Is there a way to prevent early wars?

[whyidie]

You can't use variety of strategies playing Deity and Immortal, that's just how the game is. Some people have fun playing the same *&@#$ over and over again just to win against Deity AI.

Hell, I've beaten deity and never really tried again, I just don't see the fun in Deity, just because of what you said, no matter what you try, if you don't sacrifice half of your ancient/classical era in spamming the same units you will get overwhelmed, no matter what strategy you plan to do, if you don't build up your NC ASAP you will just be dealing with Gattling Guns as you have Legions.

If you dont beeline education turns out the same as above. To sum up, you actually have to play the exact same game over and over again.

So my advice to you is, if you don't actually find the game on Immortal/Deity to be fun, just play another difficulty and try your strategies. The truth is that beating deity does not comes down as an achievement, is just doing the same boring bee lines over and over again.

Lower the dificulty and try out crazy strategies, thats what I do, and hell I have a heck of fun with Civ V.

Same experience. Higher levels are beatable but I don't enjoy the experience. I'm currently switching out between King and Emperor. To OP's point I find Emperor to be much harder to play a purely peaceful game.

 

[Polisurgist]

Same experience. Higher levels are beatable but I don't enjoy the experience. I'm currently switching out between King and Emperor. To OP's point I find Emperor to be much harder to play a purely peaceful game.

I've played a few games where I've managed to stay at peace the whole time, but I don't think that's a really doable goal; too much is out of your reach. If you're too weak, you'll get attacked, an if you're too strong you'll get the whole "I'm probably going to die but I have no choice" attack. You can stick to the sweet spot of a defensive military, but even then, you can't control the AI.

A serious answer to the OP: build walls early, get some ranged units, don't accept embassies unless you're getting something good in return, and don't freak out when you get attacked. You're way smarter than the AI, and you can probably sit back building wonders while it's sending people to die on your door.

Also...consider Honor. It gets a bad rap, but it's actually useful for a defensive military. It's just kind of garbage for an offensive military.

 

[apocalypse105]

And have you been winning constantly with King?

I can beat king easy not a challenge

emperor is just rather anoying then difficult Not fun to play

Based on how basically every comment you post here is about 1. how unfair it is that the AI tries to stop you from killing everything in sight or 2. how the game cheats because it's difficult on high difficulty settings, this might actually be good advice.

Try Plants vs. Zombies. Pretend you're the zombies.

Might as well do that because the developers and a lot of people don't see the problem that staying peacefull is impossible. And building up a friendship with a Ai is useless because they stab you in the back when they see the change.

What is your play style? Tradition/science, expansion/domination, turtling/culture, etc.? That could determine how helpful my advice would be, but I prefer playing at emperor level due to its strategic flexibility and enjoyment and don't mind the early DOWs... gives me a chance to kill some enemies and gain XP. I just played a game where I didn't have much room to expand so I sold luxuries to purchase 5 archers, and with just them and my starting warrior to take cities, I wiped 4 civs off my continent by about turn 175.

If you can start with a handful of archers at the beginning of the game, you should have no problem tackling a swarm of AI invaders, and after you kill them, you should be able to march in with upgraded CBs and wipe them off the face of the earth with relative ease given the right circumstances. However, if you're just looking to role play and be friends with everyone, it's not gonna happen... better stock up on that military (archer line) and hope for the best.

I don't have problems with defebdubg wars And I allways win on emperor and sometimes on immortal my point is it becomes less enjoyable because there is no diplomacy in this game

in the early game you get trolled dowed by the AI and you can't do much to improve relationship and in the mid late game they stab you in the back.

 

[Polisurgist]

Might as well do that because the developers and a lot of people don't see the problem that staying peacefull is impossible. And building up a friendship with a Ai is useless because they stab you in the back when they see the change.

The AI is trying to win the same as you're trying to win...only it's doing it worse, because it's kind of dumb. Going after a clearly inferior military is an obvious choice. You can stay mostly peaceful pretty well by following the actual advice you see here, but don't expect to get away with no significant military and to never ever have anyone declare on you.

 

[apocalypse105]

The AI is trying to win the same as you're trying to win...only it's doing it worse, because it's kind of dumb. Going after a clearly inferior military is an obvious choice. You can stay mostly peaceful pretty well by following the actual advice you see here, but don't expect to get away with no significant military and to never ever have anyone declare on you.

I was at the 5ft place military and at emperor or above its impossible to get a higher military then the AI.

And the fact that there are no option in diplomacy to prevent wars at early and late game because the AI will just declare war even if you have positif modifiers makes for a not fun experience which is my whole point about this topic.

