For many years, i was trying to play a Civilization game of
"Eternal Peace": a game which could last "forever" and remain peaceful - the opposite of the famous Eternal War of Civ2.
I.e., to set up a civilization, and see it live on and on, without hostilities with other nations. Hopefully, eventually with no hostilities between any AI nations, too. A game with no "winner", but equally, with no "losers" as well.
//Edit December 1st, 2024:I think, i finally managed to have it. I did it! 
So, i'm adding this game's final report under 1st spoiler, here. There are some graphs, screenshots and a few stories. The remainder of the original post - is now under the 2nd spoiler. //end of edit
This time, i am playing it in Civilization 4 (1.7.4.0, Civ version 174, Final Release). Currently, it's the year 2613 AD. And things are all good, so far.
The game is base Civilization 4 (no BtS units) with no mods and only one alteration of XML files: I removed inflation (set to 0). Obviously, inflation was never meant to remain a manageable feature over many thousands years post-year-2000AD gameplay. No choice but to remove it, for this kind of a game. Fortunately, it was easy to do.
Everything else is vanilla. Including global warming, which have started by 2155 AD. My nation did everything right about it: no coal plants built whatsoever, no nuclear plants whatsoever, and I've led the UN in banning nuclear proliferation long before any nation could even start Manhattan project. And it stays banned ever since. As I now have the majority of UN votes, it will remain banned forever, too. However, other nations on the map - used coal and nuclear power plants (amazingly, the latter does not require Manhattan project; "wow", yeah). And of course, while i saved lots of forests - other nations were not so eco-friendly. Global warming - have started.
I plan to endure it. Even if all land become desert, and most of my people will die to it - the survivors will live on. My empire became so large, and its economy efficiency so good, that i'm sure i'll be able to enforce long-term peace even in complete-desert world. Good old Arakis would be hella jealous, yep!
But, i have three questions, which is one of three things i made this topic for:
1. is it possible for global warming to stop happening, provided that no nuclear weapons were ever detonated, and I'm running recycling centers in every city I own? The pace of global warming, so far, is rather slow. Could it slow down further and eventually stop, if sufficiently much of world's forests would grow back?
// I've read that 40% of the land masses covered by forests - prevents global warming completely, in Civilization 4. But would it work retroactively, if I'll be lucky to have that much forest to regrow - before most of the world turns into deserts? So far, after 458 years of global warming, way less than 10% of all land was turned into deserts, and something like 10%...15% of all land is still covered by forests (mostly in tundra belts and inside my empire's originally-settled territories). New forests grow up few times less often than new deserts appear, though. It's probably too late.
But i'll try anyway.
2. can I speed up reforestation (which happens by new forests popping up on their own, on non-improved tiles capable of supporting forests), if I remove / plunder non-road improvements from tiles which are not being worked by any city?
3. is there a way in vanilla Civilization 4 to deconstruct buildings?
// I captured many cities from other nations via culture spread, and I will capture even more. Even by 2613, way more than half of each of the both continents - are now under my banner. But, many of those AI-built cities have coal plants, and some - nuclear plants. I found no way to remove them. Don't want no mods just for this, though.
Another thing I made this thread for - I hope to keep adding to it, documenting my Eternal Peace story as I go.
And the third thing - is to answer any questions about this game style and approach, which I do - "Eternal Peace". If there will be any. Anything like which settings I used, how I prevented wars and deterioration of diplomatic relations, details of cultural expansion I practice, how I defended myself when good old Montezuma declared war on me in 2004AD, etc. I'll be happy to share all details I can.
P.S. In my many previous Eternal Peace attempts in other Civilization games - from Civ2, through to Civilization: Beyond Earth, then in FreeCiv and some other fan-made games, as well, - I always eventually failed to achieve it: sometimes due to some in-game feature like out-of-control inflation, sometimes it was unavoidable game crash beyond certain specific date (shame - Civ:BE could otherwise be it!), sometimes it was limited game length (one of titles, i remember, has hard-coded limit of 3500AD), etc. But this time, I hope this is the one. I hope to one day reach 10,000AD - and I hope to go beyond even that. Wish me luck!
P.P.S. Being back to playing Civ4 lately, after playing all the other games of Civilization series, I now developed the feeling that Civ4 is the most true one of them all - true to the spirit of the whole idea of Civilization game; the idea as it was created all the way back in Civilization 1. Which I also played, way back in late 1990s. Played normally - not the "Eternal Peace way". Great memories! But, I wonder: is there anyone else here who have this same feeling? Late stuff like Civ5 and especially Civ6, in particular, just "don't click" with me...
P.S. Si Vis Pacem - Para Bellum! 
"Eternal Peace": a game which could last "forever" and remain peaceful - the opposite of the famous Eternal War of Civ2.
I.e., to set up a civilization, and see it live on and on, without hostilities with other nations. Hopefully, eventually with no hostilities between any AI nations, too. A game with no "winner", but equally, with no "losers" as well.
