Early war is almost 100% caused by border disputes, so not having those means most neighbors won't have a reason to go to war. Although I've noticed I'm usually way too greedy with my early expansion so even playing India I'll end up in war in Ancient/Classical.
New Version - June 2nd (6-2)
- Thread starter Gazebo
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Does the first puppet you take still increase your costs?
Rekk
Deity
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No. The count is not based off of the maximum cities you have ever owned. Puppets counted previously, because you owned them before you turned them into puppets. It was not a special rule, it was a peculiarity due to how the modifier was calculated.
Before:
Start at 5 cities, conquer one city to go up to 6, turn it into a puppet, max cities owned 6, current 5. Conquer another city to go back to 6, turn it into a puppet, max cities are still at 6, current 5 (and two puppets).
Modifier is based on max cities: 6.
This patch:
Start at 5 cities, conquer one city to go up to 6, turn it into a puppet, go back down to 5. Conquer another city to go back to 6, turn it into a puppet, go back down to 5 (and two puppets).
Modifier is based on current cities: 5.
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I know that, and the inevitability of war due to excessive production bonus is exactly my point. I was mistaken by initially stating how turtle is the only option, because there's actually two choices. The other is taking matters into your own hands and becoming the authoritative neighbor yourself, which is why Deity was usually only winnable (apparently) through a dom victory in the past. I should've stated that my ranting was based off of trying to achieve a relatively peaceful Progress game where I can expand to around 6 cities (standard settings / Continents) without having to deal with an AI blitzkrieg 50 turns in, simply because I didn't devote to first 50 turns into strictly building an army.
You're right, and I knew settling there would cause the reaction, but my problem is that he's somehow got 10 (with hidden scout) units by turn 50. If I didn't settle Te-Moak there, guess who would've? In fact, I beat him to both Te-Moak and Agaidika locations with my settlers by only 3 and 1 turn respectively. He would've been in better position right on top of me, and then DoW regardless. Askia, Dutch, Gandhi, doesn't matter. I've rolled through the first 50-100 turns of many Emperor games to know at this point they would all forward settle + DoW guaranteed. Problem is always the same; cities are vulnerable and I have like 2 units due to seeing if I can quickly expand (otherwise I get forward settled) while getting basic infrastructure (shrine / monument) into my initial cities, because that's what you generally do with peaceful Progress (otherwise we'd just go Trad / Authority). Having to make decisions like forgoing a shrine in order to get another early unit or two into play is fun, except when I see the AI get to have their cake and eat it too...
Further reinforcing my point about the inevitable war, so why even attempt peaceful Progress?
Progress Scenario 1 has you focus infrastructure, you're a sitting duck that gets DoW 50-75 turns in by a civ(s) with 10+ units and the same infrastructure + # of cities (regardless of their policy choice) that you've focused your initial hammers into. You then proceed to urgently scrape together a couple warriors, an archer, and maybe a horse if you're lucky. Now it's turn 100, and after it's all said and done, we've spent the last 20+ turns just hopefully surviving; definitely couldn't get that 5th or 6th city down, might have even lost one of our initial cities instead... Ohh look, now were stuck in basically the same spot as 50 turns ago; our supply is still most likely wimpy after war casualties, sparse roads or improvements, and the spots we envisioned for our next few cities were scooped up by other AI. You'd be better off with a 4 city Trad turtle.
Scenario 2 has you pick Progress and instead focus on pumping out units to fill that supply in preparation for whatever onslaught lay waiting. Ok so I change my build order, right? Just pump out units, right? Then why in the hell am I going "peaceful" Progress if every Emperor+ game starts off with me having to spend my first 50 turns building units? Isn't that stagnation not ideal for Progress unless you had expansion through conquest on your mind from the get go? In which case you probably should've just went Authority?
There's no damn middle ground, and unless you turtle with 4 cities - letting the AI surround you in the process - you will probably be fighting early and often, so regardless of policy choice I believe you have to start the game with an Authority mindset, because it just doesn't seem like there's such a thing as "peaceful" wide play once you hit Emperor+. Also, I'm aware Shoshone land sprawls definitely isn't helping when it comes to instigating the AI in this case. I use only a few aesthetic and QoL mods, nothing gameplay (except 3/4 UC).
@Txurce I'd love to see a peaceful Progress Emperor+ game (Standard / Continents) where you can get off 6+ worthwhile cities before the AI settles those spots, or before the AI comes knocking to let you know the game is not going to be quite so peaceful...
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Txurce
Deity
I almost always build at least 5 cities without being attacked on continents. Much more likely is that I'm attacking someone else, if I have an earlyUU. Six cities peaceful is harder to say, because by then I'm in over 100 turns, and anything could happen geopolitically. My current game I built seven and told an annoyed neighbor to shove it before I was attacked — on turn 164.
