How often do you play pacifist?

[Kjimmet]

For me, it depends on civ/leader.
If I play a game as Macedon, bloodpath begins.
If I play a game as Cree, I declare war only if they are too close to my living space.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Pretty much always. I never start wars. If I get declared on, I don't take cities or even really pillage. I don't even join emergencies that would require me to go to war with the target.

I tend to build two recon units for exploration, and a team of two melee units and one ranged unit for clearing barb camps. Other than that, I often won't build any military units for the rest of the game. I'll sometimes build a pair of galleys if I'm on the coast to get the eureka for shipbuilding. Research nodes like Military Tactics, Naval Tradition, Mercenaries, I almost never get the boosts for those and end up having to hard-research them.

Back in vanilla, I would sometimes declare if an A.I. was being super obnoxious about forward settling me, but that hasn't really been a problem since loyalty was added to the game. Since I also tend to play tall, I've acquired way more cities through loyalty flipping than I have through military conquest. Peaceful and tall, the twin pillars of playing Civ 6 suboptimally.

I haven't gotten around to playing one of the super aggressive civs like Macedon or the Zulu yet. I imagine they must be very frustrating to play passively because you end up leaving many of your most powerful bonuses on the table. Even with a civ like Persia, were most of their bonuses are infrastructural, it does feel like a bit of a waste to not use Cyrus' leader ability even once. But I just can't bring myself to do it. Maybe some day I'll work up the courage.

 

[DeutschDachs]

Pretty much every single time. Spamming ranged units and exploiting the AI doesn't do much for me. As a result, I rarely play combat focused Civs such as the Zulu or Ottomans. It's more fun to me to make it to the end of history.

But if the AI attacks me I often end up killing that Civ off (or severely crippling) because otherwise they will just keep attacking me in the future. Sometimes I do end up just rolling over the rest of the world then since I'll be too far ahead with all the additional cities to be stopped. But I basically never go into a game with a plan to conquer the world

 

[Tech Osen]

Usually pretty peaceful, unless provoked. Best way to provoke me: converting my cities. Attacking an important city state (like Auckland yesterday by Tomyris) is a good second.

 

[bite]

I honestly will try to play peacefully, but an unguarded settler, is an unguarded settler.

 

[Lord Lakely]

always. Building an empire is too much fun to be distracted by something as trivial and repetitive as war.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

seems like almost everyone prefers to play pacifist. I feel like even on Deity playing pacifist is too easy. In almost all of my recent games where I did not war I managed to befriend most Civs in the game and have multiple alliances running. I had two AIs (one of them Candragupta, who I forward settled, so you know he wanted to take my expos) who definitely wanted to war me and had huge negative modifiers, but it did not matter because if you get friendship once, you get it throughout the entire game. There should be a way to cancel friendship for a huge grievance modifier. That'd make AI backstabs actually a thing. In the current state of the game, the AI is almost completely unable to attack you if you appease them (instant embassy, open borders, send gifts, please agenda).

Personally I used to almost always conquer one or two civs, but lately with the loyalty system and the AI having such strong defenses I feel like war is just tedious. So most of my games I just settle 15-20 cities and then have a friendship bonananza until I get cultural/science win. It's a bit boring and I feel like it would be nice if war, esp. early was a bit more rewarded. The grievances from warring/killing one AI are sometimes so bad that they almost outweight the few cities gained.

 

[satchel]

Beautifully put. This sums up my approach too.

I'm a builder so really I like to treat Civ as an empire simulator. Just let me build loads of cities and a few Wonders and I'm a happy gal. Though, if you do happen to send your unescorted Settler my way, don't be surprised if you don't get it back

+1 to all of this for me, too.

ETA: That said, I sometimes let the game choose my civ for me (to force me try something new, or combat choice paralysis), and if it chooses a civ for which war makes sense, I might go ahead and play a domination game.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

when my game is finished there is not a single civ or leader that can say that I was aggressive or started wars or stole cities/settlers etc. I make sure none of them survive to tell the tale.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

In the current state of the game, the AI is almost completely unable to attack you if you appease them (instant embassy, open borders, send gifts, please agenda).