//Edit December 1st, 2024:
So, i'm adding this game's final report under 1st spoiler, here. There are some graphs, screenshots and a few stories. The remainder of the original post - is now under the 2nd spoiler. //end of editSpoiler Eternal Peace - final report :
The year is now 12777 AD. There has been no war for the last 10,000 years - ever since last russian city was captured by India, in 2777 AD. And the situation is such that I am completely sure that this peace - would indeed last forever, if I'd continue to play. Things... "have settled".
A lot have happened in this game. In-game counter says that I played this game for 526h 34m, when I made the last save in 12,777 AD. So, 1st, here's a summary of the most significant events of this game.
The game started on a huge-sized "Ice Age" map, which generated two huge continents and one tiny single-tile island. Early in the game, I developed my american nation as usual, settling out much of the middle part of the eastern continent. I kept my army large enough for no AIs to try doing a war against me, and I happily kept minding my own peaceful business, prioritizing sciences and culture, but not forgetting religions, too.
The game was played on Warlord difficulty, which is way easier than I usually prefer - but Warlord has one deciding difference from any other difficulty mode: it has no decay of diplomatic relations with AIs. Higher difficulties - do. This means, for any extremely long game, all AIs could end up hating me for absolutely no in-game reason. I didn't want that to happen, just because such a mechanic looks rather silly, to me. It's not silly for a normal-length game, when it's slow and reasonable enough, but for this one, it had to be "Warlord". And so, naturally, I developed quite ahead of "historical" pace; for example, I built United Nations in 1812 AD - some ~140sh years before it happened in real world. 1st resolution it made - signed by all nations - was banning nuclear weapons. It stayed in power forever since. Nobody even had time to build Manhattan Project. Perhaps, our real world would be in better shape if that's how it'd happen in reality? Just wondering...
Anyway. By the game's 20th century, I was far ahead of all AIs, tech-wise. When my army was already fully switched to gunships and modern armor, the AIs were still busy upgrading from catapults to artillery and from cavalry to 1st few primitive tanks. And so, it was a big-time surprise when Montezuma declared war on me in 2004 AD. He was on the other continent, too - but he sent a small army to try and attack Los Angeles - my only port city on the western shore, at the time. He was still using some sail ships, though - which my subs and destroyers sank with utter ease. I easily destroyed his invading force as well, and then sent my own, across the ocean, to pacify him by force. In 2015 AD, I captured 1st of his cities. He kept throwing legions of infantry, riflemen, granadiers and cavalry at my invading force, but technological superiority was too high: stealth bombers, jets, some artillery, groups of modern armor units and small swarms of gunships rolled through his territories and cities with ease. Which were big territories - his empire occupied much of the middle portion of this 2nd continent. He was distinctly 2nd-largest nation (after me) at the time, by land mass.
While waging that one-and-only war I did in this game, I had two reasons to capture Montezuma's cities: 1st, it's more human to capture than to burn 'em; and 2nd, since I had to pacify him anyway to prevent future aggression, by reducing his empire to small enough size - why not to take the opportunity to establish my presense right in the center of the 2nd continent? Before this war, I was fully expecting to let the other continent go on all by itself, without my presense - to see how it goes. But such an opportunity - was just stupid to let go.
In 2072 AD, when Montezuma had only two small cities left - I accepted his peace offer. Now I was sure he won't try to break peace again. His neighbours soon made sure he won't try anything at all, too, by completely wiping out his nation. Oh well. He started it himself, so he can blame himself for all eternity while he burns in hell for his sins, i guess...
Then, other nations kept duking it out against each other for good 6 more centuries. Some died, some survived despite some heavy losses, and some greatly gained from those wars - but most of the time, it was useless waste of lives and efforts. I took my lesson from Montezuma's attack: built lots more military units pronto, to increase my empire's Power way further and scare away any wanna-be-next-agressor. It worked: nobody else declared war on me, ever since. Alas, for a few centuries, I had quite an arms race with the most militaristic of remaining nations - Rome. They kept building lots of army, but so did I. In the end, I won that race, and remained the largest military power ever since.
Meanwhile, in 2155 AD, Global Warming have started. Even while my americans didn't build a single Coal Plant, nor any Nuclear Plant, - other nations did, and it caused Global Warming. For over 6 thousands years, Global Warming was raging through the planet, desertifying and killing all in its path, until very last tile of fertile soil succumbed to it in 8238 AD. From one very lush world, it have become one complete sand and ice desert, with a bit of occasional tundra here and there. Grim place.
Yet in 2155 AD, when Global Warming was only starting - all the other nations kept fighting among themselves. I was focusing most of my empire to spreading culture and five religions, monasteries of which I had built in some of my cities. I kept going this way, with my empire gaining more cities peacefully via cultural expansion, ever since. Other empires eventually killed many enough of themselves for the survivors to be so far from each other, and in one case two of them so friendly to each other, that none of them saw any point in further war. This happened in 2077 AD, when Russia was destroyed by India; the last nation to be defeated. And then, 10 millenia of peace - was this game's world next chapter.
There were six surviving nations other than my empire, by then.
