without housing that way.

2. Early on I don't see much point on sparing it. Maybe if it's on the other side of the map, but generally no. If you declare war later, you get more warmonger penalties due to war declaration, even if you don't take any city (especially since it increases by age). And in the Ancient Era, the warmonger penalty is zero (so the double warmonger penalty due to wiping out a civ is still zero), so I might go all the way as well.

 

[fortydayweekend]

Next....an AI Civ declares war at the beginning and I defend myself. Is there a reason to ever peace out? I stay in war, build my army, and eventually take their cities. if I accept peace and declare war, don't I get the warmonger penalty?

It depends what they're offering for peace and whether I care about warmonger penalties. E.g. if I take a couple of nice cities including the capital from them, leaving one or 2 poor ones, and they offer 1000 gold for peace, I'll usually take it. They'll be easy to finish off 30 turns later if I'm not worried about what other civs think - or if left alone are no longer a threat.

I'd you haven't met a civ yet, they won't hold any warmongering against you. So you can do a lot of no-penalty conquest on your starting continent as long as you wipe out everyone and you're finished before making contact with faraway civs.

I don't know if good relations are ever actually necessary - is there any victory condition / strategy where it would be better to forgo conquest just to avoid warmonger penalties?

 

[Victoria]

1. Yeah sure for good land.
2. Of course... I peace out because I do not want heavy warmonger penalties and it makes the game more of a challenge. So last game I took Japans capital as I was hemmed in and got a 25 point warmonger penalty that decayed 1 point per turn. so taking a city is OK as warmonger penalties for doing so are not bad. Genocide of a race is different and I believe should get your permanently hated. Normally when was is declared on me I will take out the army and raid their lands for good science and culture and then get a city off them in the peace deal. I quite like this style of play.

 

[darkace77450]

1. Yes. As long as there's enough food and production tiles to grow the city and enough luxury resources to help the rest of your empire there's I see no reason to avoid a spot. It will grow slower than a city near water, sure, but there are ways to offset this slower growth (Granaries, Sewers, Neighborhoods, and certain Great Engineers). By the time you've got Replaceable Parts and Urbanization researched you won't notice any difference between a city with access to water and one without.

2. Maybe. I make it a point to play as peacefully as possible when I'm not playing for a Domination Victory. As a result, I don't experience the "horrible diplomacy" others seem to complain about. Sure, I get the occasional nemesis who denounces me often and hits me with declarations of war from time to time, but I also usually wind up with a game-long friend/ally or two. I suspect this wouldn't be possible if I were capturing cities even during defensive wars. That said, I do pillage improvements and districts and destroy units without mercy when someone declares war against me.

 

[yanner39]

Thanks for all the replies. For a bonus question, speaking of warring. If going for a domination victory, when do you start warring and conquering? I usually start from the beginning, spend the entire game being hated, spend the entire game with amenities issues. I usually steamroll the AI but I'm sure it's not optimal.

Any thoughts would be great.

 

[Victoria]

Steamrolling amd being hated is just fine, it is optimal
Its only war wearyness that slows you down.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I begin around turn 30, and that's only because an army takes time to be built.

Being hated isn't much of a problem, since they'll eventually be destroyed anyway. However, I leave some time between wars while I position my army for my next target and meanwhile war weariness goes down. Usually I build the Colosseum and get the Great Merchants that give amenities and luxuries, and often Zanzibar or Buenos Aires appear in the game.

 

[TomKQT]

If I don't want to capture their cities (I don't like the cities or I simply don't want to be warmonger in this particular game), then I at least kill their units and pillage their improvements/districts either untill they offer a very good peace offer (and maybe I already have a high war weariness penalty and peace is usefull also for me), or I take the policy cards that double pillaging gains (one for improvements and one for districts) and pillage everything I can I think that this cripples the civilization so much that it won't be a thread for a good amount of time. Imagine how long it takes to repair districts...
I simply like the feeling (even if we are talking about AI without any soul, of course) that when some civilization stupidly declares war on me and cannot beat me, I make them suffer as much as I can in revenge