Always peace is something I think most Civilization players see as anathema. Nevertheless I recently got wondering, how the dynamics of the game would change, with this option enabled. Several noobish strategies long ago dismissed, such as blocking off AI and founding early religion suddenly become worth considering.
The conflict of the game becomes that of cultural tensions and race to build any wonders you want, as you can no longer conquer them. Speaking of wonders, many that we would normally never build, become desirable to have in our border cities as sources of cultural pressure or defence thereof.
This in turn means we will be producing much more varied pool of great people instead of the normal progression of half a dozen scientists followed by a couple of merchants.
Diplomacy will be overhauled. You can ignore pretty much all threats thrown in your direction. What can they do, shake their finger at your general direction? That being said, you may want to comply with anything that is not completely unreasonable as you still want to trade with them and fixing relations without option to join common war can be difficult. Also we can’t extort techs in peace deals so keeping relations good enough to trade can become an issue.
Tech path becomes very different as there is no such thing as key military tech to reach. Instead we are be-lining key wonders and economic techs. I can see music becoming quite important with nice cultural wonders and ability to build culture. We probably still want early BW to be able to whip key infrastructure such as granaries and libraries and to chop off those settlers, but we’ll also be saving a lot more forests to put in those wonders later, as they become available.
Early game now becomes even more crucial as we can’t rely on quick war to get as out of bind. You have to be very quick to get out those couple of first settlers to have a shot at getting decent amount of land. Food is still king, but instead of metals or horses we’ll now be looking to first claim happy and wonder resources.
Victory conditions:
Conquest is pretty much impossible and domination would be damn difficult. Space race is within realm of possibility, if we can secure enough land. Most likely we will be aiming for either of the diplomatic options or a cultural victory with time victory as distant third option.
Map scripts:
Probably only Pangea and flat maps are worth considering. As we have no way to affect what happens on other continents, water maps become luck of the draw if an AI might become a giant with by being lucky to block off their rivals and getting much more land to themselves. With no war threat of runaway AI is of course reduced, but nothing is more frustrating than playing your own game perfectly and still lose when there is nothing you can do to the guy at the other continent.
Difficulty level:
AI building unnecessary units and otherwise acting quite haphazardly we probably need to up the difficulty to have any challenge at all. So deity it is or maybe immortal, if AI settling speed becomes an issue.
Traits:
Imperialistic: With military conquest out of question the faster settlers may become crucial to secure enough land.
Cultural: Free culture and cheaper cultural buildings probably mean this trait will be very useful indeed.
Industrious: Any wonder we want, we now have to build our selves, so this trait should become quite useful.
Financial: Getting more commerce out of your limited land with no easy way to get more can become essential.
Philosophical: Getting your great people out faster will still be very useful, though now we are racing toward key economic and wonder enabling techs instead of military ones. Also with no need to build military, diverting hammers towards half price universities may not be such a bad idea.
Expansionistic: Cheap granaries is still good and faster workers are still good.
Spiritual: Diplomacy game is now less important with no threat of war, but not losing time to revolts is good and even cheaper temples could become useful… maybe.
Charismatic: Maybe the happiness bonus from monuments can still be of some use.
Aggressive: totally useless, only exception being cheaper Inkhanda for Zulu.
Protective: Even worse than usual
Civics:
With limited land happiness will more than likely be a problem so hereditary rule could become quite handy, or maybe representation if we can build pyramids.
Our empire will most likely be quite small so our capital and thus bureaucracy will be extra important.
With no army to build whipping will be less useful and we should probably concentrate on caste system as soon as we have that available.
All the economic civic become so late as to have very little impact on our game.
With increased emphasis on building wonders, organized religion should become quite handy.
Units:
Settlers and workers with some cheap military police thrown in. India will be getting slight bonus with their unique being the only peaceful one in the game and quicker chopping becoming even more useful.
Anything major I have overlooked?
As this is an attempt to find interesting sides of this rarely used game option, please refrain from saying it will be boring without war.
The conflict of the game becomes that of cultural tensions and race to build any wonders you want, as you can no longer conquer them. Speaking of wonders, many that we would normally never build, become desirable to have in our border cities as sources of cultural pressure or defence thereof.
This in turn means we will be producing much more varied pool of great people instead of the normal progression of half a dozen scientists followed by a couple of merchants.
Diplomacy will be overhauled. You can ignore pretty much all threats thrown in your direction. What can they do, shake their finger at your general direction? That being said, you may want to comply with anything that is not completely unreasonable as you still want to trade with them and fixing relations without option to join common war can be difficult. Also we can’t extort techs in peace deals so keeping relations good enough to trade can become an issue.
Tech path becomes very different as there is no such thing as key military tech to reach. Instead we are be-lining key wonders and economic techs. I can see music becoming quite important with nice cultural wonders and ability to build culture. We probably still want early BW to be able to whip key infrastructure such as granaries and libraries and to chop off those settlers, but we’ll also be saving a lot more forests to put in those wonders later, as they become available.
Early game now becomes even more crucial as we can’t rely on quick war to get as out of bind. You have to be very quick to get out those couple of first settlers to have a shot at getting decent amount of land. Food is still king, but instead of metals or horses we’ll now be looking to first claim happy and wonder resources.
Victory conditions:
Conquest is pretty much impossible and domination would be damn difficult. Space race is within realm of possibility, if we can secure enough land. Most likely we will be aiming for either of the diplomatic options or a cultural victory with time victory as distant third option.
Map scripts:
Probably only Pangea and flat maps are worth considering. As we have no way to affect what happens on other continents, water maps become luck of the draw if an AI might become a giant with by being lucky to block off their rivals and getting much more land to themselves. With no war threat of runaway AI is of course reduced, but nothing is more frustrating than playing your own game perfectly and still lose when there is nothing you can do to the guy at the other continent.
Difficulty level:
AI building unnecessary units and otherwise acting quite haphazardly we probably need to up the difficulty to have any challenge at all. So deity it is or maybe immortal, if AI settling speed becomes an issue.
Traits:
Imperialistic: With military conquest out of question the faster settlers may become crucial to secure enough land.
Cultural: Free culture and cheaper cultural buildings probably mean this trait will be very useful indeed.
Industrious: Any wonder we want, we now have to build our selves, so this trait should become quite useful.
Financial: Getting more commerce out of your limited land with no easy way to get more can become essential.
Philosophical: Getting your great people out faster will still be very useful, though now we are racing toward key economic and wonder enabling techs instead of military ones. Also with no need to build military, diverting hammers towards half price universities may not be such a bad idea.
Expansionistic: Cheap granaries is still good and faster workers are still good.
Spiritual: Diplomacy game is now less important with no threat of war, but not losing time to revolts is good and even cheaper temples could become useful… maybe.
Charismatic: Maybe the happiness bonus from monuments can still be of some use.
Aggressive: totally useless, only exception being cheaper Inkhanda for Zulu.
Protective: Even worse than usual
Civics:
With limited land happiness will more than likely be a problem so hereditary rule could become quite handy, or maybe representation if we can build pyramids.
Our empire will most likely be quite small so our capital and thus bureaucracy will be extra important.
With no army to build whipping will be less useful and we should probably concentrate on caste system as soon as we have that available.
All the economic civic become so late as to have very little impact on our game.
With increased emphasis on building wonders, organized religion should become quite handy.
Units:
Settlers and workers with some cheap military police thrown in. India will be getting slight bonus with their unique being the only peaceful one in the game and quicker chopping becoming even more useful.
Anything major I have overlooked?
As this is an attempt to find interesting sides of this rarely used game option, please refrain from saying it will be boring without war.
