The Conscientious Empire: A Peaceful Builder Challenge

To do it without war, you need to use culture and city placement. Plant a city on the jungle tile that is in your territory. Rush a temple, a library and maybe a cathedral to get fast culture pops. When the hill 2 tiles south becomes your territory, plant a town there and repeat the process. This will work below Emperor level, above that, your cities will flip their way.

You’re right – in this instance, with my tech and gold lead, the peaceful path is the best option. After building Viseu, I was just able to afford rushing a library and a university, which pushed the Mayan borders back far enough to allow me to build a city 1 square east of the aluminum in 1806:

1806SaoMamede.JPG

But there was no guarantee that this would happen, and as you pointed out, it probably wouldn’t have worked at a higher level. If it hadn’t, at this point I’d be broke and still looking for a way to hook up the aluminum. And if I hadn't had the tech lead and enough gold for rushing, this strategy would certainly have lead to my losing the space race.

In such cases I feel justified in starting a war focused solely on obtaining the necessary resource. I posted this scenario because it presents a good example of just how minimal and non-aggressive such a war can be . . .

1800: Built Viseu and moved 8 tanks, 4 infantry and another settler into position just to the west:

1800Viseu2.JPG

1802: Declared war on the Romans. Moved settler, two infantry and two tanks 1 square southwest; moved the rest one square west, outside of Viroconium. Moved 4 tanks, two cavalry and two infantry outside of Yaxchilan.

1802landwar.JPG

Positioned battleships off Quirigua and Cumae (but didn’t bombard anything).

1802seawar.JPG

In the interturn, a Roman cavalry attacked my stack near Yaxchilan and ran off injured.

1804: Built Sao Mamede, aluminum is hooked up. Moved forces near Yaxchilan closer to mountains. Tried to get peace, Romans refused to talk.

1804 Sao Mamede.JPG

Notice that I haven’t attacked anyone, nor do I plan to. I leave the stack near Viroconium where it is and move the stack near Yaxchilan onto the mountain next to the city.

Over the next several turns the Romans attacked Legartero with cavalry. I sent no offensive troops after them and absorbed their attacks with infantry. I tried for peace on every turn.

In 1816 I got a battleship around to the west side of the continent and positioned it outside of Rome. In 1818, Caesar agreed to peace.

My only purpose for declaring war in this situation was to allow me to build a city near the aluminum. I threatened the Roman cities to bring about peace, but attacked no one.

However, the Roman attacks on Legartero cost me two infantry, and the Romans lost four cavalry. Even though I now have aluminum and all my money, these lives lost make the peaceful route, when feasible, more desireable.

If you go to war for a resource, you are violating peaceful principles.

I addressed my justifications for war in the OP, but they are certainly open to debate. You are more than welcome to reject them should you decide to play a game this way.
 
I guess a non-offensive war squeaks by the peaceful principles test, since you didn't attack their cities or kill any civilians. Too bad you can't buy territory like the US did (Louisiana purchase, Alaska, etc.) to expand peacefully. Your scenario was more like Texas, where you settled in enemy territory and made it your own militarily.
 
Actually, D. N., under classic "just war" theory, going to war in order to acquire a desired resource is not acceptable. What you did was basically a bit of what I call "peaceable aggression", grabbing territory without resorting to war, and then fighting to hold on to it. Unfortunately, there is no provision for the AI to actually sell you areas, as did occur historically, so you are somewhat trapped by the game limitations. I do admire your efforts at the game. I do not agree with all of them, but I admire your attempt.
 
I'm following this thread with a squint eye. Some of the rules don't appeal to me all that much. I have farrr too much fun capturing workers, for one. Why not see them as foreign exchange students?

But one thing I don't like to see: the massive deforestation that takes place in the average game. Look at the landscape of a modern age game, especially in science farmland. Every tile irrigated, roaded and railed. Not a single tree left. So ugly! Who would want to live there?

This calls for some regulation. My suggestions: chopping forests is allowed, but you have to reforest. Not necessarily on the same tile, because if it's a nice bonus grassland, you'll want to keep it like that. But reforest within the city radius at least. Your citizens can then still have their recreational forest walk, there will still be trees for CO2 absorbation, for plant and wildlife habitat, etc. If the city had lots and lots of forest, Ok, maybe it can do with a few trees less, but keep 3 forest tiles.
Same with jungle and marsh. You cannot recreate that in the game. In real life I would want to keep it, but in the game I'm gonna be flexible and say that a city radius that was purely filled with jungle and marsh before, can do instead with 3 forest tiles in a recultivated state. Some compromise for the sake of game play here.

