Peaceful games are difficult

[Disgustipated]

Help me with my game please. And by peaceful I mean no taking of cities, and no taking of settlers as well (which is almost like taking a city). I feel like after this game I need to step up my game. This game is with no barbs, as you can see, the AI performs much much better with no barbs. Look at all the cities on the mini map. This is a large Earth TSL map from the Yet another map mod (Greatest Earth)

I'm finding the AI can seem to produce more stuff than me, even at Prince level, which is where this screenshot came from. Going the war route I can compete at King level, but this peaceful Prince level game was closer than I anticipated. I still won, I had 4 National Parks you can see in the picture, and with U.S.A. film studios I did pretty good. I could have won a space victory as well.

I'm finding that producing settlers is taking up most of my production, yet the AI can seem to produce districts, units, and settlers. How? I'm not talking about Rome, which in this game completely wiped out 2 civilizations, 1 city state, and conquered the capital and a couple other cities of a 3rd civilization (Egypt). Even Kongo was quite competitive this game. And yes I am running the card to increase settler production by 50%. Should I be building an industrial zone in every city? So far I haven't been, as I haven't found the need. The AI doesn't do it, yet they out produce me. Yes they build more encampments, and they give production, but I don't think encampments give enough production to make up for the time spend building them do they?

The game isn't too bad if you conquer cities, but as I mentioned, it took everything I had to build settlers for as many cities as you see in the screen shot. And of course Pedro attacked me which I just barely fended off because I didn't have enough spare production to build many units. Interestingly, no one else attacked me the entire game.

And it definitely seems easier to form more allies when you never declare war the entire game as you can see in the screenshot. Only Persia hated me, for obvious reasons. This definitely helped my gold income, more than I realized before this game. But gold can only do so much...

Anyways, the game wasn't as close as I thought originally, because even though Rome built the Spaceport, Earth Satellite, and Moon landing way before me, they were severely lacking in the bottom part of the tech tree. Still, I found a use for the cryptology policy card. I sabotaged 2 Roman spaceports, and another AI sabotaged a 3rd one. Of course they ended up building a 4th, but by that point I was caught up and ahead on the space race (which I built just in case culture didn't pan out in time). I don't like to be that close in my games. I don't like to lose.

 

[Photi]

lol @ montana...did you rename that or is was that the map mod? i mean, there are cities in Montana, even if not the hugest. and what up with no Seattle? i am assuming that must be the BC Vancouver there, if you would've settled one tile south would the name change to seattle? or how about cali, if you had settled on the coast, would it give LA, SF?

 

[Victoria]

Well you won but looking st it you have been hit by a poor map. That desert really damages you, it's like tundra... and is that woodland in Memphis not logging?
Try a game with plains hills with the same setting and you really notice the difference. To me it's always been part of civ that your start and your land dominates how well you do to some degree.
Gold can do some things like buy the plains hills near Portland for another +10 production.
What are you doing with a seaside resort and a spaceport and Sofia? ... seems like you got lost rather than concentrated.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

That desert really damages you, it's like tundra...

You probably can't tell from screen shot that he has Yosemite and crater lake near Las Vegas

 

[stormerne]

@Disgustipated I agree with you, at least to some extent. But I would reword your thread title slightly. Peaceful games are more challenging. And, for me, much more fun. It can certainly be a good discipline to have an entirely peaceful (by your definitions) game. I find winning by conquest becomes a little stale at any difficulty level; there's no depth to such games when all you're really thinking about is military strategy, tactics, logistics and support and the game plays itself almost by rote.

But let's look at your game. First of all, turning off barbs gives the AI a huge boost. I'm not clear why you would want to turn off barbs - people do, I know, and at times they can be annoying, even challenging, but I never find them a big enough problem to warrant turning them off. Quite the reverse: I like the containing effect they have on AI civs. But that was your choice, so let's carry on...

