The Game Loves War!

[Rohirrim]

I'm relatively new to the game. I generally play large, Monarch games against five or more AIs. I've noticed a pattern that has popped up again in my latest game: The Game Loves War. I'm the Byzantines in a 60% continents game against Babylon, Egypt, the Hittites and the Sumerians. I'm going for the space victory so I'm trying to stay out of conflicts and race ahead on the science techs. I've been doing mostly wheeling and dealing with techs and luxuries while I increase productivity. I just built ToE (on a palace pre-build)and I'm working on Hoover Dam (from another pre-build). ToE gave me Corps and Refining when, lo and behold, there are only two oil drips on the whole map and guess where they are? Babylon has both of them; the only ones on the map.

I've seen this pattern played out in every game I've played: Try to race ahead in techs, and the game throws you a monkey wrench by denying you a key resource.

Now, do I stop and wait until Babylon catches up to me and realizes it has oil, or do I set up some excuse to attack (hell, I have infantry and he's still relying on medieval infantry)? Of course, there's only one answer: Go take the oil! (Talk about historical realism).

Like I said, this game loves war.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

Can you road over to the oil? Do you have an ROP? I guess you could try that. If that doesn't work, I say give them the sword.

 

[Rohirrim]

Can you road over to the oil? Do you have an ROP? I guess you could try that. If that doesn't work, I say give them the sword.

They're on a separate continent. Too bad for them.

 

[Volstag]

This game does love war. It's a valid course of action in almost all circumstances.

-V

 

[nullspace]

Well, yeah, that's half the point of putting strategic resources in the game: to add a drawback to the isolationist strategy. Sometimes you need that overseas colony to get a vital resource.

But war isn't the only answer. You could gift Babylon up to the refining tech and then buy the oil from them. That's expensive, but if you want to be a pacifist, it works. Maybe it's even possible to bribe the town if it's small enough.

Actually, oil is only important if you want to fight. It is required for most modern weapons, but it is not needed for any spaceship part or city improvement IIRC. You could do without it.

On a related note, if you play games with more enemy civs, there will be more of each type of resource on the map. A large map with a total of 5 civs is pretty sparsely populated.

 

[Pentium]

The game loves war. That's why a Monarch Domination gives you more points then Deity Diplo.
About not having oil: Have you heard of Cavalry-Infantry-Artillery?

 

[T-Money]

Well, yeah, that's half the point of putting strategic resources in the game: to add a drawback to the isolationist strategy. Sometimes you need that overseas colony to get a vital resource.

But war isn't the only answer. You could gift Babylon up to the refining tech and then buy the oil from them. That's expensive, but if you want to be a pacifist, it works. Maybe it's even possible to bribe the town if it's small enough.

Actually, oil is only important if you want to fight. It is required for most modern weapons, but it is not needed for any spaceship part or city improvement IIRC. You could do without it.

On a related note, if you play games with more enemy civs, there will be more of each type of resource on the map. A large map with a total of 5 civs is pretty sparsely populated.

This is a good idea, but if he's going for space ship/diplo victory then gifting the AI techs is a bad idea. And a bristling army is neseccary (sp?) even in pacifist games. If you have a weak military, the AI will attack.

Of course, I'm just pulling most of this out of my ass. I've never gone the pacifist route, but I believe I'm correct.

 

[White_Knight]

I think it's inaccurate to accuse the game of "throwing a monkey wrench" into your plans by denying you a resource, since the resources are randomly placed when the map is generated. It's not as if it rolls the dice when the first player discovers Refining and places oil in weaker countries first.

Now, if your lone source of oil runs out and a new one appears in the heart of a rival's territory alongside two others, then you can go on a swearing fit. Technically it's still just as random, but it seems more malicious, doesn't it?

As for the need to wage war in general, it's certainly not 100% necessary. Charis and betazed (I think) have both won games on very high levels - the former was on Emperor, the latter on Deity - in which they built no military units at all, even for city defense. It takes diplomatic finesse and a fair bit of luck (Mr. Pindleton!) but it can certainly be done.

I've also had an OCC game with no warfare needed - though I did end up dropping the hammer on a neighbor once to burn up some Ancient Cavalry that were lying around eating up tons of gold in support costs. But techically I didn't have to.

 

[sayhey]

Just like life. History is filled with war.

 

[Tearor]

if it wasnt for war we would have no history to write about. War is a part of humanity and will be with us forever. Peace is so boring. why would you not incorperate it into a game like this.

 

[sealman]

You have two reasons to go to war with Babylon.
1) they have the oil you need and will probably trade the extra resource to an AI and
2) more importantly, they are the Babylonians!

Launch a massive invasion, secure at least one of the oil tiles and heavily fortify your positions.