How to transition to peace after Authority

[bonniepbilly]

Whenever I start with Authority, since I have invested in a strong army, that got experience, maybe got Terracotta... I find it very difficult not to continue warring for most of the game, and take Imperialism, and then Autocracy.
Do you have the same experience? Did you find a good strategy where you are able to efficiently change path into a more peaceful play after starting Authority?

 

[tothePAIN]

Either - Authority / Fealty / Industry - Science / Production focus based on We Love The King Day

Or - Authority / Artistry / Rationalism - Great Age / Science focus.

Usually into Order, to take advantage of being wide, or perhaps Freedom, if I want to switch off the warmonger game.

 

[gabrielsfarias]

I guess if you're a total war-like civ (Zulu, Huns, etc) I don't think you're supposed to peace out for a long time. With these kind of civs I usually go Authority > Fealty > Imperialism, using my religion to offset unhapiness and Freedom or Autocracy.

If you're a civ that needs war to get something else (France, Aztecs, etc) then going anything other than Imperialism is totally fine, and shaping a religion that benefits from spread on your peace times can help. But it's tricky to get something else other than war in Autocracy, altough you can get tourism bonus from battle against a common foe and stuff like that.

i.e in my current game as France I have for the first time the problem that I don't have enough great work slots and my great WAM are accumulating in Paris. I cycle like this: take a city, theme a wonder, take another city (another civ) birth another WAM set, stop, repeat. Cultural is the easiest right now but I can go the hard way (Domination) to drag the game. This opens choices in all ideologies, if you want something other than non-stop war.

 

[Favorius]

Several times I played as Authority -> Progress -> Industry then Order. They ended in science victory.

 

[andersw]

Depends what civ but I've found authority -> statecraft to be extremely strong, but sometimes you get games with austria, greece and siam and ..yeah then its not easy to compete with statecraft.
As you mentioned most of the time -> imperialism.
But I'd say rationalism if you want to go science victory.
Industry have some uses but depends again a bit on what civ and how wide you went.

 

[mikes61293]

I think it all depends on the map and what civs around you. But generally, you can use early warring to get yourself a nice large piece of territory with easily defensible borders. Once you've expended to a natural boundary, you can stop upgrading/recruiting troops for a while and focus your attention inward. The social policy choices you go for next depend largely on what civ you're playing and what victory condition you want to aim for.

Here's a rough outline of a strategy that I like to use: Early war to slow down neighbor using spears, horsemen, and archers; maybe take a city or two. Get catapults if you've been able to defeat the enemy in the field but cant take cities. Make peace, focus internally and save up money. Research chivalry and make a nice timed push using knights. Conquer the territory you want/are able to. Make peace and use the knights as garrisons to quickly react to any threat but keep a smaller standing army (They should be highly upgraded at this point). At this point you probably have run out of steam militarily and have a ton of stuff to build, so you can't really conquer more right away. Use your large territory and yields to pull ahead in another area.

 

[bonniepbilly]

Thank you all for your answers. I'll give it a try. To clarify, it's not that I felt it is impossible not to continue on the warring path, but just that it seems suboptimal. Will try though!