One thing that stands out to me immediately is your city density is perhaps sparser than ideal, especially when you compare it to the city density of AI civs, as seen on the minimap. If you don't use all the land you have, how can you be productive, industrial zones notwithstanding? Sure, your city spacing might have worked if you were using all three rings of every city's possible area, but you're nowhere near that as your cities are in general too small to do that and that's only really a long term strategy. I suggest you would have been much better off with more cities, closer together and not bothering if they didn't grow past the mid-teens in size. All that beautiful land going to waste... Yes, that would mean more settlers! But a much more rapid initial expansion. After all, it's not as though you didn't know what the map looked like!

 

[spfun]

I play peaceful games, I rarely go above 4 cities on lower than immortal... ( immortal I build 5-6 ). This on standard map settings, standard or quick speed.

normally win between 1750-1850AD. I've always liked playing peacefully in the 1UPT games. Its not fun bashing around an AI incapable of defended itself properly.

 

[Archon_Wing]

How many cities is generally considered normal for small/normal size then? Been reading that "tall" isn't a good idea due to no real disadvantage for making new cities.

 

[Jarhead60]

I play peaceful games, I rarely go above 4 cities on lower than immortal... ( immortal I build 5-6 ). This on standard map settings, standard or quick speed.

normally win between 1750-1850AD. I've always liked playing peacefully in the 1UPT games. Its not fun bashing around an AI incapable of defended itself properly.

What kind of victory are you getting with so few cities??

 

[bbbt]

I often play more peacefully (on emperor) and don't have a problem expanding. I've never found settlers a major production sink to be honest. Usually though, I'll have a few high-production cities on them.

Are you building a commercial district or harbor in every city and then building a trade route and using internal trade routes to boost production?

Given the number of wonders you have, I don't know what you mean that it took 'everything you had to build settlers'. Those wonders would've been a lot more expensive production-wise. Do you mean just early game? That's when you should be pumping out the settlers.

 

[Balkans]

How many cities is generally considered normal for small/normal size then? Been reading that "tall" isn't a good idea due to no real disadvantage for making new cities.

I see a lot of people discuss the "normal" number of cities. Frankly, i don't look at it this way. There is no normal number of cities for me. It's about opportunity and possibility. Is there a land near me that begs for a city and am i able to settle it? If yes i will settle it even if it's my 24th city. For me normal number of anything is biggest number i can achieve for a given game.
But to answer your question, it seems to me that you don't really need a lot of cites to achieve victories, and yes - there is no real disadvantage for making new cities, except you need to invest a few tricks to later cities in order to grow them quickly.

 

[spfun]

What kind of victory are you getting with so few cities??

Culture or Science, whichever is fastest.

 

[Disgustipated]

Well you won but looking st it you have been hit by a poor map. That desert really damages you, it's like tundra... and is that woodland in Memphis not logging?

I have Petra for Las Vegas (it's my birthplace so I often place a city here, even if it's not the best spot). I was lucky to get it though, as I often don't get it, but I did try to get the tech early for it, it's the only chance I have. If I go for war techs early, I always miss it.

And the National park is West of Memphis, hence no logging.

If you don't use all the land you have, how can you be productive, industrial zones notwithstanding? Sure, your city spacing might have worked if you were using all three rings of every city's possible area, but you're nowhere near that as your cities are in general too small to do that and that's only really a long term strategy. I suggest you would have been much better off with more cities, closer together and not bothering if they didn't grow past the mid-teens in size. All that beautiful land going to waste... Yes, that would mean more settlers! But a much more rapid initial expansion. After all, it's not as though you didn't know what the map looked like!

You are probably right on this. I initially planned on growing my cities more. I just never seemed to have the spare time (production really) to build neighborhoods and entertainment complexes in a fast manner. I usually get them up much earlier than this game. In this game I still don't have a neighborhood in every city by the end I believe. I usually like larger cities, but I couldn't manage it this game.

I know it's hard to break my bad habits of placing cities further apart. It's a Civ4 and Civ5 habit.

Are you building a commercial district or harbor in every city and then building a trade route and using internal trade routes to boost production?

Given the number of wonders you have, I don't know what you mean that it took 'everything you had to build settlers'. Those wonders would've been a lot more expensive production-wise. Do you mean just early game? That's when you should be pumping out the settlers.