Friendship-locking does feel like an exploit. So to make the game a little harder, I impose a rule on myself where I'm not allowed to ask for friendship. I only accept declarations of friendship that the A.I. offers to me on their own.

 

[kaspergm]

I often play pacifist for the last half of the game, but I do find that one higher difficulties it's difficult to succeed if I don't take out at least one neighbor. Usually the one that decides to DoW me has it coming ...

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I never intend to wipe AIs off the map but then they attack me. And even if I do agree to peace, I get denounced for causing them grievances, so I might as well just burn them to the ground.

Then another AI denounces/attacks me and the endless waltz continues.

 

[Zaarin]

Always. War is boring. I can't recall ever fighting an offensive war in Civ6.

 

[Futumch]

I frequently play the pacifist role, which is sometimes tricky to balance if you enjoy rapid expansion. For me, completing a game with any of the AI at war with me is quite unusual.

The only drawback to playing like that is sometimes I end up with city-states surrounded by my cities, like odd little freckles.

 

[AntSou]

I play according to the Leader's/Civ vibe.

I often Hotseat with at least two Civs so military conflict is more or less inevitable as I try to outplay myself.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

If anything, war makes me miss the war score mechanic from Beyond Earth. I liked being able to extract something from my opponent beyond ceding a city or some luxuries.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

Whenever I do play Civ 6, it's usually pacifist. This game is just way too easy when it comes to warfare, even on higher difficulties.

The whole district system is complex enough to manage without attempting to wage a war anyway. I'd rather play Civ 5, which is - no offence - still the superior game.

 

[GunsGermsandSteel]

Early game I always war vs nearby civs and city states. I usually stop warring once walls go up everywhere. I find combat in Civ vs AI to be not that stimulating when I have so many other games that are strictly focused on combat so I rarely go for a true domination victory.

I take out nearby city states because I hate when I go to war with another civ who then steals my suzerain status and a city state in my backdoor attacks and starts pillaging everything. Same thing with nearby civs (I usually only take out one). There are lots of rewards for early warmongering because you get all the cities/improvements/wonders THEY built. AND you have a respectable military so other Civs won't view you as a weak juicy target. I pillage everything when I can because the benefits are immediate and it doesn't even take a builder charge to repair after I take control of the city. Plus most other civs don't judge you at that stage of the game for being aggressive.

When walls go up everywhere I if I run into a civ/area that's all hills and encampments it becomes far to bloody and tedious for me. I like to keep my promoted units! Frankly I find hills OP (blocks ranged, slows units to a crawl) and there can be a lot of hills.
Then I wont start warring again until I have artillery. And even then only if someone else provokes it.

 

[qadams]

Like so many others here, I'm nearly always a peaceful builder. Maybe one game out of twenty I'll decide to try some warmongering, but mostly I just enjoy seeing my cities grow, exploring, erecting wonders, and keeping my citizens happy,

 

[King Rad]

I never start a war unless someone takes over one of my suzerain city states. Other than that, I generally only get involved in a war when drawn into it automatically because someone attacks one of my allies. I do wish they would give more options for dealing with civs who attack city states that you are suzerain of, including defending them even if the person attacking them is a friend or ally [or better yet, giving you the option of telling them that if they continue to attack the city state, you will consider it an act of war]. In the last year or so, I only remember one time when I started a war for any other reason, and that was because Phillip would not quit sending missionaries/prophets to convert my cities after I asked him to [he said he would and then continued to send them anyway]. I denounced him and then declared a war because of his converting my cities from my own religion. If no one declares on my or my city state, then I don't war with them [absent getting drawn into a war declared against an ally; but often i'm allied with both side, so even that doesn't generate a war if memory serves]. I term my play as peaceful but also as sometimes being the world's policeman.