But I have plenty of games where I'm most everyone's friend and no one attacks me, until I take over the top spot on the scoreboard. In these games, my land military is usually very skimpy for the first half: the garrisons, 4 mounted, and 1-3 siege if I have the (offensive) need for it. This is playing mostly Emperor, but now Immortal for two games.
Now obviously none of this would apply in a really tight setting. Then no one's going to have as many spots as they want — not just me — and there will be trouble. But if I'm jammed like that, I prepare for the inevitable militarily. And that early in the game there aren't too many civs successful enough to overrun me with sheer numbers.
Rekk
Deity
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How does peaceful wide even work? You're taking land that other civs would use to settle their cities, so you can't help but get into border disputes. Do you just cram more cities in the same space that a tradition civ would use? Except it's also beneficial for tradition to have its satellites close to the capital to work the capital's good tiles as it gains more specialists.
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Txurce
Deity
I don't think peaceful wide does work nearly enough to call it an approach. But relatively peaceful (non-end game) wide can occur surprisingly frequently with the right civs and spacing — as long as you're not dominating and maintaining a decent military.
I just started a wide/defensive game as Babylon on Deity last night. I say defensive because I'm not planning to take cities and recognize that wars will happen. I was able to quickly settle ~6 cities by turn 80ish I think and tacked on another after defending against DoWs from neighbors. The DoWs from the neighbors didn't really do a whole lot- I knew going into the game that wide would create early tension from border conflicts, especially in the 6-2 version where the land claims from AI got more aggressive. I planned on getting DoW'd and made sure to get early walls in border cities to hedge against it. It's a bit of a race to see if you can get your defenses up in the nick of time and it turned out that the DoWs were not serious invasions (one of them was a half hearted bribe war I think).
My point is that you can go wide without conquering. You might get DoW'd, yes, but just plan for it happening and you can survive it just fine. How much you need to hedge against it depends on who your neighbors are, the terrain, your own civ's bonuses, etc.
My point is that you can go wide without conquering. You might get DoW'd, yes, but just plan for it happening and you can survive it just fine. How much you need to hedge against it depends on who your neighbors are, the terrain, your own civ's bonuses, etc.
This. When people say Peaceful Wide, they mean Wide without Conquest.
tu_79
Deity
I ve started to neglect buildings going progress. The very early turns, I think it is more useful to have units (military, settlers and workers).
I think it just depends on the circumstances. The goal is to play as "greedy" as you can- only build as much military as you need so that you have enough hammers for settler spam and hammers for infrastructure in order to stay happy enough. Figuring out how much military you need by reading the situation only comes from experience and likely getting your ass handed to you by an aggressive neighbor a few times
Favorius
I am not a Chief!
My experience is otherwise, I get DoW'ed constantly when I play tall. My last Austian game, I get DoW'ed 11 times, including Gandhi.
I almost wonder if this sudden jump in difficulty might be from the "number of options considered" difficulty setting (can't remember the exact name) in the difficultyMod file. If I remember correctly, at lower difficulty the AI has more options that it can randomly choose from for it's strategy and at higher difficulty, it has a narrower set of options for the "optimal strategy"
So the AI being laser focused on aggression and expansion plus the slightly higher prod bonuses makes the early game difficulty much different
So the AI being laser focused on aggression and expansion plus the slightly higher prod bonuses makes the early game difficulty much different
Txurce
Deity
The AI becomes optimal on Immortal.
Ah okay, so that wouldn't explain the jump from king to emperor.
I don't have the file to look at now but from what I remember the main differences between the difficulties are the production costs for buildings, units, etc goes from 90% for King to 80% for emperor. Somewhere in that extra 10% is a critical tipping point that makes the early game much harder but it's hard to tell what exactly is the culprit.
I wonder if there's a way to set the unit production bonuses per era, so that the production bonus comes online more gradually
That’s already how it works. No AI, not even Deity, gets that substantial of a bump in ancient.
G
So if it's not the AI "number of options considered" and it's not the unit production bonus, what would you say is that critical factor that makes emperor early game feel so much harder than king?
Moi Magnus
Emperor
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If I remember correctly, the main difference between Emperor and King is that the AI start with a worker.
Maybe I've had a bad luck of circumstances but ... the times I've tried more AI's been going Authority and Emperor Authority spews out a lot more units than on King, atleast thats how it feels.
I found a repeatable bug:
If I ask my friend to start a war with another civ in the Discuss menu I automatically declare war on him if he accepts.
He then tells me: "My soldiers are excited at the prospect of war. To arms, ally!"
What happens is: he declares war on the other civ and I declare war on him but not the other civ.
If I ask someone else and they decline my request, nothing happens. They just refuse.
If I ask my friend to start a war with another civ in the Discuss menu I automatically declare war on him if he accepts.
He then tells me: "My soldiers are excited at the prospect of war. To arms, ally!"
What happens is: he declares war on the other civ and I declare war on him but not the other civ.
If I ask someone else and they decline my request, nothing happens. They just refuse.
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