[Vanilla] Dealing with runaway civs

Nabroleon

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 9, 2012
Messages
5
So lately I've been playing on emperor difficulty. Duel is easy, but once I introduce more AIs to the game, there will always be one civ that starts steamrolling another AI and ends up with twice my score and multiple eras ahead of me. So I quit. I play a pacifist style and aim for a late scientific or cultural victory. I just keep enough troops to defend myself. Mostly one ranged unit per city.

So how do I deal with these runaways?

And if you ignore founding a religion, how do you prevent other civs from getting a religious victory?
 
Playing peacefully does handicap you quite a bit. Civ 6 really rewards going wide (like the runaway AI). If you don’t have a lot of room to expand by settling, then conquest is almost required, so *you* are the one doing the steamrolling.

I think you’d have to focus on getting the victory before the AI has time to steamroll. There are a few threads on quick science victories with video playthroughs here in this forum. Of course it’s all changed in R&F.

In the games I’ve played, religious victory hasn’t been a problem except on smaller maps (fewer civs). But it’s even harder to stop a runaway religion. At least with science / culture you can use spies to play catch up and simultaneously slow the competition down (e.g. steal great works). But they don’t help with religion. Again, military is the best option I think - take out the dominant religion’s religious units and hope some other AI steps up their religious game. But hopefully other players with more experience in this will chime in.
 
War is the way to weaken Another civ as well make you stronger. If you can not capture their cities, try to raid their district and if you can not do that, try to harass their units and protect/capture the other civs.

Spies and diplomatic actions can hurt them as well.
 
I explain it best like this.

At first there was only barbarians.
Your civ has emerged as a more powerful barbarian state due to beating up other barbarians and you are big enough to found a decent city.
You have got this far using violence and it will take a while for other civs to work out violence is to be frowned upon.
If you decide to be peaceful now you will end up like a city state.
If you continue this violence just a while longer you will benefit and it’s part of how god created this world.

One does not have to be violent forever but choosing not to early is a challenge. I can win fairly often peacefully on emp but have been playing a lot... and it is getting harder.
 
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