Most are late game wonders. I rarely go for early game wonders. The exception in this game was Petra, since I had an ideal Petra city (Las Vegas). Although I diminished Petra a bit by building 2 National parks near Las Vegas, but I was determined to get a cultural victory, not a space victory.

And I admit I do tend to focus more on external trade routes rather than internal ones. I can't seem to make enough money to satisfy my tastes with internal trade routes. I love money.

I did get a lot of wonders built, so that's one reason I finally passed Rome on score. I even got that Australian wonder (my brain is not remembering the name for some reason, the one in Sydney), usually I can't get that built before the game ends. And I almost got the Stadium wonder built before the game ended (had 2 turns left). I got all the extra card wonders except for Alhambra (which I never get). I did miss Hermatage by 9 turns though. But got all the other cultural wonders. So I'm not complaining about my awesome American wonder powerhouse. It was only the early game wonders I ignored, aside from Petra of course.

 

[Victoria]

Nice write up @Disgustipated and I fully respect your love of wonders and money. It's a crap start to me that did you in however you pulled it off while thoroughly enjoying it by the sounds of things so my advice is trick on. It's not about the level you are at it's about the enjoyment you get.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

What a coincidence! I have been doing the same setups lately trying hard on King and Emperor games, with no barbs, and no wars. Makes the game MUCH harder. Production is terrible and hard to fix as well when you get sub optimal start locations, like your deserts there. Trying to build an army to keep up with the AI is alot harder it seems. Not using a decent sized army hurts the gold production, but if you delete your units you will get attacked instantly. Like you said, trade routes and gold is better in games not full of AI that hate you to death over warmongering.

Pumping out Settlers means keeping that card in longer than usual. Settler cost so much production wise that it is hard to keep up. Taking other cities means that you skipped out on nasty production, did not need an internal trade route to grow, and you it's not behind on pop growth.

I also have a few England games running in parallel with the same setup, on Island maps. The AI is kicking my butt, science and production wise, but like you said, you are everyone's friend and ally minus Cyrus of course.

I haven't finished all 6 or so these games yet, but I can tell if I am going to win or not by certain points just from experience, and one of the two Emperor games I have running is not winnable due to the AI outpacing me too much. Australia is certainly a beast when left alone.

It's almost like it could be nearly impossible to win a game on immortal or deity without declaring wars and taking cities (with the barbs off of course).

I think now that I have seen your thread, I will see if I can try something slightly different, like only war in Ancient only. Maybe only grab a city state or two and see I can improve my winning likelihood. I hate barely winning games like you do. Losing an Emperor or below game makes me want to rage quit.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Playing peacefully is not hard at all, you can still win SV or CV on deity on ~T200 standard speed. But this is meaningless since AIs will attack you and you still have to keep an army. You may eventually use this army to re-capture AI cities, making your game not a peaceful game at all. Since there's not a "ALL PEACE" option like in C5 or C4, talking about peaceful games is meaningless.

 

[bbbt]

And I admit I do tend to focus more on external trade routes rather than internal ones. I can't seem to make enough money to satisfy my tastes with internal trade routes. I love money.

If you are focusing on money, buy your settlers, don't build them. Save the production for the districts.

Usually my approach is to start with internal trade routes for the food/production boost, and then switch to external trade routes mid-game. I basically switch from building settlers to buying them around that time too. I usually build at least one settler right off the bat (after the requisite slingers), well before the 50% card exists. Then I'll do a 'phased' approach - switch to the 50% card, put like my main 3 cities into settlers, then pop it out when they are built. I'll also chop forests to speed up settler production. Mid-game and later, I'll usually just buy settlers in 'my frontier' cities (rather than build them in the capital and wait 15+ turns for them to get to their destination).

I'd also note, looking at your map, you don't really have many of the production improvements build (you primarily have just farms). All those lovely forests along rivers without a timber mill (which adds +2 prod next to a river!). A bunch of hills (even with strategic resources) with no mines or out of reach of a city.

To add: One of the advantages of half producing/half buying settlers is they don't increase each other - i.e. building a settler increases the production cost for the next settler built - but not the purchase cost (and vice versa)

 

[Lily_Lancer]

building a settler increases the production cost for the next settler built - but not the purchase cost (and vice versa)

In fact they actually increases each other. Purchase cost is always production cost*4*reduction rate, respectively.