Two of those - Egypt and Incan empire - by 2777 AD were so weakened by wars and so pressed by my cultural expansion that they had only 3 cities remaining, each, and very little territory. Soon enough, their cities got completely surrounded by my empire's territory, becoming 1-tile outposts. Some of their own populations later revolted, pushing three of these six cities into my empire. For many thousands years since that, Egypt remained single-city state, and Incs survived in just two of their remaining single-tile cities. They keep large enough armies in each city to prevent any chance of revolts, though. Pretty nowhere else to go for all these units, that is. Overall, those two nations became the "insignificant outsiders".
Then, there were two "middlemen" of those 6 survivors: England and Persia. Big-time friends (defense pacts and all) to each other, they shared a border in the northern part of the eastern continent. Relatively small, but still significant, they resisted my cultural advancements for roughly 10 thousands years. Huge garrisons to prevent revolts, firm religious stance of England, relatively powerful culture of Persia, and some of their cities happened to be just perfectly placed to make my cultural advancement problematic - were obstacles. But more than those, they remained significant force for many millenia simply because I had to prioritize most of my cultural-expansion efforts to the couple of largest remaining AI nations: India and Rome.
Rome was the largest survivor of AI wars, occupying roughly 1/8th of world's land area at its peak. And India was just a little smaller than that. I knew that the longer these nations keep producing their own culture in most of those lands, the longer it'll take later on to change those lands' culture into prevailingly mine. So i had to hurry and culturally push as far into those lands as i could, ASAP. That's why i focused on those two 1st.
Long story short - this plan worked perfectly. Indeed, now in 12,777 AD, both India and Rome are practically consumed by my culture. Many of their weaker-garrison cities revolted and joined my empire, and almost all remaining cities - have zero workable tiles, being surrounded by my territory completely. Yet quite before it happened, I started to push more and more into Persia and England, too - devoting more and more Great Artists into advancements there, building culture-boosting things like Cathedrals in cities near their borders, etc. And so, by 12,777 AD, those two also ended up having just a few 1-tile cities, each: just two cities Persia, and four cities England.
The "end result" - and the reason why i count 12,777 AD as this game's practical "completion" - is that all six surviving AI nations are so outmatched militarily by my army, so separated and blockaded in terms of territory, plus so utterly lacking resources, that I see no chance whatsoever that any of them would ever try to make war - not with me, nor between any of themselves.
And this is how this game have indeed created a state of Eternal Peace. Mission - complete!
And here are some screenshots from 12,777 AD, to complete the report.
Score graph + Egypt's only surviving city:
Note: I played most of this game while using Unversal Suffrage civic and 0% science expenses (after getting to Future Tech 1) - while Rome was doing Representation and 80% science expenses. So, when I switched to Representation myself, some time in 11,700sh AD - 1st major increase of score gaining speed occured, for me; and when I switched from 100% culture to 100% science expenses in 12,000 AD, plus changed from Artists and Merchants to Scientists in most cities - 2nd huge score gaining speed boost happened. I could leave all the AIs in the complete dust score-wise, and equally, I would, if I'd keep playing for few more millenia - because now, in 12,777 AD, I don't need utterly maxed-out culture anymore (other than in very few cities which could still capture few more tiles from little remains of AI territories). Thus, the game's "score" - is not a good indicator of how "good" any very-long-lasting game is going, sadly. Too biased towards science.
Demographics + both surviving Incan and one Indian cities:
Note: funny thing how Egypt "population" is just 1000, but smallest army of all AIs - is 1,182,000 soldiers! I even see some egyptian troops in other AIs' cities, ones which Egypt maintained Open Borders with - yep, for 10k years. Curiously, I found that other-nations' troops in a city (like, Egypt troops in an Indian city) - have no effect on revolt chance in such a city, when my culture seeps in. Which means that it helps to keep close borders during cultural expansions - separate AIs' troops into each other's cities, make those troops not-a-factor for revolt chances. Anyhow, ever since 2777 AD, all the huge armies of previously-fighting nations - remain pretty much unchanged. Basically, their territory shrinked, but all the soldiers - remained as numerous as they were back when those AIs had the territories, civilian population and food supply to support them. Also, Life Expectancy - is capped in the game: it can't get above 100, no matter what. Got pretty close to that, eh.
Crop Yield + two english cities:
Note: after initial (before 2000 AD) expansion, I did two big further expansions: 1st after 4200 AD, when I built about a dozen small cities in various "gaps" to intensify cultural pressure along my borders; and 2nd expansion was done after 7500 AD, when, with Global Warming nearly complete, I settled most of previously-unsettled parts of shore lines of my empire (within my own borders). Those two expansions - are the two steep "bumps up" on the graph. Other than that, things evolved pretty gradualy, bit by bit. This graph directly shows Global Warming impact - but not full scale of it. Because during ~6 thousands years it took Global Warming to do full scale of its damage - my empire massively expanded both in terms of its territory and in terms of city density within its borders. Also, Coventry city on this screenshot - was the 2nd-last (till 12777 AD) AI city which joined my empire, which is why some of lands near it are still english lands. Which no english city can work anymore, and which lands would soon - several more centuries - also flip into my territory.
