No Slavery no Caste no Wars?

[Orion Pax]

Curious:
What is the highest difficulty people have won or won consistently on without using:

1. Slavery
2. Caste System
3. Wars of Conquest

Call it “enlightened peacemongering?” Picked up from the thread: Peacemongers Unite.

Emperor, for me so far..

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

You can turtle up with about 6 cities, never use the whip or caste, and win a space race on Monarch rather easily. I've not tried on Emperor but I'm assuming it's do-able there too. I'm too much of a warmonger to find out.

 

[Fippy]

I wonder why you put in Caste there, often used during peace times
Can certainly win Culture or Space on deity without Slavery or wars,
but no Caste would be painful for culture cos you want to create artists.

 

[Windsor]

I can beat deity using those settings, but not consistently. There's just way too many maps where I need a bit of conquest to get enough land to win.

Forced peace through "always peace" setting would probably be easier since you can do super-aggressive settling, but I've played 2 games with that setting and none on deity.

 

[Orion Pax]

There's just way too many maps where I need a bit of conquest to get enough land to win.

Totally. And same with Caste for cultural. And that’s the fun of the challenge to me: Can I win without using those methods as an “enlightened” civ of sorts?

As for settings, I haven’t been inclined to just turn peace on permanently because that removes a whole element of the game. It interesting to see if you can build a respectable civ and defend it from attackers / make friends diplomatically.

I have messed around with how many players and whom and land type, etc. Sometimes it’s fun to make it crowded as you go for a cultural victory - can make land more balanced and you get to test your borders against your neighbors.

 

[shakabrade]

1. No Slavery
2. No Caste System
3. No Wars of Conquest
4. No Religion too?

 

[MAvL]

Do defensive war of conquest are allowed? ie never DoW yourself? What about reconquering new lands? ie cities you did not founded but yearn to join your mother land.
Do defensive DoW work? ie helping an other player victim of a warmonger.

 

[Orion Pax]

Ahh, good stuff MAvL..

All of those are fun and offer degrees of restriction, opportunity, and enlightenment. One way of looking at a defensive war of conquest could be the need to totally prevent a civ from attacking again (did that with Alexander once...)?

Generally I do think the most enlightened and challenging is no conquest at all? There was some good exploration of various nuances on that peacemongers unite post. Some suggested things like conquering a border city was okay since they would arguably be somewhat clarmoring to join your empire from cultural influence? Others suggested gifting the city back after the war was over and the threat neutralized?

Intervening to help another civ, though, hadn’t thought of that one! Very interesting...

 

[MAvL]

Yeah, my 2 first one are dishonest attempt to bend the rules. No -lasting- conquest is the most logical. No pillaging/city razing as well I guess.

Intervening to help another civ, though, hadn’t thought of that one! Very interesting...

That's a good RP one, but I think that's also one of the only few viable option against a strong runaway warmonger (in any 4X) :
If you let said runaway mop up countries one by one starting by the weakest one, you'll be on his list very soon and by then he'll be unstopable.

An other viable strategy is be a stronger warmonger runaway yourself (and stronger means growing faster, typically taking on easier prey).
Confronting them in a favorable time (early on), is an option, but waiting for them to agress someone gives you at least one ally, puts the war on someone else territory and is better diplomatically.
I guess waiting for them to come and counting on tech advantage and reaching a victory (space/cultural) before it happens is also possible, but appart from that, helping people defending themselves is IMO the only peaceful option. You don't have to DoW technically though, you can help through tech and units gift...

 

[Orion Pax]

Yeah, my 2 first one are dishonest attempt to bend the rules. No -lasting- conquest is the most logical. No pillaging/city razing as well I guess.

Pillaging I’d say is fair game for defense: roads, strategic resources, etc. Perhaps also certain spy missions with same end if a civ appears to be plotting against you? And obviously no razing.

But razing raises (lol) another idea. WHAT if the game had a third option that allowed you to raze the city itself but allow the population to go free? Generating a settler or worker or new refugee unit that could add population elsewhere or also settle? And you’d lose less/no diplomatic points or something?

Still not sure if I’d count that as a peacemonger style, but it’d be interesting to have the option. Mainly because we know we often don’t want to keep cities gained. And I’m thinking about cities flipped from culture. Is there a diplo penalty for razing flipped cities? If not I think there should be, since it’s basically an act of war - UNLESS you are moving the population to a better spot or absorbing them into one of your cities?

 

[MAvL]

How do you go about razing flipped city? I haven't tested it, but normally, if you refuse a city willing to flip to your empire, it disapears without any fuss. Especially useful when ennemy puts the annoying border city as clos as possible to yours, stealing you space. Even though the city magigcally disappear an you don't gain any other benefit, I'm ok with the RP explanation that they blended peacefully into your empire and disbanded the poorly placed site.

