Best Civ for a Peaceful Player

[Isetemkheb]

I was wondering people's opinion of the best Civ to play as if you are a peaceful player.
In Civ III I usually played as Babylon but for Civ V I haven't found one I prefer yet. I seem to get poor results when I play as Montezuma or Caesar though. I have not yet purchased the Babylon or Korea DLC.

I would also be interested to know the consequences of attacking city states.

 

[DutchJob]

My two picks for peace:

The Arabian UB, the Bazaar, grants you double lux. So with relatively few well placed cities you could have lots to trade for happiness.

The Inca UA gives cheap roads and railways, you'll have lots of extra money, will be noticed in a wide Empire.


About attacking City States: annex or puppet no more then two. After that the diplo hit is not worth the effort.

 

[Fabiano79]

My favorite for a peaceful game is Babylon, powerfull archers for defense and good bonus for science. Since you dont have this DLC, probably the best ones are Egypt or France, for a culture victory.

 

[Optional]

Consquences of attacking City States are similar to attacking any regular civ, if you mean the diplo penalty.
A difference is that if you do it repeatedly, all City States will gang up on you and declare a permanent war on you.

For a peaceful civ Korea is best in my opinion, which is a civ you don't have. Reason is mainly they're getting a tech boost from each scientific building erected in the capital, so they can easier compete in the tech race with fewer cities.
Babylon would have a similar type of advantage.
Otherwise, there aren't civs that come to my mind that would actually benefit from remaining relatively small.
The with Gods & Kings coming Austrians perhaps, since they can 'marry' City States. Greece and Siam of course also have an advantage with City States, but I wouldn't say that playing peaceful with these civs is your best option.

 

[Brigg]

Try picking a civ with special buldings instead of units, or with a great defensive unit.
China?

 

[PhilBowles]

Not much help until June, but Ethiopia's a good option...

 

[chazzycat]

Babylon and Korea are probably the strongest because of their crazy-good science benefits, and also good strong ranged UUs for defense.

China is pretty good with their paper maker and also strong defensive UU.

Persia's golden ages can be fun for a peaceful builder.

Rome's UA is good, but ideally with them you want to do some conquering as well.

Arabia is also quite good for the peaceful style. Being so dependent on luxury sales, you are better off playing peacefully to have good trading partners (maybe with some limited wars to secure more luxes).

Egypt is perhaps the best builder of them all, with the wonder benefit + awesome UB that you can get for free from legalism.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My top 3 as a peaceful player:
(1) Korea: The science boost for specialists and GP improvements are amazing. You can easily play OCC and yet stay competetive in tech, even on higher diffictulty levels.
(2) Egypt: Incredible for grabbing wonders. If you like wonders, you will love egypt.
(3) India: Nice for a small sized empire with giant cities.

 

[joncnunn]

City states: You get one free major war mongling act for most civs:
It can be a DOW that can be against either a City state or a major power.
Or it can be taking the last city of a civ (that includes a city state)

Which means that if you DOW and then conquer a single city state, pretty much everybody will hate you.

As to peaceful:

1. Arabs do best when you have no negative modifiers thanks to their UB.

2. Babylon is tailor made to a science victory with a GS upon discovery of Writing and then faster GS production; and so is best when you get universities up in all cities fast.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Egypt (culture vic) and Persia (happiness science vic) are my favorite non-Babs/Korea peaceful vics. I also like Siam for the CS bonuses and Wat.

 

[bhavv]

Korea, Babylon, Persia and Egypt are best for small peaceful empires.

other civs don't really gain as much economic boost as those 4 do, Siam get extra culture from their UB and more bonuses from CSs, but for overall economy Korea and babylon win for their science output, and egypt / Persia gain extra happiness from their UBs, plus very useful UAs for peaceful expansion.

Korea - Settle great people
Babylon - Bulb techs
Persia - Use GPs for golden ages, have Chichen Itza built first though
Egypt - build wonders faster, do whatever you want with GPs.

Generally the best approach for a peaceful game is the 4 city culture win, and filling out liberty, freedom, either rationalism for Korea / Babylon, or Piety for Egypt / Persia, plus legalism abuse for 4 free opera houses and hermitage built upon discovering accoustics (use policy saving for best results).

The debate though is whether Persia + Piety is faster, or Korea / babylon with at least secularism and faster tech progress (get Louvre, Sistine, Opera houses, Christo redenter all built sooner).

 

[snarzberry]

Babylon, siam, korea, arabia, egypt. All of those are great for peaceful games.

 

[Isetemkheb]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll try Egypt my next game. So far in my current game I'm managing to hang in there playing as Caesar on Prince. Prince is actually a step up for me - I've been playing on warlord but find it to be to easy. (While in Civ III I couldn't manage anything harder than chieftan.)

 

[bhavv]

The problem with rome is that you normally want to be building wonders in your capital, not buildings. Getting the UA to work means that you have to construct buildings before wonders. Id rather have egypts wonder bonus than romes buildings bonus.

 

[Crimefighter]

I play Egypt most of the time and its perfect for peaceful play. The UB is awesome and even the UU is handy early on (fast and doesnt require horses to make).

 

[therottweiler]

As other's have said... I found Egypt and Babylon to be great for going peaceful. Egypt is ideally suited for a cultural victory and Babylon to science.