Let AIs Live & Pay or kill them?

[Marvinlegend]

I'm a Civ IV player who mostly skipped Civ V completely and starts to get into Civ VI. Currently trying my first deity games, mostly I just play the early part and train to rush the AI, keeping up with a deity AI without getting a few cities from them seems a lot harder to pull off.

In my currently best try I'm at nine cities at Turn 61 (standard speed, Gilgamesh), which feels pretty good. (Seven conquered one captured settler). The first four where from the destruction of Egypt, the second three, where 3/5 from Spain. It seems that once you took the AI down to one or two cities (maybe sooner fi you killed most of their military?) they get desparate and want peace, often accompanied by a not small amount of gold per turn and as insant cash. So my thinking was, it is maybe more of interest to let AIs stay alive and pay you for 30 turns?

Of course the answer is al always: Depends, like if the next city would be especially hard to conquer due to mountain ranges you'll rather make peace, but what is you general preference in that situation?

Thanks!

 

[DanQuayle]

Let them live and get their gold. In my experience, they will never attack you back if you have a higher military score than them (even if your cities are left undefended).
They will just produce a bunch of obsolete units.

Spoiler :

 

[elitetroops]

If you beat them down to 2 cities, ask for the 2nd last city in the peace deal. I found they often comply.

 

[Brutus2]

My opinion is that if you're winning the war it's always better to completely wipe them out. Taking cities is a huge warmonger penalty with the civ you took them from and owning a city that previously belonged to another civ is a huge ongoing penalty for the rest of the game. So, if you make peace with a civ they are going to hate you forever and only cause problems plus they now have a re-conquest Cassius Belli against you for the rest of the game. Wipe them out and all that goes away. Plus the most important key to success in Civ 6 is get as many cities and as much population as you can (and if you can take those things away from your opponents in the process all the better).

Not saying you have to be a warmonger. I usually play peacefully until someone attacks me, but that's the last mistake they will ever make

 

[Marvinlegend]

Isn't the penalty for having their cities removed if they cede them in the peace treaty?

 

[Browd]

It appears not, since they will continue to gripe about the lost city.

And that makes sense historically. There are innumerable examples of cessions of territory that were not happily accepted by the country ceding the territory. E.g., France ceded Alsace and part of Lorraine to Germany at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, but were the French content with that outcome, becoming Germany's BFF as a result? I think not.

 

[Promethian]

You lose the general warmongering penalty for taking the city if you return it to its owner in the peace deal.

Getting them to cede the city just allows the city to grow. Non-ceded cities are growth locked.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I've had a couple foolhardy AIs declare surprise wars on me because even though I was two or more tech levels ahead, their military outnumbered mine. It was over brutally quick between my navy destroying their unescorted embarked units and my superior ranged units. After that point, I took one border city I'd wanted for awhile and then set up the XP farm. Since you get XP for bombarding cities with 0HP in VI, once you've dominated the enemy you can just bombard away every turn for as much xp as you want. Eventually, I took peace and everything he had that wasn't tied down, but I got about 50xp for each ranged unit well after it was all over. Why kill them when they can become a ready food source for all time?

Oh, and I've discovered that if you destroy their fortifications (the blue bar) they can't bombard you from the city center. I'm sure most knew this, but I was pleasantly surprised that I could just sit there without repercussions and watch the city burn.

 

[MadDjinn]

letting the AI live to get their stuff just depends on if they have stuff worth taking.

generally early game the AI won't have enough gold or gpt to really balance out the fact that you aren't getting their last city - which may or may not have lots of nice stuff there.

 

[Kolyana]

Unless there are mitigating circumstances (such as another war that needs my troops) I always finish them off and it's doubtful that they'll put enough on the table to make me let them go. I reason that if the cities are mine, their income, science etc etc are now all mine as well; balance that against whatever they were going to offer over 30 turns and odds on the capture of the city is going to pay dividends in the long term.

 

[joncnunn]

For me, a lot depends on weather or not the AI is willing to cede all the cities I've already conquered by the time it's down to it's last city (which will be useless); if it's not, it's going to lose that one as well just to get rid of the occupation penalty on all cities I've already conquered.

 

[Fuccimama]

In deity especially, the AI outproduces you for a long time before you can catch up. I like to farm other civs as long as my war weariness allows. Pillage every tile, take every city down to 0 hp, kill every unit, and enslave the workers and settlers.. You can walk away from a city that isn't occupied for awhile, and they'll quickly produce workers, even if you pillage them, thanks to their bonuses. Steal the workers. Make another round of pillaging. Only when my citizens start to become unhappy due to war weariness, do I select which cities I want to occupy. That way, I don't take a warmongering hit unless I choose to. There's no real benefit to occupying a city, until you want to make peace and decide whether to keep the cities, or demand gold or Luxes for peace.

Oh, and by the way, if you want a particular luxury that a civ has, don't pillage the tiles with that lux. Leave it be and demand it in a peace deal.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I'm sure this is known here, but for sake of completeness:

Particularly early game, any city you capture can trigger Eurekas and Inspirations as if you built it. I just had a (Prince) game as Rome and Japan jumped me. I promptly bought slingers and repelled his (otherwise fairly decent) attack, and took his only city.

I got like 3 Eurekas from it. One for Drama and Poetry (because Japan just built Stonehenge), another for Horseback Riding (he already had a Pasture), and I can't recall the third offhand.

So my vote is to kill them. Learn from Taira no Kiyomori.

 

[redwings1340]

I personally think killing off the AIs is better for one reason: city states. One less player on your continent is one less competitor for envoys, and lets you be suzerin of more city states. If you let them live you'll get annoyed when 1 city germany has 12 envoys in Toronto and takes it from you late in the game. If you kill them you can become suzerin of all the city states on your starting continent easily.

As an example, I put 12 envoys in to Buenos Aires before I finally killed off sythia in my last game, who was competing with me for it. Once I killed them off, I was able to put envoys in Toronto instead and I had a massive industrial powerhouse setup going. If I didn't value friendships, I probably would have killed Gilgamesh too, but he was my super bro the entire game, so I let him live. Still, the game would have arguably gone better if I had killed him off, as he was suzerin of a lot of city states I wanted.

 

[CornPlanter]

Then what's the difference between cedeing and not ceding? What cede means in game terms exactly?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Then what's the difference between cedeing and not ceding? What cede means in game terms exactly?

I haven't seen one. I've had civs cede cities every time they came begging for peace and they still were upset about me owning one of "their" cities hundreds of years later.

 

[Napalmeon]

Usually I let them live. Mostly because I gain very little from taking their crappiest city. Also because it gives me a good amount of gpt in the peace deal, which I use to fund the army while I go roll over another Civ. Repeat this until there's no strong civs left on my continent.

 

[Fuccimama]

Then what's the difference between cedeing and not ceding? What cede means in game terms exactly?

"Cede" means that the AI gives up the city you occupy as part of a peace deal. You take no additional warmongering penalty for accepting a city in peace negotiations. They can give up cities without ceding them also. For instance, if you occupy their capital, they may give up other cities in exchange for their returned capital. You take less of a warmongering penalty when you give them their capital back, and accept other cities in peace, than you do if you occupy all the cities.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

So, good to do from the world standpoint, but that Civ will still say that city was theirs for all time. Little schoolchildren will be brought up being taught that even though Rouen fell to the evil Japanese two thousand years ago it is still a French city and will be forever! Eventually their mighty musketmen will defeat the mechanized infantry of the Japanese empire!

 

[Fuccimama]

Haha, they can tell their schoolchildren anything they want, as long as they get to the sweatshop every afternoon to make those hammers.