 

[Orion Pax]

Hmm but they didn’t right? They just disappear. That seems different.

Making a city disappear, whether by force or by influence seems rather like the same thing, no?

 

[rah]

Razing includes razing the population also to me which helps explain the diplo hit for doing it.

 

[Orion Pax]

Yep. That’s what I’m saying.

Razing by conquest and “disbanding” upon flipping both give same result: no city, no people. Diplo hit should reflect that for the latter.

 

[MAvL]

I've looked a bit into it, and the term used to have a city disappear upon culture flippingg is "disband", not "raze".

Well, imagine an Aztec settler is sent by Montezuma to settle on a hostile desertic hill for no other reason than to encroach Summerian lands and steal them a copper source. A couple years decades later, the city is but a pile of rags and rocks, and their few inhabitants are starving and jealous of their prosperous Summerian neighbours. Naturaly, they turn to Gilgamesh and ask to join his folks.

Gilgamesh has 3 options, tell me which one is the good one, as a peacemongers :

1. Yeah sure, come in. I'll let my people starve and my city dwindle so as to turn your pile of rock of a city into a slightly bigger pile of rock.
2. Yeah sure, come in. Jk, just kidding, here slave whipper tyranic warmonger Monty, take control of your folks back, and don't forget to slaugther mine once you'll have copper weapons.
3. Sorry, lad, I can't do anything for you.

And in case of 3, is Gilgamesh really responsible for the disbanding of a poorly placed crappy city over which he never even wanted to assume authority?

For flipping bigger cities, or cities that are not encroaching, I totally get that 1 or 2 should be prefered and enforced (and rephrased, as in 1 you really have no reason of discontentement keeping the city, and for 2 you're more likely to be the douche than your neighbour), but I can see cases where even from a RP perspective as a peacemonger, the disband option is preferable (btw, these are exactly tthe cases the disband option has been designed for).

 

[6K Man]

Back when I played Civ2, one of the conditions for challenge games was to maintain a “Spotless” reputation (reputation was one of the things that the game tracked, and a good/bad reputation would impact diplomacy to an extent). Any declaration of war would drop one’s reputation from “Spotless” to “Good”, further DoWs would drop it to Fair or Bad, etc.

Of course, what everyone did was goad each AI into attacking and then refuse all peace offers. Conquer the world without losing your halo

Razing includes razing the population also to me which helps explain the diplo hit for doing it.

“Razing the population” is an even nastier euphemism than “Ethnic cleansing”

 

[elmurcis]

I had games where I had similar rules (although I had also kind of "no war until specific date or tech/unit like Carrier etc." rule to make late game for fun as world police stuff - no DoWs but punishing AI that did something bad to another AI etc.) where I also built Pyramids for US (rush-buy stuff I need much). But I don't like that Slavery as civic takes care about any bonus civilization/leader have on anything (like +25% from Forge or CRE for cheap Library etc.) while US doesn't although it should buy-up base hammers (if buying Library with CRE on Mara-speed, I should spend 135*3 not 270*3 gold for that etc. to keep it balanced vs whipping).

 

[Orion Pax]

But I don't like that Slavery as civic takes care about any bonus civilization/leader have on anything (like +25% from Forge or CRE for cheap Library etc.) while US doesn't although it should buy-up base hammers (if buying Library with CRE on Mara-speed, I should spend 135*3 not 270*3 gold for that etc. to keep it balanced vs whipping).

Good POINT elmurcis. More of the game’s pro-Slavery bias. Which bothers peacemongering yes, but as I’ve complained before, why does an early game civic like Slavery function as essential especially on higher levels, whereas late game civics you have to work for more like US or Emanc. are steps down?

6K Man-
Oh yeah! “Spotless” reputation. Have thought something similar would be interesting for Civ4 but think working it into its existing gameplay seems better?

 

[Orion Pax]

I've looked a bit into it, and the term used to have a city disappear upon culture flippingg is "disband", not "raze".

Yeah still kinda seems a semantic distinction to me. The result is 100% the same: no city, no people. Right?

As for options, not sure if those aren’t too narrowly described perhaps? (Love the detail tho! ) Seems like at least giving people the option to resettle somewhere in your empire (or their original) would be more enlightened than simply killing them? So it’s just about accounting for that in play?

 

[MAvL]

while US doesn't

Slavery is raw only going through one multiplier :
US is raw only going through one multiplier :

I can see it being much easier to balance that way, although arguably, slavery foods passes through an additional +100% multipliers from granaries.

If US passed through several multipliers, there could be issues with Ironwork Kremlin wealth stuff, and it would be much easier for careless modders to create actual severe flaws.