Do you find war-less games to be boring?

[insaneweasel]

If I don't have to go to war, I usually find myself so far ahead of the AI that it isn't even funny (even on immortal). All you need to do is build the right buildings and pick the right policies, and no opponent has a chance of winning.

Not that early rushes or backstabs are fun, but I find that games where an AI doesn't attack me/I don't attack the AI tend to be dull and easy. If they added more internal problems for your civ to deal with, it might change that, but as of now I usually reroll if I don't get at least one aggressive neighbor.

 

[BjoernLars]

I just finished a game as France in which I only founded 3 coastal cities and annexed Thebes. For awhile it was quite fun since I was just a step or two behind half the other civilizations in the tech race.

My opponents were Egypt, Japan, Korea, Germany and India on a Continent Map. Egypt, Japan, Korean and I were on one continent with Germany and India on the other.

About turn 200, my cities were getting massive and my economy was snowballing. I soon realized that I was outpacing everyone and then it just became a race to finish the game as quickly as possible.

I think like in previous installments of Civ, there was an option for the setup for more aggressive AI. Maybe that is what needed for CiV.

 

[JWAT44]

i think there needs to be something to prevent the snowball effect from winning you the game early. there need to be recessions depressions and booms to keep the economy balanced instead of snowballing into something that cant ever be surpassed and i dont mean just gold, im talkin production, food, gold, and even science. this would make it so that any civ has the chance of winning in the end

 

[Strategy Master]

@JWAT44:
I have always wondered how a victory point system would work in civilization (aka settlers 7). To win you need to collect a certain number of victory points to make your civilization the greatest. May have just the same problems though if someone has most of the victory points.

 

[_hero_]

i think there needs to be something to prevent the snowball effect from winning you the game early. there need to be recessions depressions and booms to keep the economy balanced instead of snowballing into something that cant ever be surpassed and i dont mean just gold, im talkin production, food, gold, and even science. this would make it so that any civ has the chance of winning in the end

What I think would make sense from both a gameplay and historical perspective is a "Catch up" mechanism. Civs which are far behind in tech should either get older techs for a huge discount, or sometimes free. This is in line with history where there comes a point when some technology is so well known that everyone in the world has access.

As for food/production/gold, as history has shown us, the "backwards" economies get a huge advantage in the export market because of relative prices. The more advanced economies always have higher wages and thus the input costs at the lowest stages of production can often be higher. This is why USA has to subsidize farming to compete with the global market, for example, and why many jobs get outsourced.

To mimic that effect, there should be some modifier on growth/production/gold that increases depending on how far behind you are in those categories and overall. So a civ which is still in the early medieval era when everyone else is in the late renisance, for example, should get a 25-50% boost to those things that will decline as it catches up. Better yet, they could institute an in depth global trade system which actually shows this, but that's probably too complicated.

 

[Dokebi]

I can't imagine Civ game without war. I only play domination games.

 

[pspboy7]

If they added events like in Civ 4, it might be interesting, but doing well techwise or culturewise and then getting hosed by a random event like a disaster that interupted the flow of my empire would probably tend to annoy me more than challenge me hehe.

To be honest, 50% of my games are non-aggressive, at least as far as I play anyways.

 

[CYZ]

Funny, I have the opposite experience.

War seems the easiest way to win to me (mostly due to the poor AI) and also the most boring. Sure, a skirmish and siege here and there is fun but they are all too much the same for warring a full game to be interesting.

Whereas a builder approach it's harder to optimalize your city and empire while protecting it (through millitary and diplomacy) and trying to get ahead tech-wise. In fact, I almost never warmonger.

 

[danieladler]

If I don't have to go to war, I usually find myself so far ahead of the AI that it isn't even funny (even on immortal). All you need to do is build the right buildings and pick the right policies, and no opponent has a chance of winning.

Not that early rushes or backstabs are fun, but I find that games where an AI doesn't attack me/I don't attack the AI tend to be dull and easy. If they added more internal problems for your civ to deal with, it might change that, but as of now I usually reroll if I don't get at least one aggressive neighbor.

Yes, thats a great idea (internal problems for example) that Civ4 also needed, even though they tried to spice up things with cooperations, religion and random events. They were on to something, even though the cooperations and religion after a while became something you could do in your sleep. I would like to see migration and internal politicial factions etc. If Civ4 needed more spice, CiV definately need it!

...though i really think the war part is way more interesting than in Civ4....at least on land.

 

[Babri]

If they added more internal problems for your civ to deal with, it might change that, but as of now I usually reroll if I don't get at least one aggressive neighbor.

Agreed. One of the features they can introduce is local happiness & change empire-wide happiness to stability. If ur stability goes too low, you'll start getting rebellions & if it goes out of control then there could be a new civ formed, breaking away from the main empire.