[R&F] Peacemongering

[Francel]

Hello. I would like to solicit tips for playing peacefully and still winning on immortal or deity.

I have won my first game of immortal, but much blood was spilled in the process. I never wanted to go to war, but was frequently attacked by the ai. Eventually my empire grew quite large by my standards, but i still lagged in science and culture. Eventually, to stop a science victory by georgia or norway, i had to initiate wars of my own.

So my question is, if i lag in science faith and culture even after claiming a vast amount of territory, how can i peacemonger and win? Without conquest i might have had room for 5 cities in my starting area.

Sorry this is such a broad topic. Thanks for your replies.

Let me add, when i attempted to play peacefully, i still had to devote much resources to military due to my aggressive neighbors. Therefore, it was not like playing peacefully with a small empire allowed me to turn my cities into powerhouses for science.

Plus, as we know from the tall thread, more cities always tend to outperform single cities.

 

[Aristos]

Spies.

 

[Scaramanga]

You can try to conquer your neighbours with kindness by sending trade routes and missionaries. You get bonuses from routes going through your trading posts in other civs and eventually policy cards for enhancing those routes for culture and science. Religious beliefs can offer bonuses to how many followers you have everywhere or in other civs.

 

[Leathaface]

I'm won a fair amount of games on Immortal. If I only had room for 5 cities to settle I would go to war for sure. This is because you need 8-12 cities to win a Science victory, though Scotland could get away with 4 Ecstatic cities due to the huge bonuses they get from being ecstatic.

How many cities did you have in your Immortal victory? By turn 100 (Standard speed) you should aim to have at least 8 cities down, though if you could get 10-12 cities that'd be a very good amount.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Without conquest i might have had room for 5 cities in my starting area.

What size map are you playing? On standard (continents), playing Deity I find I'll typically have one neighbour start within 8 hexes of my capital, but still have room to peacefully settle 10 to 15 cities.

In saying that, keep in mind that other than your first few cities, you don't need water for your cities. You just need room to place Campuses. As long as you have a couple of cities with enough production to pump out the things you need to trigger eurekas/inspirations, the rest of your cities are there to place Campuses and Commerical Hubs/Harbours.

 

[Francel]

I had not considered map size. The biggest map size I play on is "small" and I confess to adding extra CS and civs.

Even though I have top pc specs, my rig still runs hot and the turns take a long time. That's the main reason I have avoided the larger maps.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I had not considered map size. The biggest map size I play on is "small" and I confess to adding extra CS and civs.

Even though I have top pc specs, my rig still runs hot and the turns take a long time. That's the main reason I have avoided the larger maps.

I've heard other complaints about small maps not allowing for as much space, per civ, as the standard map. And that's without adding more civs or City States.

I think if you're not overly experienced at Civ 6 and want to play peacefully with a reasonable chance of success on a small map, you may find it easier to actually drop the number of civs by one. Or at least not increase them. I'm not sure exactly how quickly the AI can win on a small map. If its the same as a standard size map, you'll need to be able to win by around T300 to T320 to beat the AI on Deity. That's probably possible with a 5 city empire, but you'll need to play well. If you get 8 cities early (<T120), it should be a cake walk.

 

[MaryKB]

I prefer to play peacefully, but I've found in Civilization 6, I feel like I'm pretty much forced to conquer my first neighbor in most games. To me it just seems incredibly beneficial and you can have a much more difficult time if you don't, but only if you discover another civilization pretty much immediately when you start playing.

I do almost everything I can to try to make all my neighbors love me, and even on harder difficulties it isn't so bad to do. One thing I've found that really works well, is if you trade your early Great Works to them, AI players just seem to love you for this. I sign Friendship treaties as often as possible, so I know I'm not going to be attacked, and for the most part I can pretty much get by.

And if someone does declare war on me, I pretty much just fight defensively, and if I'm forced to take a city then I cede it back after our war is finished. I just feel conquest is so very messy, you know? I love in Rise & Fall you can use pressure to take over neighbor cities, and you have no penalty for this, so it's something that can really help you in late games if you need to expand a little bit.

Sometimes I'll do Wars of Liberation if convenient, other AI players really seem to love you for this. And also if you capture Free Cities, you can liberate those for diplomatic points.

 

[liv]

I had not considered map size. The biggest map size I play on is "small" and I confess to adding extra CS and civs.

Even though I have top pc specs, my rig still runs hot and the turns take a long time. That's the main reason I have avoided the larger maps.

I have been playing on small maps and yes there is a lot of aggressiveness. It seems like one of the main reasons for AI declaring war is proximity. In fact if one wants war one will forward settle on the AI.
maybe you should have your PC checked out. Do you have a good videocard? I think a fairly OK PC should handle bigger maps fine