To war or not to war: Is playing peaceful the better option?

[Disgustipated]

I'm still learning the ins and out, but my last game I seemed to do much better playing peaceful. One thing I have realized is that if I focus on getting city states, my diplomacy with AI really suffers and they hate me the rest of the game. At best I can make one alliance (usually Machiavelli). My last game I conquered as many independent powers as I could (instead of befriending them) and I had good relations with everyone on my home continent for most of the game.

But the biggest surprise was my civic and tech rate. Now I realize some of this was the leader and civs I chose. This game was Hatshephut with Egypt into Abbassid. Those 2 civs do seem very strong for culture and science respectively. My previous game I did war a fair bit with Harriet Tubman. I know her abilities are more defensive in nature, but I wanted to be aggressive with her. And when you declare on one, they often dogpile you anyways, so having that +5 seemed handy. It's possible Tubman is just a weak leader? All I know is I struggled with getting a good science/civic rate in the modern age with her compared to Hatshephut. And I'm wondering if the difference is playing peaceful? Another difference is the endeavors with civs do seem to be better than the city state bonuses? I can't directly compare the two, so I ask your all thoughts on this. As I said, there really don't seem to be enough resources to do both. So which is better?

It's possible Tubman just sucks. I'm unlikely to play with her again. But I suspect the leaders and civs are just horribly unbalancd as well. But I still wonder if playing peaceful is the way to go?

And the final possible difference is this game was normal speed and the previous game was epic speed. It's possible the game is not well balanced for slower speeds.

 

[CoconutTank]

I've had to restart more peaceful sessions than warring sessions personally, mostly bc if I'm playing entirely peacefully I might get locked out of expanding and growing at all.

The peaceful sessions that did succeed were somewhat fun in their own way, but it'd be hard to say they were more successful than my warring sessions in general.

 

[AriochIV]

If you never have to fight, this is a pretty boring game. Fortunately, you usually have to fight.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

So which is better?

If I had to put my money on one, it would be City-States (in a perfect scenario). With a bonus in the Diplomatic Attribute tree + a Greek Tradition + a Shawnee Tradition you can get +150% Influence towards befriending them (which more than cuts the price in half!).

In Antiquity, there’s a Cultural bonus that gives you a free Civic every time you suzerain a CS. Throughout all Ages, there’s a Scientific one that gives you free Techs. If multiple City-States survive, this can give you hundreds (potentially thousands!) of free Science and Culture instantaneously.

The catch is that City-States need to survive. Many don’t, and you have little control over which ones do.

I agree that Endeavors are strong and consistent, but City-States can be very powerful in the right circumstances as well. It’s just a bit of a gamble.

As for peace vs. war, I find that there’s an inevitable war in all of my games since I like to form alliances (if I don’t, all my relationships become a slow backslide into hostility). That war can be useful but more often than not the best part of a war is going to be getting an AI to cede a big City in the peace deal. Most AI border Towns are… nothing special, to say the least.

Really just a huge damper on your settlement limit if you don’t want to take the War Support hit (which I don’t, because I would be shooting myself in the foot for the inevitable follow-up war).

 

[Yzman]

I prefer peace but I tend to get dragged into war quite a bit in this game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

If you never have to fight, this is a pretty boring game. Fortunately, you usually have to fight.

On difficulty levels up to sovereign I manage to almost always avoid wars if I don't need it. On immortal it's probably possible, but AI is much more aggressive. On deity playing without war is probably impossible, although I was able to avoid wars in antiquity even on Continents+

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

My experience is that you can avoid war completely, but you have to work at it, because you can't really stay Allied to anybody for long: to the AI, Alliance = Let's Go Fight Someone!

- And if you use up your Influence Suzing Independents, you will inevitably have someone (or several someones) try an Endeavor with you that you have no Influence left to reply to, and after a few of those somebody is Denouncing you and getting ready to fight you.