 

[antimony]

Anyways, the game wasn't as close as I thought originally, because even though Rome built the Spaceport, Earth Satellite, and Moon landing way before me, they were severely lacking in the bottom part of the tech tree. Still, I found a use for the cryptology policy card. I sabotaged 2 Roman spaceports, and another AI sabotaged a 3rd one. Of course they ended up building a 4th, but by that point I was caught up and ahead on the space race (which I built just in case culture didn't pan out in time). I don't like to be that close in my games. I don't like to lose.

Like other commenters pointed out, even on Prince you need to focus on your victory condition if you want a quick peaceful win. And in higher difficulty culture games, you will have an opponent that gets a good start on the space race; I always build a spy advantage in those cases, and personally, I find the spy missions and "near-losing" situations make the end game a bit more exciting that it would be otherwise, which isn't a bad thing.

Anyway, on this specific game, I would note that while America is one of the best cultural Civs, they are relatively isolated on that Earth map, which makes it harder to build up tourism early in the game.

In terms of the # of cities, it's true that there is no direct cost of settling more cities, but there are still opportunity costs. The production (and to a lesser extent, population points) taken by settlers can delay new districts in existing cities, and the associated city state bonuses and great people points. Purchasing settlers at least doesn't delay district construction, so it only competes with land improvements and buildings. In any case, the idea is to use the wave of, say, 4-5 settler to grab a few spots with great adjacency bonuses, and prioritize the infrastructure in those cities (e.g. commercial or harbor + theatre or campus) before building/buying new settlers.

 

[Disgustipated]

need to focus on your victory condition if you want a quick peaceful win

Good advice as well, as I didn't focus on my victory condition until relatively late in the game. I could have gotten theater squares up earlier.

It's still interesting the contrast between this game and my current game as the Vikings (full on war until about the time the Vikings stopped raiding irl- kind of a roleplay thing). I'm done warring, but I'm putting out so much more culture than my America game. And I only conquered one theater square, so I'm not sure why I'm pumping out so much more culture. It makes a difference, because I realize I'm getting my neighborhoods out much earlier in my current Viking game than my America game, which will eventually result in much larger cities. My American cities were stunted due to my low culture output for most of the game.

All those lovely forests along rivers without a timber mill

That's a national park there next to Memphis, perhaps not the best place for a NP, but it was available, so I took it. But I was a bit slow on getting worker improvements due to building settlers and military units for defense. I do tend to build too many farms, kind of a hold over from Civ4 days. How many farms would you say are ideal for say like a size 15 or 20 city?

A screen shot from my current game. Take note of my culture output. I only have 1 culture district (that I know of, I admit I don't inspect my conquered cities closely). And I didn't roleplay that much, as I did take the Aztecs which aren't exactly historical, but they annoyed me by building the Potala palace so early, and they were number 2 behind me.

And yes, sometimes I just name my cities after U.S. states, or whole countries, sorry Ireland. The city seemed out of position to name it Dublin. I put it that far south because I wanted the fish, I have the pantheon to increase production of fishing boats. I didn't rename the conquered English cities. I'm going to go peaceful from here on out. And do a science victory.

War, what is it good for? Dominating, that's what it's good for.

 

[Disgustipated]

Basically what I'm saying is I think a peaceful civ should get a little more reward. Maybe in the culture department. The balance doesn't seem quite right. While I do enjoy the ability to conquer the entire world (every single city, not just capitals) like back in the Civ2 days, and I'm happy penalties for large empires aren't too harsh. I just think there should be a unique reward for those with no war monger rating.

And yes I know about Hull's turn time on that wonder, I redirected some trade routes, and it's like 55 turns now (and I'm using skyscrapers as well). It's funny that being a warmonger makes you a better builder as well. That's what I'm talking about in some kind of reward for peaceful civs. And I love it when I can get the correct city to build the right wonder- London building Big Ben. Of course Cristo doesn't belong in Hull, but I have no South American cities.