Power graph + both surviving persian cities:
Note: this is how 10,000 years of complete peace look like, yep. Very stable! All the wars before 2777 AD, with all those near-vertical drops and gains - were but a tiny early accident, in comparison to sheer length of 10 further millenia. Gradual increase of my own power (blue line) - was happening from free mechanized infantry units which I was getting when AI cities were joining my empire, and from building more barracks and such. I.e., I built no new military units for 10,000 years, yep! And it seems that AIs did the same. Armies big enough as it is, no wars going on, nobody wants to start one - so why build more army, right? And so, nobody did. Also, you probably noticed one unusual thing on this graph - all those small but sudden, near-vertical drops on the pink (India), light-blue (Persia) and once on orange (Incs) lines: those are, I'm 99.9% sure, nothing else than Nuclear Meltdown events. Each time one of those happened in any heavily-garrisoned city (and some AIs had well over 50 units in some cities, in this game), - good bunch of units died, and that Power line of that civ got that relatively little, but distinct and instant dip down few notches. I've observed AI meltdowns during the game a few times, directly (there's no message about any meltdown in an AI city, so it's easy to miss), and also, I know that those are meltdowns because it's exactly India and Persia who had access to Uranium for any long time (required to build Nuclear Plants), and it's equally India and Persia both who built quite many Nuclear Plants in their cities, too: my spies saw every last one of 'em when visiting their cities. And one more pretty grim thing: even after India lost its only source of Uranium to my cultural expansion, for many thousands years more, Nuclear Plants in indian cities - kept popping up with those meltdowns. I think, one or maybe even two of indian cities - still have Nuclear Plants even now, in 12777 AD. So those are hella long-term "ticking bombs" for sure.
My army, and largest remaining AI-controlled single area (Delhi with 4 workable coast tiles):
Note: vast majority of these units - never seen any combat. Especially the fleet: the war with Montezuma had no significant sea battles at all. Also, don't be surprised about disproportionally huge number of motorized infantry units: this is because in this game, I culturally-absorbed nearly 40 cities into my empire, and "dismissed" nearly as many on top of that. "Dismissed" - when culturally flipped, there's an option to dismiss a revolting AI city instead of making it your own, and there are good reasons to dismiss many of such cities, especially when playing strategically with further cultural advancements in mind. City positioning - is key, and AI cities are often in way too messy places. But i digress; back to army. With some 1...4 "free" mechanized infantry units given upon each of ~80 cultural city flips i had, I ended up with ~200 extra Motorized Infantry, you see. And I did not dismiss any of those, too: no reason to, because in this inflation-free game, my empire was having ample ~1k income ever since 3rd millenium - even while running 100% commerce into Culture at all times. As for overall purpose - most of my army was built preparing for unexpected, but still always anticipated, agression from AIs. I created two specialized cities which were dedicated to building all these units fast and well: one (Portland) with national wonders which provide +4 exp and free Medic upgrade, thus dishing out level 4 (10 exp points total upon creation) land units and fleet; and the other (Seattle) had +200% military unit building speed from Heroic Epic and Ironworks, resulting in so high production (before GW) that it was able to spit out one plane every turn - alternating between fighters and bombers. As it had exactly enough production for that. Mighty efficient combo! And yes, my army composition is bomber-heavy - on purpose: I prefer the birds to artillery, especially in vanilla Civ4. Even while bombers can not weaken enemy units more than to 50% health - nothing is as handy as couple dozens stealth bombers covering all aproaches possible, with overpowering numbers of Bombers plus solid Jet Fighter cover, of course. Indeed, modern warfare - is all about air superiority.
Largest AI army (Rome's), and largest remaining bits of Roman empire:
Note: at some point, I was quite amuzed to see this; at some point well after I was done shaping up my own military for my own reasons, that is. Because, as you can see - there are some striking similarities and striking differences:
- both he and I ended up with very similar number of modern armor, gunships, jet fighters and navy ships (alas I think my "heavier" proportion of battleships - is better);
- even our number of transports is exactly the same - 11! %) And yet,
- he's slacking on stealth bombers, big-time, instead investing massively into artillery. Which is pretty inferiour, I think;
- I maintained token numbers of infantry units, mainly upgraded from earlier-eras, while good part of his army - is non-motorized infantry. Slow is bad, even when defending, but he's still using 'em.
And yep, that's population 7 roman city near the bottom - largest AI city remaining on the map. But it does not work any tiles - all of its population is instead supported by Great Merchant specialists, each providing +1 food to the city. Even in that, Rome well surpassed all other AI nations. Good old Rome...
And for the last screenshot of this report - here' Sacramento, the largest of my cities for thousands years, and a true crown jewel of my 125-cities' large, all deserts-and-seas, empire:
It just happened to have this heart-shaped working area. I was kinda stunned when I realized what it looks like, yep. %) Next, in the bottom-right corner, you may notice the number of "great people points" required to generate the next great person - 128,000 points. With a regular desert and/or ocean city, even under Pacifism, generating some 6...24 points per turn - it takes some 5...20 millenia, now, for any usual city to fill the bar. Wild.
Also, this Sacramento completely dominates Karakorum city - partially visible 3 clicks to the south, - which is one of 11 surviving roman cities. And about Sacramento's size - sure, I could put many more Great Merchants into it, thus increasing its size much further, but 21 population and 42 food - is just so right. Why 42? Because 42! The answer to everything, you know. 