On the other hand, once in a war the AIs are remarkably quick to end it. Even with no settlements having changed hands, and my forces having made no advances into the opposing territory, I have had AI Leaders propose giving me a settlement in a peace deal - when they were part of an Alliance and so had nobody else threatening them. I can only conclude that War Weariness really punches all the AI's buttons, even when it doesn't register anywhere in the UI (as in, we are both showing the same War Weariness numbers)

 

[MutilationWave]

- And if you use up your Influence Suzing Independents, you will inevitably have someone (or several someones) try an Endeavor with you that you have no Influence left to reply to, and after a few of those somebody is Denouncing you and getting ready to fight you.

I try to keep 120 influence in the bank to kill a denouncement I don't want. So many times I've spent my influence on suzing to have AI denounce when I don't have enough to prevent it. I know this has to be coded in on some level.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I try to keep 120 influence in the bank to kill a denouncement I don't want. So many times I've spent my influence on suzing to have AI denounce when I don't have enough to prevent it. I know this has to be coded in on some level.

It's happened so many times I'm absolutely certain it's programmed: an AI will hit me with one Endeavor. Then another on the next turn. Then another AI Leader will endeavor me, until I'm zeroed out on Influence.

This is particularly annoying when I have a Hostile IP sitting a few tiles away, on the coast, so that attacking it gets my units mangled by his 2 - 3 Galleys off shore. And attacking it with a navy is flat impossible because he can build Galleys faster than I can. The AI Influence Sink can keep me from even starting to Suze that coastal IP Pirate's Nest for many, many turns during which he harasses my capital, units, etc.

-And the AI Influence Sink ALWAYS happens when I try to play Machiavelli: he gets bonuses for endeavors of his that are declined, so I am convinced the AI is programmed to keep nibbling away at his Influence so he doesn't ever have enough to offer an Endeavor. It's happened too constantly not to be Planned . . .

 

[Krikkit1]

It's happened so many times I'm absolutely certain it's programmed: an AI will hit me with one Endeavor. Then another on the next turn. Then another AI Leader will endeavor me, until I'm zeroed out on Influence.

This is particularly annoying when I have a Hostile IP sitting a few tiles away, on the coast, so that attacking it gets my units mangled by his 2 - 3 Galleys off shore. And attacking it with a navy is flat impossible because he can build Galleys faster than I can. The AI Influence Sink can keep me from even starting to Suze that coastal IP Pirate's Nest for many, many turns during which he harasses my capital, units, etc.

-And the AI Influence Sink ALWAYS happens when I try to play Machiavelli: he gets bonuses for endeavors of his that are declined, so I am convinced the AI is programmed to keep nibbling away at his Influence so he doesn't ever have enough to offer an Endeavor. It's happened too constantly not to be Planned . . .

If the AI sends you an endeavor, you don’t have to use any Influence. You can get the free benefit of Accepting them.

 

[MutilationWave]

If the AI sends you an endeavor, you don’t have to use any Influence. You can get the free benefit of Accepting them.

And the happiness endeavor I believe gives +2 influence for simply accepting, much better than supporting. I rarely support, just accept all.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

If the AI sends you an endeavor, you don’t have to use any Influence. You can get the free benefit of Accepting them.

Unfortunately, Accepting some Endeavors gives you half the benefit it gives the Endeavorer, which in many cases simply increases the AI's (temporary) lead over you in that area. The 'Free Benefit' is largely to the AI, not you.

 

[MutilationWave]

Unfortunately, Accepting some Endeavors gives you half the benefit it gives the Endeavorer, which in many cases simply increases the AI's (temporary) lead over you in that area. The 'Free Benefit' is largely to the AI, not you.

Yeah but they're so far ahead of me in science and culture until exploration that it doesn't seem to matter. I'm sure every bit counts though. I just like to keep relations up until I'm ready for war, and accepting will help to a lesser degree than supporting while preserving your influence

 

[Krikkit1]

Unfortunately, Accepting some Endeavors gives you half the benefit it gives the Endeavorer, which in many cases simply increases the AI's (temporary) lead over you in that area. The 'Free Benefit' is largely to the AI, not you.