I haven't strictly applied the above in my games yet, but I'm sure it would be quite workable. My first motivation for coming up with this one of aesthetics. Snoopy has made some brilliant forests, much better than what Firaxis created.
Can anybody point me to a step by step guide on how to capture a screenshot, by the way? I would love to show here how my graphic mod looks (or how horsehockye an average modern age landscape looks), but I don't know about the technical bit of how to take a screen shot.
Edit: Please forget about that last question, I managed! In another thread I already put a screenshot in, so give me a little time, then I'll find a few nice screenies for this thread too, to illustrate what I'm babbling on about.
 
I would agree with Optional on the forest/reforest issue. My own rule is no chopping of forests unless there is an extreme need to do so, and getting a boost of extra shields does not count as extreme need. Basically, that is if for some reason, I find myself with a city in the middle of either forest or jungle, courtesy of a friendly settler. As for capturing cities in the middle of either forest or jungle, I tend to raze them simply because I do not like to chop trees. I do not plant any cities of mine in areas where I have to deforest to make them useful. In games where I have to settle tundra for a resource (oil or aluminum normally), I busily reforest the tundra to improve productivity, especially if there is a game on the tundra with no forest.
 
It sounds like you're a lot more strict in your forest preservation policy than I am, Timerover!
Anyway, I promised a few pics, because they say a lot more than words. Two pictures from games. The 'nightmarescape' isn't from a game of mine, it's from the Hall of Fame, a Histograph game. When I saw this kind of landscape for the first time, I thought :'No, I don't want to do something like that, even if it scores well'.
The 'nicelookinglandscape' is from a game of mine, I'm just putting it up for comparison. I did already chop some forests around Paris, so it's not as nice looking anymore as it was. I'm afraid the visual look of the landscape doesn't improve as the game goes on.
I don't really reforest much, tundra's are of course an exception, but if we are to play this game with more respect for the landscape, we should really be reforesting a lot more. Or, like Timerover, not take them down in the first place.
 
I don't go overboard on deforestation, chopping down the woods just because I have a ready worker. I try to wait until I need the sheilds and have a citizen to work the improved tile. And as I mentioned before, I make sure not to improve tiles that fall outside my city limits (unless I need to build a road between separated towns).

Other than that, though, I haven't imposed any rules on land development. I think that city size should play into any such rule -- say leave 1 forested square for cities with pop 6 or below with at least 6 land squares, 2 for cities size 7 or above with 9-14 land squares and 3 for cities size 7 and up with 15-20 land squares (not counting city square).

I'm not sure I feel strongly enough about this to make it a permanent rule for me, but I'm willing to give it a try.
 
Been a while since I have seen you, D.N. Thought that I would mention something that is in the general settings menu of the editor. You can go to the capture unit button and set if for none, rather than worker. By using that setting, you can get away from the whole concept of slaves.
 
Been a while since I have seen you, D.N. Thought that I would mention something that is in the general settings menu of the editor. You can go to the capture unit button and set if for none, rather than worker. By using that setting, you can get away from the whole concept of slaves.

Thanks, I didn't know that. I've been meaning to start messing around with the editor.

However, for me, a lot of the fun of playing this way comes from having success despite the fact that I'm holding myself to a higher standard than the other leaders. If owning slaves is impossible, it's no longer a matter of conscience to refuse to own slaves.

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A few updates...

COIN-FLIP RULE

I've only had occasion to use this a couple of times, as I've had good luck with my suicide vessels. In one case, I was in a galley well to the north, chasing shallow water I'd hoped led to an island. Two turns out the sea squares ended, and I was left with the decision of whether to turn back or forge ahead in hopes of reaching another continent.

10Aheads.JPG

I wasn't sure myself what I wanted to do. Since pressing on would require a coin flip under the new rule, I decided to leave it up the guys in the boat.

Two head flips later, we discovered land.

It occurs to me, though, that what I'm really flipping for is to determine whether or not the crew will mutiny. At any rate, I think the "turn back" percentage is too high, so I'm going to treat this as an optional rule I'll use in cases like the above in which I'm willing to let the crew decide.