And if you don't know - well, google "42" maybe. 42!
A lot have happened in this game. In-game counter says that I played this game for 526h 34m, when I made the last save in 12,777 AD. So, 1st, here's a summary of the most significant events of this game.
The game started on a huge-sized "Ice Age" map, which generated two huge continents and one tiny single-tile island. Early in the game, I developed my american nation as usual, settling out much of the middle part of the eastern continent. I kept my army large enough for no AIs to try doing a war against me, and I happily kept minding my own peaceful business, prioritizing sciences and culture, but not forgetting religions, too.
The game was played on Warlord difficulty, which is way easier than I usually prefer - but Warlord has one deciding difference from any other difficulty mode: it has no decay of diplomatic relations with AIs. Higher difficulties - do. This means, for any extremely long game, all AIs could end up hating me for absolutely no in-game reason. I didn't want that to happen, just because such a mechanic looks rather silly, to me. It's not silly for a normal-length game, when it's slow and reasonable enough, but for this one, it had to be "Warlord". And so, naturally, I developed quite ahead of "historical" pace; for example, I built United Nations in 1812 AD - some ~140sh years before it happened in real world. 1st resolution it made - signed by all nations - was banning nuclear weapons. It stayed in power forever since. Nobody even had time to build Manhattan Project. Perhaps, our real world would be in better shape if that's how it'd happen in reality? Just wondering...
Anyway. By the game's 20th century, I was far ahead of all AIs, tech-wise. When my army was already fully switched to gunships and modern armor, the AIs were still busy upgrading from catapults to artillery and from cavalry to 1st few primitive tanks. And so, it was a big-time surprise when Montezuma declared war on me in 2004 AD. He was on the other continent, too - but he sent a small army to try and attack Los Angeles - my only port city on the western shore, at the time. He was still using some sail ships, though - which my subs and destroyers sank with utter ease. I easily destroyed his invading force as well, and then sent my own, across the ocean, to pacify him by force. In 2015 AD, I captured 1st of his cities. He kept throwing legions of infantry, riflemen, granadiers and cavalry at my invading force, but technological superiority was too high: stealth bombers, jets, some artillery, groups of modern armor units and small swarms of gunships rolled through his territories and cities with ease. Which were big territories - his empire occupied much of the middle portion of this 2nd continent. He was distinctly 2nd-largest nation (after me) at the time, by land mass.
While waging that one-and-only war I did in this game, I had two reasons to capture Montezuma's cities: 1st, it's more human to capture than to burn 'em; and 2nd, since I had to pacify him anyway to prevent future aggression, by reducing his empire to small enough size - why not to take the opportunity to establish my presense right in the center of the 2nd continent? Before this war, I was fully expecting to let the other continent go on all by itself, without my presense - to see how it goes. But such an opportunity - was just stupid to let go.
In 2072 AD, when Montezuma had only two small cities left - I accepted his peace offer. Now I was sure he won't try to break peace again. His neighbours soon made sure he won't try anything at all, too, by completely wiping out his nation. Oh well. He started it himself, so he can blame himself for all eternity while he burns in hell for his sins, i guess...
Then, other nations kept duking it out against each other for good 6 more centuries. Some died, some survived despite some heavy losses, and some greatly gained from those wars - but most of the time, it was useless waste of lives and efforts. I took my lesson from Montezuma's attack: built lots more military units pronto, to increase my empire's Power way further and scare away any wanna-be-next-agressor. It worked: nobody else declared war on me, ever since. Alas, for a few centuries, I had quite an arms race with the most militaristic of remaining nations - Rome. They kept building lots of army, but so did I. In the end, I won that race, and remained the largest military power ever since.
Meanwhile, in 2155 AD, Global Warming have started. Even while my americans didn't build a single Coal Plant, nor any Nuclear Plant, - other nations did, and it caused Global Warming. For over 6 thousands years, Global Warming was raging through the planet, desertifying and killing all in its path, until very last tile of fertile soil succumbed to it in 8238 AD. From one very lush world, it have become one complete sand and ice desert, with a bit of occasional tundra here and there. Grim place.
Yet in 2155 AD, when Global Warming was only starting - all the other nations kept fighting among themselves. I was focusing most of my empire to spreading culture and five religions, monasteries of which I had built in some of my cities. I kept going this way, with my empire gaining more cities peacefully via cultural expansion, ever since. Other empires eventually killed many enough of themselves for the survivors to be so far from each other, and in one case two of them so friendly to each other, that none of them saw any point in further war. This happened in 2077 AD, when Russia was destroyed by India; the last nation to be defeated. And then, 10 millenia of peace - was this game's world next chapter.
There were six surviving nations other than my empire, by then.
Two of those - Egypt and Incan empire - by 2777 AD were so weakened by wars and so pressed by my cultural expansion that they had only 3 cities remaining, each, and very little territory. Soon enough, their cities got completely surrounded by my empire's territory, becoming 1-tile outposts. Some of their own populations later revolted, pushing three of these six cities into my empire. For many thousands years since that, Egypt remained single-city state, and Incs survived in just two of their remaining single-tile cities. They keep large enough armies in each city to prevent any chance of revolts, though. Pretty nowhere else to go for all these units, that is. Overall, those two nations became the "insignificant outsiders".
