How to avoid war - newbie question

[Zeuxis]

Hi Everyone!

I have been playing civ for many years, dating back to the 1990s when I bought my first computer to specifically play Civ2 (I loved winning quickly on Diety by buying cities and knowing the "cheat" whereby the AIs couldn't expel your spy if they travelled in twos.....)

Anyway, I didn't play Civ 5 (I found Civ4 better) but I am now on my first set of Civ6 games and on the big learning curve.

The first few games on Warlord as Russia, I never did better than the AI. Then I found out about some of the general ideas like 6-7 early cities (going wide) and chopping. Now I am ahead by a reasonable amount. I like to be peaceful as much as I can and at around about turn 80 one civ suddenly declared war on me and then immediately afterwards so did Ghandi (Ghandi!!!!!!!!???)

I wasn't planning on building up a large army at this point so the question is, can you avoid war, how do you do it, and is it actually not a better idea to fight if necessary even if it isn't part of your overall strategy (I am looking for a science victory).

Cheers!

 

[EgonSpengler]

Playing peacefully is definitely harder than fighting. I find that 1 or 2 aggressive wars, fought very early, usually allows me to coast for the rest of the game. Avoiding even a defensive war (e.g. war is declared against you; you do not capture any enemy cities; and you accept the first peace treaty the AI will agree to) requires a multi-pronged approach of deterrence and diplomacy.

Deterrence is fairly uncomplicated, but it means having a solid, up-to-date army that you will pay for without using, so it will be a constant drag on your economy. You'll also need to research new weapons technologies, even though you don't plan to use them.

Diplomacy has lots of upsides, but is complicated and requires diligence; you'll want to achieve a Diplomatic Visibility Level of at least Open with anyone whose Hidden Agendas might make them more likely to attack somebody. Build spies. Use policy cards to make your foreign trade routes more lucrative. Pay attention to everybody's Government; if someone abruptly starts running their mouth, it might be because they changed their government and it no longer matches yours. Also pay attention to everyone else's diplomacy with each other, and which City-States they're all interested in. Remember that if you declare friendship with someone, all of their enemies will be aggravated. But you still want to declare Friendships and make Alliances, you just have to be careful about who you do it with. You may need a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. Previous iterations of Civ had a great graphic that showed red, green and white lines connecting all of the civs to one another, showing you who liked whom and who hated whom. I can't remember if that's in Civ VI or if there's a mod for i (I use a lot of mods, and I've kind of forgotten which parts are from the vanilla game ).

Don't forget that a pacifist game doesn't mean being friends with everybody, and it doesn't mean being neutral, it means being at peace with everybody. Ironically, you may have to be nicest to the Civs who are being the biggest tools, while brushing off or ignoring the Civs who are the nicest. It's all about threat management. If you're sure someone can't or won't attack you, you can go ahead and piss them off a little. Meanwhile, if your neighbor is a belligerent donkey with a hair trigger, you'll end up giving him luxuries and trade routes, adopting his government type and religion, and sending him gift baskets and free tickets to his favorite sports team, just so he'll go start a fight with somebody else. You'll feel dirty, but you won't be at war.

Naturally, a lot will change on Friday. The new DLC sounds like it will be mana from Heaven for players who enjoy playing a pacifist game.

Also, that's not Gandhi.

Spoiler :

 

[NorthernPalmyra]

I find a lot of it is if you have a strong army the AI will leave you alone and Cleopatra will be your BFF

 

[Rilyharytoze]

In general sending a diplomat when you first meet and trading them open borders can be enough to avoid early wars. Otherwise its about satisfying their agendas i.e. large standing army, small empire, faith/gold generation etc.

 

[Victoria]

If they want your land it is unlikely you can avoid a fight unless you have a much bigger military.

 

[NorthernPalmyra]

In general sending a diplomat when you first meet and trading them open borders can be enough to avoid early wars. Otherwise its about satisfying their agendas i.e. large standing army, small empire, faith/gold generation etc.

this, and having a military capable of repelling any surprise wars I tend to play a defensive military game fortifications & archers/ranged