Does CIV REQUIRE war?

[The_Reckoning]

Link to peace game mentioned above: http://www.compoundeye.net/civ/nonviolent/

 

[xanadux]

The old saying:

'To secure peace, you must prepare for war'

Is mostly true in CivIV. There are exceptions ... with the right neighbors and good enough diplomacy, a large military may not be necessary. And with the wrong neighbor, no matter how strong your military is, they will invade.

As mentioned before, you can always turn 'always peace' on if you want.

I find the game more or less consistent with the amount of warfare in the real world, if anything, there is much less in Civ than on earth.

Wars will always happen as long as there are seperate nations with military sovereignty. It is only a matter of time. Eventually a war will happen between 2 bordering nations as long as they have independent militaries. It may take a very very long time, but it will happen. This is why the United Nations has pretty much completely failed at preventing any war ... they don't have military sovereignty. Any global government is a farce until it has complete military control.

Which is just like Civ ... you pretty much win when you control the world, and that's the only thing that can completely stop the wars ... winning the game.

 

[absimiliard]

I don't think it requires war. . . . but it sure does reward it.

-abs

 

[MrCynical]

The game doesn't require you to go to war to win, but it will make it a lot easier. The same is true for almost any other facet of the game - you can win without them, but it makes your task a lot harder than it needs to be.

It is possible to get a domination win by sheer cultural power, but I have to point out that setting the game to be always peace makes the task vastly easier, since you can leave your cities completely undefended with impunity - leaving them free to culture. In a normal game the civ losing cities would also attack you, forcing you into war.

 

[Kennigit]

For BtS, immortal is not out of reach with no wars (or atleast no early wars or aggressive wars). Emperor is possible to avoid war all together with the right game/position yet still win pretty easily.
Of course, the game does favor wars in the long run, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

 

[Morgrad]

I usually shoot for warless diplomatic if I start isolated.
I never go for back-end diplomatic. It feels cheesy to me.

I almost never war if I'm going for culture from a very early point (Spain on a Lake, perhaps). I hate going for culture, so basically don't do it unless it falls in my lap.

That being said, my normal modus operandi is to build 2-3 cities and end up with around 20. I wonder how that happens?

 

[Gliese 581]

Quite often you can win without starting a war, avoiding a dow for the whole duration of a game is a bit trickier.

 

[KMadCandy]

Try that crap in multiplayer and see what happens.

*giggle* i wouldn't last 2 minutes even in the lobby! i conceded before that post that MP is an entirely different matter .

Quite often you can win without starting a war, avoiding a dow for the whole duration of a game is a bit trickier.

question: i've had games where i've never actually been at war with anybody, red lines on the diplo screen style. but i have done some wheeling and dealing to stir up war between other folks. say monty has too much on his hands, i think he's coming for me, i try to get alex to declare on monty. all of a sudden monty's busy and decides to let me live for a while longer. or not so directly, just stuff like watching Cyrus and Bismarck bickering, and following them around with a vulture combat settler to claim decent city spots, if any come up, before they can. spreading an unpopular religion to somebody i want to be everyone's common enemy, so that i won't be the common enemy. that sort of thing.

i'm not actually in a war in those games. not even a phony "i declared war on you but didn't send a single unit to fight" war. but warfare was definitely part of my strategy, which was part of the OP's question. i benefited from the wars, i just didn't get my own hands dirty. so, what does that type of game count as, on the war-or-not scale?

The nice thing about the warfare aspect is that if you want to play peacefully you MUST pay strict attention to diplomacy. You can't just decide to play peacefully and that is that.

bingo. "Land is power." but politics is power too. making nice so that folks don't want to kill you, and/or keeping strong buddies to fight your battles for you can be really powerful.

 

[allunderheaven]

On most games, I try to avoid wars, since I don't usually build up much of an army. I find wars a pain, I mean it slows me down in the tech race and cripples my economy even if I win the struggle

 

[cheffster]

If you're playing on Noble or below, war is not required.

But on higher difficulties, the AI gets economic "cheats" that makes beating them very difficult without war.

Depends, I've won on Deity-cultural w/out ever declaring war (though I did have war declared on me)

IMO war is never really required on any difficulty, but more often then not its the 'best' strategy at some point in the game to help you win - regardless if you are planning a domiation/conquest or not.

 

[SenhorDaGuerra]

the game is no fun unless you go to war. endlessly clicking end turn is reallllllllllllllllllllllllllly dull. building up you army to them go and kill someone even just because you feel like it is so much more fun.

 

[endymion]

Look at Holland and their mighty trade empire, lasted them for a while but then a more warlike civ (the English) put them out of empire bussiness

sorry for the oftopic but as a dutchmen i just have to comment on this.

The dutch remained a mighty empire until after the second world war. We had the biggist muslim population for example with indonesia. i agree we became less powerfull navy wise after the 3 anglo-english wars

 

[AmazonQueen]

sorry for the oftopic but as a dutchmen i just have to comment on this.

The dutch remained a mighty empire until after the second world war. We had the biggist muslim population for example with indonesia. i agree we became less powerfull navy wise after the 3 anglo-english wars

Yep, Holland wouldn't have existed if it hadn't been able to defend itself against the French and Spanish, and did pretty well at naval warfare for a while. I think Holland proves that even a trading empire can't neglect its military.

 

[IronCrown]

Domination without war? I'm not saying it's not possible, but only under very specific conditions. You need a pangaea-type, not too big map. I do say it's impossible on any map with two or more continents. You'll never flip a city on another continent with your culture

 

[Daedal]

I find the game more or less consistent with the amount of warfare in the real world, if anything, there is much less in Civ than on earth.

The trouble with war in Civ is the anti-human bias. AIs rarely seem to declare war on one another without provocation (KMad style). Rarer still is an AI killing off another AI. AIs don't even seem to attack weaker neighbors much. And AIs blocking another AI from winning? Never seen it. For instance, if one AI has three cities nearing legendary culture I've never seen other AIs go to war with it just to take out one of those cities. Maybe it's just an AI stupidity issue. BtS does seem to help a bit in this regard, but I still see too much peace between AIs, 'fake' wars that do nothing, and insta-vassal wars where the 'loser' seems to capitulate after having lost 1 or 2 cities. Often I have to almost entirely destroy an enemy civ to get it to capitulate... but I digress. War is what you make of it and many people find it an amusing and effective tool, thus you'll see it pop up in many strategy guides.

 

[futurehermit]

I hate when an AI comes all the way across the map to attack me (esp when we have pleased relations) when they have a much more likely target next door. The maintenance they would have to pay after killing me would be crippling. I think they could be much more dangerous after developing their empire close to home and teching properly. Shaka sometimes can do this if he can keep his tech up later in the game after taking people out early. He's one of the few AIs that can actually take other AIs out early.

 

[eewallace]

I play on noble, and generally prefer peaceful strategies. I find that in maybe 1/3 of my games I can avoid war altogether and still win by space race (most often) cultural or diplomacy. But I can't do it without having a strong military!

 

[allunderheaven]

Although I try to avoid wars, I must agree with SenhorDaGuerra

originally posted by SenhorDaGuerra:
the game is no fun unless you go to war. endlessly clicking end turn is reallllllllllllllllllllllllllly dull. building up you army to them go and kill someone even just because you feel like it is so much more fun.