Then, there were two "middlemen" of those 6 survivors: England and Persia. Big-time friends (defense pacts and all) to each other, they shared a border in the northern part of the eastern continent. Relatively small, but still significant, they resisted my cultural advancements for roughly 10 thousands years. Huge garrisons to prevent revolts, firm religious stance of England, relatively powerful culture of Persia, and some of their cities happened to be just perfectly placed to make my cultural advancement problematic - were obstacles. But more than those, they remained significant force for many millenia simply because I had to prioritize most of my cultural-expansion efforts to the couple of largest remaining AI nations: India and Rome.
Rome was the largest survivor of AI wars, occupying roughly 1/8th of world's land area at its peak. And India was just a little smaller than that. I knew that the longer these nations keep producing their own culture in most of those lands, the longer it'll take later on to change those lands' culture into prevailingly mine. So i had to hurry and culturally push as far into those lands as i could, ASAP. That's why i focused on those two 1st.
Long story short - this plan worked perfectly. Indeed, now in 12,777 AD, both India and Rome are practically consumed by my culture. Many of their weaker-garrison cities revolted and joined my empire, and almost all remaining cities - have zero workable tiles, being surrounded by my territory completely. Yet quite before it happened, I started to push more and more into Persia and England, too - devoting more and more Great Artists into advancements there, building culture-boosting things like Cathedrals in cities near their borders, etc. And so, by 12,777 AD, those two also ended up having just a few 1-tile cities, each: just two cities Persia, and four cities England.
The "end result" - and the reason why i count 12,777 AD as this game's practical "completion" - is that all six surviving AI nations are so outmatched militarily by my army, so separated and blockaded in terms of territory, plus so utterly lacking resources, that I see no chance whatsoever that any of them would ever try to make war - not with me, nor between any of themselves.
And this is how this game have indeed created a state of Eternal Peace. Mission - complete!
And here are some screenshots from 12,777 AD, to complete the report.
Score graph + Egypt's only surviving city:
Note: I played most of this game while using Unversal Suffrage civic and 0% science expenses (after getting to Future Tech 1) - while Rome was doing Representation and 80% science expenses. So, when I switched to Representation myself, some time in 11,700sh AD - 1st major increase of score gaining speed occured, for me; and when I switched from 100% culture to 100% science expenses in 12,000 AD, plus changed from Artists and Merchants to Scientists in most cities - 2nd huge score gaining speed boost happened. I could leave all the AIs in the complete dust score-wise, and equally, I would, if I'd keep playing for few more millenia - because now, in 12,777 AD, I don't need utterly maxed-out culture anymore (other than in very few cities which could still capture few more tiles from little remains of AI territories). Thus, the game's "score" - is not a good indicator of how "good" any very-long-lasting game is going, sadly. Too biased towards science.
Demographics + both surviving Incan and one Indian cities:
Note: funny thing how Egypt "population" is just 1000, but smallest army of all AIs - is 1,182,000 soldiers!
I even see some egyptian troops in other AIs' cities, ones which Egypt maintained Open Borders with - yep, for 10k years. Curiously, I found that other-nations' troops in a city (like, Egypt troops in an Indian city) - have no effect on revolt chance in such a city, when my culture seeps in. Which means that it helps to keep close borders during cultural expansions - separate AIs' troops into each other's cities, make those troops not-a-factor for revolt chances. Anyhow, ever since 2777 AD, all the huge armies of previously-fighting nations - remain pretty much unchanged. Basically, their territory shrinked, but all the soldiers - remained as numerous as they were back when those AIs had the territories, civilian population and food supply to support them. Also, Life Expectancy - is capped in the game: it can't get above 100, no matter what. Got pretty close to that, eh. Crop Yield + two english cities:
Note: after initial (before 2000 AD) expansion, I did two big further expansions: 1st after 4200 AD, when I built about a dozen small cities in various "gaps" to intensify cultural pressure along my borders; and 2nd expansion was done after 7500 AD, when, with Global Warming nearly complete, I settled most of previously-unsettled parts of shore lines of my empire (within my own borders). Those two expansions - are the two steep "bumps up" on the graph. Other than that, things evolved pretty gradualy, bit by bit. This graph directly shows Global Warming impact - but not full scale of it. Because during ~6 thousands years it took Global Warming to do full scale of its damage - my empire massively expanded both in terms of its territory and in terms of city density within its borders. Also, Coventry city on this screenshot - was the 2nd-last (till 12777 AD) AI city which joined my empire, which is why some of lands near it are still english lands. Which no english city can work anymore, and which lands would soon - several more centuries - also flip into my territory.
Power graph + both surviving persian cities:
Note: this is how 10,000 years of complete peace look like, yep. Very stable!