I rather see a AI trying to win a culture victory and science victory competitvly and with personalities not all the same where they randomly backstabs just because they can. even peacefull leaders backstab you.

I Once palyed random personalities it didn't make much difference they where all douchebags

 

[Civ4Pengbo]

You obviously haven't played enough civ V then. The other day I had a game where Ethiopia was definitely going for a cultural win. However that didn't mean the guy didn't build an army he did. A lot of army. Mine was just bigger once I realised what I had to do to stop him.

Even the dumb AI gets how to play the game. The 2nd post gave you all the answer you needed.

 

[H4run]

I don't have problems with defebdubg wars And I allways win on emperor and sometimes on immortal my point is it becomes less enjoyable because there is no diplomacy in this game

in the early game you get trolled dowed by the AI and you can't do much to improve relationship and in the mid late game they stab you in the back.

I agree with you on the part there's no way to protect you from been attack in early time, even you settle trades of luxury with gold, they will pay you lesser than half price (the price is around 240 each luxury if you have good relation, if they want to attack you they will pay it around 100) and they will attack you despite losing their money.

But on "there is no diplomacy" part I disagree. Actually my military at most is rank 8, mostly 12 even 15 from 22. But I always get help by Inca during the war, and I maintenance a very long terms alliance with Inca and India in my continent. They always kindly helping me against my foe with cheap price, eventhough you are right in the end game when my empire get the most largest (even just by defending my nation from the attacker) now they turn against me both of them. And Inca have the best military. And in the end it will be "you versus the world". This is already fixed. But I guess if you take each opportunity in early and middle game, you will go just fine, and in civ 5 the most important is the opening. I play in immortal and I got like more than 20 wonder, I carries most of the wonder, and I never annex the city, and play at most with 3 city so I can cover most of my happiness issue with social policy.

And you are right, the most disturbing and hardest things in playing emperor or immortal difficulty is, the early invasion, if you survive the first test goodly, you will survive the rest of the test easily.

 

[whyidie]

I've played a few games where I've managed to stay at peace the whole time, but I don't think that's a really doable goal; too much is out of your reach. If you're too weak, you'll get attacked, an if you're too strong you'll get the whole "I'm probably going to die but I have no choice" attack. You can stick to the sweet spot of a defensive military, but even then, you can't control the AI.

Good point. Reminds me of the games where I've wanted the AI to declare, they sat on their hands, and when the DOW came it was a weak attempt. I quit those ones. Or the games I've quit because it was too peaceful and I wish I would have been playing on a higher difficulty.

A serious answer to the OP: build walls early, get some ranged units, don't accept embassies unless you're getting something good in return, and don't freak out when you get attacked. You're way smarter than the AI, and you can probably sit back building wonders while it's sending people to die on your door.

I thought both of your posts were valid

 

[GhostSalsa]

staying peacefull is impossible

I've done a no-war win on Immortal twice, once with Aztecs and once with Korea. Standard speed standard size Continents. It is designed to be rare but possible. It happens and so it is possible.

In both cases I kept above fifth place in military in the demo screen the whole game. This required aggressive troop upgrading and even delaying science techs for military techs when needed, which slowed my win time. (Delaying upgrades to invite a DOW and collecting puppets in response is a lot quicker.) It helped that in both cases I was playing with growth or science bonus civs, ideal for turtling.

I don't know why you would say war is boring? Yes variety is important but war is a template with numerous possible flavors. It is often tedious at times, but if you don't like war in CiV at all I'm not sure why you're playing this specific version of game?

 

[Arachnofiend]

Try getting the AI to fight against each other? A few clever bribes and denunciations can pit two AI's against each other for thousands of years. If you don't want to fight you're going to have to find others to do it for you.

 

[LoneRebel]

This seems like a strange thing for someone who routinely plays on Emperor and has over 2000 posts to be saying.

If your military was already strong as you claim and yet the AI still declared war on you, then fending them off with your strong military shouldn't be a problem, right?

If you're worried about the AI having negative modifiers towards you from the war they started...well, the AI is stupid-crazy that way. I've noticed that often when they start the war they don't hold it against you afterwards. It's you declaring war on them that can really piss them off.

Unless they're only hiding their true feelings. Someone would have to confirm that.

 

[Novalia]

The answer is NO you can't avoid war.

 

[Irkalla]

If a neighbour settles their second city in your general direction, then they will most likely go to war with you.

That's right. You have until their second city to make yourself badass enough to have war declared upon you.

My advice? If it's a close enemy capital, go honor start. Try not building wonders, and instead building military units. Never sign a peace agreement without having taken at least one city.

