Does anyone go to pacifism?

[squoink]

The good : 100% great people generation
The bad : small army due to cost. How is this ever possible. Surely an AI will attack you if you have a substantially smaller army?

cheers

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Diplomacy can stop you being attacked.

It's very useful for the liberalism race (more great scientists) and cultural victory (more great artists).

 

[Camikaze]

I have rarely used Pacifism. Military prowess always seems too important to bother. At that stage in the game where pacifism comes into play, I'm always at war, just out of war, or about to go to war. Keeping my military strong is one of my priorities, and the production bonus from OR, along with the free missionaries (which are also useful for a cultural victory), makes pacifism seem a waste of the anarchy.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Organised Religion is good for the building phase in a cultural victory, Pacifism is good for the generate GA phase. In a cultural game, you should build monasteries anyway (+2 base culture +5 more with Sistine&State Religion).

 

[Camikaze]

It's probably because I'm slow at spreading my religion(s) that I still have a need for OR when Pacifism comes around.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Time to change to Pacifism in a culture game is after the cathedrals have been built.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I'm with Camikaze. That military cost can really hurt. For me it's highly situational.

One situation is OCC Space. If you get a tech lead, you will have a small, cutting-edge military. Since gold is rarely a problem in an OCC, Pacifism helps significantly. I'm sure there are other situations that I haven't thought of, but I'm usually in OR until I have expanded to the point where maintenance hurts too much. Then I switch out of it.

 

[gilmore606]

My games tend to have a two-war rhythm -- first war to expand, then I settle in for some building and teching, to prepare for the second final domination war.

Pacifism is great during that middle period, right after my first war when I'm settling down to build out. If I'm in a good diplo situation and don't have much military left over from the first war, I go Pacifism for a good long while to farm out GPs.

 

[theskibum]

Another point to use pacifism would be to switch into it first turn of a golden age and out on the last turn. This super-maximizes the GPP potential as you get +100% for the golden age and +100% for Pacifism. Golden Age helps run it too as you will be bringing in a lot more commerce during the GA.

 

[Kid R]

Great people are more powerful the higher up the difficulties you go. Hence you will see the benefits of pacifism (which boosts great people) strongly advocated by the best players. I'm just starting to learn to love it myself, through reading game reports on here, and very rarely go a game without spending some time in pacifism now. As others have said if you can time one of the switches in/out for a golden age so much the better. The music great artist is much prized for this purpose (and music is also a great trade tech).

Re. AIs attacking you if you have no army, the deterrent ability of your army at immortal+ is irrelevant, as there's realistically no way you can be strong enough for it to make any difference.

 

[JulesDogg]

In my last game (large map, continents, epic speed, temperate, 8 AIs) I eliminated 4 rivals by 120AD leaving me with a huge continent to peacefully settle. A large army was of no use and I ran pacifism for long periods, this in turn led to lots of Gt Scientists for a great tech lead.

If I hadn't gone for a continent wide early rush running pacifism would have been out of the question for most of the game.

 

[Dracaena]

It may appear to be more expensive but due to the NO UPKEEP even with a considerable army pacifism can actually save you gold. It depends on the size of your empire, and stage of the game. A large empire with high civic upkeep costs and high inflation can often save gold even with a huge army. A small civ in the early game will often be worse off gold-wise under pacifism even with a small army, since the civic upkeep saving will be minimal.

Also, Vassalage will reduce the number of units that pacifism causes you to pay upkeep on.

In a recent game I ran pacifism extensively throughout the game, with three GA farms for cultural win.

 

[theskibum]

I like to imagine all that goes to hiring cops to beat up hippies.

It's just one of the myriad things I will do in civ which I deplore in real life.

I HATE HIPPIES!!! They're dirty and smelly and when I see them I say "hey, hippie, go take a bath you goddam dirty hippie"!

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[kochman]

I go with Pacificism for much of the game once I get it, until I get Free Religion (and have at least a couple religions in each city to begin with).

The cost of the army is not that bad, since it doubles your GP potential, which is well more than worth the exchange (one GM can fund many a turn of army).

 

[gilmore606]

It feels weird to me that Pacifism is tied to a state religion. I often want to go Pacifism but I've been avoiding a religious commitment for diplo reasons. This seems unfair somehow.

 

[Bei1052]

I use mainly it during golden ages to generate multiple great people (at the beginning of the game, anyway).

 

[karadoc]

It is quite situational, but I do use it from time to time.

Actually, one of the things I really like about civ4 is that many of the civics are situational; and so I end up using different combinations to win games in different circumstances.

I probably use pacifism more often than I use police state...

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

It feels weird to me that Pacifism is tied to a state religion. I often want to go Pacifism but I've been avoiding a religious commitment for diplo reasons. This seems unfair somehow.

I second this. If Pacifism is anti-war, but you need a religion - which causes tension - to adopt it, then you're working against yourself. You're paying money for the troops you have, and that money comes from the GM's your making, so building more troops is working against yourself. And since you can't build more troops without losing the point of adopting pacifism, you have a low power ratio and unless your religion is the dominant one, you also have a political disadvantage.

 

[babar]

It feels weird to me that Pacifism is tied to a state religion. I often want to go Pacifism but I've been avoiding a religious commitment for diplo reasons. This seems unfair somehow.

I feel the same way. You are only adopting a religion to proclaim that your civ has become meek and wouldn't hurt a fly. You'd think everyone would be pleased! If anything, it's your new religious buddies that should be annoyed. This isn't a serious complaint though, I think it's fine the way it is, realism and gameplay-wise. Possibly they should have called it something else.

I would run pacifism most of the time if it wasn't for the diplo.

 

[plasmacannon]

The good : 100% great people generation
The bad : small army due to cost. How is this ever possible. Surely an AI will attack you if you have a substantially smaller army?

cheers

No.
Yes.

No I don't use Pasifism, and yes, The AI will attack you when you have a smaller army, depending on your diplo relations with them.

I don't switch, because, I am too busy building my financial buildings trying to keep my empire earning anought gold to begin the next conquering phase, and Organized Religon is too important to get through this struggle to lose.

Probably, the empires that use pasifism the best have Spiritual Leaders. As they can switch back to wartime civics and fight if necessary.
Mansa Musa is a good example.