All the wars before 2777 AD, with all those near-vertical drops and gains - were but a tiny early accident, in comparison to sheer length of 10 further millenia. Gradual increase of my own power (blue line) - was happening from free mechanized infantry units which I was getting when AI cities were joining my empire, and from building more barracks and such. I.e., I built no new military units for 10,000 years, yep! And it seems that AIs did the same. Armies big enough as it is, no wars going on, nobody wants to start one - so why build more army, right? And so, nobody did. Also, you probably noticed one unusual thing on this graph - all those small but sudden, near-vertical drops on the pink (India), light-blue (Persia) and once on orange (Incs) lines: those are, I'm 99.9% sure, nothing else than Nuclear Meltdown events. Each time one of those happened in any heavily-garrisoned city (and some AIs had well over 50 units in some cities, in this game), - good bunch of units died, and that Power line of that civ got that relatively little, but distinct and instant dip down few notches. I've observed AI meltdowns during the game a few times, directly (there's no message about any meltdown in an AI city, so it's easy to miss), and also, I know that those are meltdowns because it's exactly India and Persia who had access to Uranium for any long time (required to build Nuclear Plants), and it's equally India and Persia both who built quite many Nuclear Plants in their cities, too: my spies saw every last one of 'em when visiting their cities. And one more pretty grim thing: even after India lost its only source of Uranium to my cultural expansion, for many thousands years more, Nuclear Plants in indian cities - kept popping up with those meltdowns. I think, one or maybe even two of indian cities - still have Nuclear Plants even now, in 12777 AD. So those are hella long-term "ticking bombs" for sure.My army, and largest remaining AI-controlled single area (Delhi with 4 workable coast tiles):
Note: vast majority of these units - never seen any combat. Especially the fleet: the war with Montezuma had no significant sea battles at all. Also, don't be surprised about disproportionally huge number of motorized infantry units: this is because in this game, I culturally-absorbed nearly 40 cities into my empire, and "dismissed" nearly as many on top of that. "Dismissed" - when culturally flipped, there's an option to dismiss a revolting AI city instead of making it your own, and there are good reasons to dismiss many of such cities, especially when playing strategically with further cultural advancements in mind. City positioning - is key, and AI cities are often in way too messy places. But i digress; back to army. With some 1...4 "free" mechanized infantry units given upon each of ~80 cultural city flips i had, I ended up with ~200 extra Motorized Infantry, you see. And I did not dismiss any of those, too: no reason to, because in this inflation-free game, my empire was having ample ~1k income ever since 3rd millenium - even while running 100% commerce into Culture at all times. As for overall purpose - most of my army was built preparing for unexpected, but still always anticipated, agression from AIs. I created two specialized cities which were dedicated to building all these units fast and well: one (Portland) with national wonders which provide +4 exp and free Medic upgrade, thus dishing out level 4 (10 exp points total upon creation) land units and fleet; and the other (Seattle) had +200% military unit building speed from Heroic Epic and Ironworks, resulting in so high production (before GW) that it was able to spit out one plane every turn - alternating between fighters and bombers. As it had exactly enough production for that. Mighty efficient combo! And yes, my army composition is bomber-heavy - on purpose: I prefer the birds to artillery, especially in vanilla Civ4. Even while bombers can not weaken enemy units more than to 50% health - nothing is as handy as couple dozens stealth bombers covering all aproaches possible, with overpowering numbers of Bombers plus solid Jet Fighter cover, of course. Indeed, modern warfare - is all about air superiority.
Largest AI army (Rome's), and largest remaining bits of Roman empire:
Note: at some point, I was quite amuzed to see this; at some point well after I was done shaping up my own military for my own reasons, that is. Because, as you can see - there are some striking similarities and striking differences:
- both he and I ended up with very similar number of modern armor, gunships, jet fighters and navy ships (alas I think my "heavier" proportion of battleships - is better);
- even our number of transports is exactly the same - 11! %) And yet,
- he's slacking on stealth bombers, big-time, instead investing massively into artillery. Which is pretty inferiour, I think;
- I maintained token numbers of infantry units, mainly upgraded from earlier-eras, while good part of his army - is non-motorized infantry. Slow is bad, even when defending, but he's still using 'em.
And yep, that's population 7 roman city near the bottom - largest AI city remaining on the map. But it does not work any tiles - all of its population is instead supported by Great Merchant specialists, each providing +1 food to the city. Even in that, Rome well surpassed all other AI nations. Good old Rome...
And for the last screenshot of this report - here' Sacramento, the largest of my cities for thousands years, and a true crown jewel of my 125-cities' large, all deserts-and-seas, empire:
It just happened to have this heart-shaped working area. I was kinda stunned when I realized what it looks like, yep. %) Next, in the bottom-right corner, you may notice the number of "great people points" required to generate the next great person - 128,000 points. With a regular desert and/or ocean city, even under Pacifism, generating some 6...24 points per turn - it takes some 5...20 millenia, now, for any usual city to fill the bar. Wild.
Also, this Sacramento completely dominates Karakorum city - partially visible 3 clicks to the south, - which is one of 11 surviving roman cities. And about Sacramento's size - sure, I could put many more Great Merchants into it, thus increasing its size much further, but 21 population and 42 food - is just so right. Why 42? Because 42! The answer to everything, you know. And if you don't know - well, google "42" maybe. 42!