 

[szcott]

Embrace an early war, use it. I usually play immortal and sometimes deity. I worry when I don't get an early war. Try to settle next to a mountain or two to protect you from a few directions ( and for an observatory ), also having a river on a couple of sides helps too. Build walls and have an archer there. I normally start with Tradition, and if I have a close neighbor or some mean ones like Alex around, I will take Oligarchy early to help out too.

Once they attack, just level your archer, take the first three barrage promotions first, by then you should have killed anything he has sent and you will want to take the +1 range promotion. Try to have another archer or two on the fringe just picking off anything they can but staying alive. After they start retreating, chase them down and keep leveling your archers. You will also want to make getting to Construction an early goal to promote your archers to composite bowman. Now with range 3 archers you can safely start taking down their cities. Once you get logistics on you archers, early cities go down fast. have a couple of melee along to take the city and provide line of site. One trick is to move the melee in range, let them take a hit, then have them pillage something to heal, rinse and repeat and move them out before they die. Also if your archers have not got the plus one range yet, move them in after the melee to take a few shots. Be sure to have your general around helping too.

On higher levels the only advantage you have is having a brain to use with your military, you must take advantage of it. If you don't like the "war" part of Civ then play on lower difficulty levels or cook the books with tiny dual island maps.

I also admit that I will restart the game on turn one a couple of times till I get a start I like, Mountains, hill and river. I play marathon too, so the promotions might not come as easy on normal.

 

[wigwam]

Lots of misconceptions and bad ideas here. To refute a few of them:

Other civs will not always DoW you. I've played lots of games on Immortal on Continents and Fractal maps where I never went to war. On Pangaea, war is very likely, but not certain. On Deity, war is much more likely, but still not certain. The AI leaders are not all the same, they're not unpredictable, and they're not all out to get you. Some of them are: if you start near Attila or Genghis Khan (or Montezuma, or Catherine, or…), expect war. If you so much as meet Napoleon or Alexander, no matter how far away they are, expect war. Most leaders can be negotiated with, however.

On that note, Declarations of Friendship are a very good idea. They will cause consequences in later eras (the civs tend to split up into small blocs of mutual friendship, usually two or three groups on a standard-size map) but it's better to have some known friends and some known enemies than to just wonder where the next attack is coming from. If you have a relatively peaceful neighbor (or even just a trustworthy one—Bismarck, for instance, though he's aggressive, is not a backstabber), sign a Declaration of Friendship and don't worry too much about that front. If you have a bad-news neighbor (e.g. Alexander), find his other neighbors and make friends with them.

Finally, defensive structures and a big army are important deterrents, but geography is, especially in the early game, by far the most important factor in going to war (or avoiding it). The AI will decide when to invade you based on how many units you've got, and he'll decide where to attack based on whether he thinks he can take one city or another, but he'll decide whether to attack in the first place based on how much he "covets your land." With that in mind: do not settle near a neighbor you're not willing to fight. Do not extend beyond your natural borders (mountain ranges, deserts, city-states, and water are all excellent buffers between you and the AI). Do not settle into a position where you might have to fight on two fronts (unless you can't avoid it). Try to block off naturally defensible positions (peninsulas, mountain valleys) first and then fill them in later.

 

[kkapalk]

Kazdum, you stated that building wall tends to deter the AI from attacking you. Is this the case, and does the AI know whether you have walls or not?

 

[wigwam]

Kazdum, you stated that building wall tends to deter the AI from attacking you. Is this the case, and does the AI know whether you have walls or not?

They know how strong your city is; Walls are an element of that. In my experience, the number of defensive buildings you have won't affect whether they attack, but it will affect their tactics when they do. They'll avoid stronger cities and go for weaker ones; if all your cities are too strong, they'll wander around and pillage your improvements.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I would like to note that I have personally seen AI's commit suicide. What I mean is that occasionally an AI will calculate that it *needs* some city or some resource and even though it calculates it will probably not be able to defeat my army, it has to take the risk. On those occassions, the AI declaration of war speech will even take note of their poor chances. If you then beat them and take a city or two and then negotiate peace, it is not uncommon for that AI to NOT hold a grudge over the war they started and lost.

I say all this to underscore the point that a big army doesn't always guarantee peace but it is still the best for it.

 

[Crafty Bison]

If your military was not weak compared to theirs, why did you not just take their cities and say thankyou for not getting the diplomacy hit for declaring? You also get to sue for peace too. What's not to like? The only way it's a problem is if your army was weaker, in which case it's a valuable lesson about not neglecting military.

 

[apocalypse105]

If they don't change this in brave new world those trading options are pretty much limited