FOREST MANAGEMENT

The rule for this I proposed above turned out to be rather unwieldy and didn't take shared squares into account. I've come up with a simpler pair of guidelines I've used in recent games:

1. Forests in the 8 tiles surrounding a city may be chopped at any time.

2 Forests more than a square away from a city may be chopped, but must be immediately replanted, either on the same square or somewhere else.

Here's how a recent empire looked one turn before an emperor-level win:

Kortrees.JPG

This will also be an optional rule for me, as I don't consider it as important as some of the other rules such as the ones regarding slavery and ethnic cleansing.

VICTORY CONDITIONS

In the OP I only discuss the space-race victory, but I've come to realize that other victory conditions are also acceptible. For example, a diplomatic victory is certainly a peaceful way to bring the game to an end.

And getting a conquest or domination victory without starting any wars would certainly be a worthy and notable accomplishment.
 
I liked most of the ideas posted in here. quite a way to play civ :)

Some thoughts of my own-

If the player wants to Remain under Republic or Democracy, he should take good care of his people, making sure they do not Riot and are Reasonably happy. You could also have a 'Election' of sorts which can be something based on WLTKDs and Approval ratings
 
The picture looks a lot better than some on here, D. N. Part of my aversion to chopping forests is probably living in a suburban area of Chicago were a couple of the nearby suburbs for a long time had a policy that seemed to be "if it is Green, Pave It!" One reason for boosting the resource yield of forests in my mods is to avoid having to chop them.

I can understand your views about slaves, as when they are available, you have to consciencely make the decision not to use them. My problems arise when they are from the last one or two cities of a civilization, then I am sort of stuck with them.

I do like your exploring rule. I avoid the issue most of the time by playing seafaring Civilizations, but your idea of coin flipping for the crew to mutiny is a good one, as mutinies did occur, one of the more notable ones being against Henry Hudson, when his crew mutinied in Hudson Bay and left him, his son, and a few loyal crew members in a small boat, no trace of which was ever found.

And Doug is correct, cultural victories are almost always peaceful ones as you cannot divert too much effort into military might and keep building enough culture to win. Your military is more to keep the AI off of you while you are building.
 
My problems arise when they are from the last one or two cities of a civilization, then I am sort of stuck with them.
I might have missed something, but why not integrate them with your own population?
If their original civilization is gone they won't give you unhappiness problems as citizens.
 
OH, thank you for that, Optional. For some reason that did not occur to me. Civ gone, they are not a problem. Thanks again.
 
I liked most of the ideas posted in here. quite a way to play civ :)

Some thoughts of my own-

If the player wants to Remain under Republic or Democracy, he should take good care of his people, making sure they do not Riot and are Reasonably happy. You could also have a 'Election' of sorts which can be something based on WLTKDs and Approval ratings

I agree, happiness and avoiding riots are very important, but since the game already penalizes you heavily if you don't take care of these things, I didn't feel the need to address them.

I'm not sure how such an election would work. What happens if they vote me out? :)

Cultural victories work as a peaceful victory condition.

Yes, you're right; I meant to include that, but I guess it slipped my mind.
 
what do you say of furs? you have said about Ivory and whales, but Many animals went extinct because of killing for fur.
 
Generally, I settle for one or two furs, and leave the rest alone. Unfortunately, there is no provision for fur farming. Rodent, I generally leave as much wilderness untouched as I can. I have spent time living in Alaska, and love the wilderness so much that it carries over into my style of play. One ivory for the Statue of Zeus, and I make sure the map has plenty of whales. I very rarely succeed in trading with the AI, so extra luxuries do not help that much. Still need to figure out how to add tobacco to the luxuries list with a small icon. When I add it now, it is there, but no icon.
 
what do you say of furs? you have said about Ivory and whales, but Many animals went extinct because of killing for fur.

As there are so many different fur-bearing animals and, as timerover pointed out, many of them can be bred in captivity, I feel that they can be successfully managed without setting aside preserves for them.

Of course, if you disagree, you can treat furs the same as ivory.

Still need to figure out how to add tobacco to the luxuries list with a small icon. When I add it now, it is there, but no icon.

Interesting -- before I switched over from vanilla, I assumed tobacco would be a luxury and was trying to figure out what to do with it. When I found it was merely a bonus, I decided trying to make any rules concerning it would would involve too much micromanaging.

If you succeed in making it a luxury, do you have any special rules in mind for using (or not using) it?
 
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