Spoiler The remainder of the original post :
This time, i am playing it in Civilization 4 (1.7.4.0, Civ version 174, Final Release). Currently, it's the year 2613 AD. And things are all good, so far.
The game is base Civilization 4 (no BtS units) with no mods and only one alteration of XML files: I removed inflation (set to 0). Obviously, inflation was never meant to remain a manageable feature over many thousands years post-year-2000AD gameplay. No choice but to remove it, for this kind of a game. Fortunately, it was easy to do.
Everything else is vanilla. Including global warming, which have started by 2155 AD. My nation did everything right about it: no coal plants built whatsoever, no nuclear plants whatsoever, and I've led the UN in banning nuclear proliferation long before any nation could even start Manhattan project. And it stays banned ever since. As I now have the majority of UN votes, it will remain banned forever, too. However, other nations on the map - used coal and nuclear power plants (amazingly, the latter does not require Manhattan project; "wow", yeah). And of course, while i saved lots of forests - other nations were not so eco-friendly. Global warming - have started.
I plan to endure it. Even if all land become desert, and most of my people will die to it - the survivors will live on. My empire became so large, and its economy efficiency so good, that i'm sure i'll be able to enforce long-term peace even in complete-desert world. Good old Arakis would be hella jealous, yep!
But, i have three questions, which is one of three things i made this topic for:
1. is it possible for global warming to stop happening, provided that no nuclear weapons were ever detonated, and I'm running recycling centers in every city I own? The pace of global warming, so far, is rather slow. Could it slow down further and eventually stop, if sufficiently much of world's forests would grow back?
// I've read that 40% of the land masses covered by forests - prevents global warming completely, in Civilization 4. But would it work retroactively, if I'll be lucky to have that much forest to regrow - before most of the world turns into deserts? So far, after 458 years of global warming, way less than 10% of all land was turned into deserts, and something like 10%...15% of all land is still covered by forests (mostly in tundra belts and inside my empire's originally-settled territories). New forests grow up few times less often than new deserts appear, though. It's probably too late.
But i'll try anyway.2. can I speed up reforestation (which happens by new forests popping up on their own, on non-improved tiles capable of supporting forests), if I remove / plunder non-road improvements from tiles which are not being worked by any city?
3. is there a way in vanilla Civilization 4 to deconstruct buildings?
// I captured many cities from other nations via culture spread, and I will capture even more. Even by 2613, way more than half of each of the both continents - are now under my banner. But, many of those AI-built cities have coal plants, and some - nuclear plants. I found no way to remove them. Don't want no mods just for this, though.
Another thing I made this thread for - I hope to keep adding to it, documenting my Eternal Peace story as I go.
And the third thing - is to answer any questions about this game style and approach, which I do - "Eternal Peace". If there will be any. Anything like which settings I used, how I prevented wars and deterioration of diplomatic relations, details of cultural expansion I practice, how I defended myself when good old Montezuma declared war on me in 2004AD, etc. I'll be happy to share all details I can.
P.S. In my many previous Eternal Peace attempts in other Civilization games - from Civ2, through to Civilization: Beyond Earth, then in FreeCiv and some other fan-made games, as well, - I always eventually failed to achieve it: sometimes due to some in-game feature like out-of-control inflation, sometimes it was unavoidable game crash beyond certain specific date (shame - Civ:BE could otherwise be it!), sometimes it was limited game length (one of titles, i remember, has hard-coded limit of 3500AD), etc. But this time, I hope this is the one. I hope to one day reach 10,000AD - and I hope to go beyond even that. Wish me luck!
P.P.S. Being back to playing Civ4 lately, after playing all the other games of Civilization series, I now developed the feeling that Civ4 is the most true one of them all - true to the spirit of the whole idea of Civilization game; the idea as it was created all the way back in Civilization 1. Which I also played, way back in late 1990s. Played normally - not the "Eternal Peace way". Great memories! But, I wonder: is there anyone else here who have this same feeling? Late stuff like Civ5 and especially Civ6, in particular, just "don't click" with me...
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Off i go to switch auto tradework building on all workers. But it seems, there is no way to remove already-built railroads? My gunships pillage other improvements inside my territory just fine, even city ruins, but "Pillage" button just disappears when it's only a railroad left.
Still, thank you for trying to help! in BtS, this would definitely be a must-do.
But sadly, for my Eternal Peace game, even that is not an option. Because, naturally, i play it peacefully - which means i never declare any war on any AI, fighting only if they declared war on me; and i never raze any AI city (except one single barbarian city very early in the game, but barbarians can't be reasoned with and never do peace treaties, so it had to be done), too.
I don't mind, though. The only enabled win condition in my game - is diplomacy, and by 4200 AD, my empire has something like 70% of all votes in UN. So, I just keep "abstaining" when UN secretary election is offered, and without my votes, AIs can't do anything in UN. I could "win" this game way over 2000 turns ago, of course - but that's not my goal. So, them little AIs can stay there for all eternity. As long as they don't produce endless stream of meltdowns, of course. Which, i found, they don't:
