Pacifism ... how?

InFlux5

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Okay so once in a while I'll see it crop up in a thread: someone advises using Pacifism, or makes it known that they use or have used it.

In my games, however, I look at Pacifism and think, "How on earth could I ever afford that?"

I look at my tech slider - it's probably around 60%. I look at my military and think, "A gold for every unit? My economy will plummet!"

So the point is, I've never use it and don't understand how you could use it. The cost sounds outrageous. And the benefit? Is it really worth it?
 
My understanding is that is forms a crucial part of an SE (Specialist Economy) as it provides a 100% boost to Great Person points.

I think the idea is that when running an SE your research level is often set very low as the Scientists and Great Scientists will provide the majority of the Science.

I have however not attempted to play an SE before. From memory one of the ALCs had one running.
 
For Pacifism to be worthwhile you obviously need a lot of GPPs being generated so you make the most of the 100% bonus. That means having a lot of food to run specialists and maybe quite a few wonders (if you're industious or a builder). So it is most suited to a SE or a HE with several good food cities, a CE will probably not have enough food available and I guess that is why you think it is not worthwhile.

It is a good civic to run with the Caste System as you can meet the increased civic cost by running merchants in a few cities. I view a GM as roughly equal in worth to a GS unless I need to lightbulb a specific tech.

If you have the Spititual trait a good trick is to switch between Slavery + Theocracy (for units) or Organised Religion (for buildings) and Caste System + Pacifism every 5 turns or so. That lets you use Slavery in the cities that need whipping and to do something else with surplus food while they recover. Running specialists is effectively a way of turning food into GPPs and hence GPs and Pacifism makes that more effective.

If you want to see Pacifism in action take a look at aelf's game ImmortalChallenge 2 and download his most recent savegame (post #276). Look at his cities of Berlin, Madrid and Hamburg to see the effect of Pacifism together with the Philosophical trait. He is churning out GPPs at a huge rate at the moment.
 
I have been told its actually 1 gold for every unit not in your borders. I didnt test that assertion as it hasnt come up for me. But thats not a bad negative if you dont have a stack of death war going.
 
I have been told its actually 1 gold for every unit not in your borders. I didnt test that assertion as it hasnt come up for me. But thats not a bad negative if you dont have a stack of death war going.

No that is another effect. You pay 1 gold for each troop under Pacifism and another gold if that troop is outside your border. You also pay normal maintenance for all troops above a certain number... so in theory adding an extra troop could cost you 3 gold if it was outside your borders under Pacifism. Those basic costs are reduced by the difficulty level of the game and are often a lot lower at Monarch and below, and there are a few free troops in each category except Pacifism, but the civic is free instead. Pacifism is not a good civic to run during war and with a large army :rolleyes:
 
There are two ways I normally use pacifism:

1. In early game:

beeline CoL (dont forget to build a lib and to set 2 scientists at work when writing is in) and lightbulb phil immediately.

Try to build the GL or switch to caste system and have one city extreme-produce GS (use 4 - 6 scientists, combined with the HE and phil and you will get 40+ GPp´s)

Play peacefull untill you have lightbulbed a decent techlead and go to war later (like 800 AD with cavallry)

...

2. In mid-game warfare:

A great trick to build a huge army very quick is to build a cheap unite you can upgrade (like harchers, maybe build 15+, when having 5 decent cities, it should´t take more then 10 - 15 turns).

In parallel, switch to pacifism and caste system and have a max. number of merchants at work in the city with the HE (6+). Every GM you generate at that stage of the game will usually allow to upgrate 10 - 15 harchers to cavallry for exemple, so with two GM´s generated that way, you can cranck out 25 cavallry in average within 20 turns...

...

When you now play a phil leader (I still think they are overpowered) and combine these two tactics, it´s usually lights off for your whole continent around 1000 AD pretty fast (works up to immortal;))
 
You probably mean NE where you typed HE. If you're using tactic 1, GL and NE then tactic 2 is out i think? you can't be sure of getting GM when you have 4 sources other then GM (3x GS and 1xGA).

If you do the trick with the merchants then that's a good reason to build NE outside capital, also to keep GL and NE separated. Interesting, i'm going to try this someday.
 
@ Dirk1302:

Yes, I seem to have mixt HE & NE:blush:

...

Still, a combo of both tactics works pretty well (getting GM´s in city with GL an NE), when you switch to caste-system, BEFORE you have your last GS in:

6+ merchants, 3 scientists, 1 artist will give you a GM with about 60+ %, a GS with 30- % and a GA at about 10- %

You will very likely get 1 or 2 GM´s and 1 GS (ony the exact order isn´t guaranteed... ...it´s something like .9x.9x.9 > 73%):p
 
@Snaaty, Ok, so you run the merchants for sometime, i guess it's still pretty fast as you really assign a lot of people. I'm going to use caste system more in the future, Jihe's immortal thread also shows how powerful it can be if you really foucs on it.
 
I would recommend saving the game, then switching into pacifism just to see how much it actually costs. I know when I have tried that in the past it has cost me less than I would have thought. There are details about how many units you get for free and discounts for the level that you are on, so just try and see how much it really costs.
 
This is more for a small size empire, when you won't have too many cities, therefore not many units.
 
Since it requires philosophy (both as a tech and to some extent as a trait), you would be on the road to liberalism if you are going pacifism early. Even with non_philo leaders, at some point in the game you will want those cheap GP (the first few), and pacifism makes this reasonable - start memorizing your lighbulb preference charts/graphics now!
 
In my current game, I am running Pacifism and have a fairly big empire, and maybe 60 or 70 military units (evenly distributed between tanks, infantry, redcoats, cannon, and a bunch of outdated units serving as garrissons in all my cities).

I just looked at my financial advisor, and military unit maintenance is costing me something like 31 gold/turn. That's almost nothing - less than a tenth of what my religion/money city is churning out every turn.

So, I don't know the exact equations, but running Pacifism doesn't seem to affect me much. Then again, I tend to run a fairly small/advanced army rather than hordes of more outdated units.
 
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