But the AI is spending influence that gives itself a benefit..not Free for the AI (and it also gives some other civ a smaller benefit)
and the AI chooses YOU to get that smaller Free benefit instead of another AI.

If 2 AIs both propose an endeavor to you and you accept both, all 3 of you get equivalent benefits (+4; +4; and+2+2)

 

[glaivemaster]

I so rarely support endeavours from the AI unless I actually want the bonus. I was surprised recently playing as Himiko, Queen of Wa (free support on all endeavours) that I still occasionally didn't want to support! As mentioned, mostly for the asymmetric bonuses, like +2 influence, or +2 gold on war support when I wasn't expecting a war.

I think it's especially relevant to not try and support every endevour that comes your way, and just accept that some AI will dislike you. I almost never try to block a denouncement - if an AI wants to denounce me, then it's rare that I can stop them from sabotaging our relationship in one way or another, and it's way too expensive to try and stop them compared to just getting a bonus somewhere else and preparing for war. Only if I find myself overflowing with influence do I bother.

That said, I struggle to find it worth investing in City States. It costs a lot of influence, which is in short supply, and the free tech/culture bonuses always seem to just give the cheapest stage 2 techs/civics that I'm not too interested in. And that's if a CS even survives the 15+ turns it takes to give me the bonus. In Antiquity I find it practically impossible to justify, I may try 1 in Exploration, and by Modern the game is over before the bonuses really kick in. I'll do it if I have the influence, but supporting and starting endeavours just feels so much more relevant and immediate to me, for the price of influence.

On the subject of war: if you can do it, I find it usually pays off. I usually can't avoid an AI declaring on me on Deity regardless, but if I can retaliate and take a settlement or two I find myself well set up for the rest of the game. If I do want to play peaceful, it's usually easy enough to turtle up and watch my neighbour slowly tank their economy trying to attack me. I haven't yet been successful (on Deity) at declaring an offensive war, but I usually don't bother to try because I prefer peaceful play. I should give it a go though, it always went well at Immortal

 

[MutilationWave]

I so rarely support endeavours from the AI unless I actually want the bonus. I was surprised recently playing as Himiko, Queen of Wa (free support on all endeavours) that I still occasionally didn't want to support! As mentioned, mostly for the asymmetric bonuses, like +2 influence, or +2 gold on war support when I wasn't expecting a war.

I think it's especially relevant to not try and support every endevour that comes your way, and just accept that some AI will dislike you. I almost never try to block a denouncement - if an AI wants to denounce me, then it's rare that I can stop them from sabotaging our relationship in one way or another, and it's way too expensive to try and stop them compared to just getting a bonus somewhere else and preparing for war. Only if I find myself overflowing with influence do I bother.

That said, I struggle to find it worth investing in City States. It costs a lot of influence, which is in short supply, and the free tech/culture bonuses always seem to just give the cheapest stage 2 techs/civics that I'm not too interested in. And that's if a CS even survives the 15+ turns it takes to give me the bonus. In Antiquity I find it practically impossible to justify, I may try 1 in Exploration, and by Modern the game is over before the bonuses really kick in. I'll do it if I have the influence, but supporting and starting endeavours just feels so much more relevant and immediate to me, for the price of influence.

On the subject of war: if you can do it, I find it usually pays off. I usually can't avoid an AI declaring on me on Deity regardless, but if I can retaliate and take a settlement or two I find myself well set up for the rest of the game. If I do want to play peaceful, it's usually easy enough to turtle up and watch my neighbour slowly tank their economy trying to attack me. I haven't yet been successful (on Deity) at declaring an offensive war, but I usually don't bother to try because I prefer peaceful play. I should give it a go though, it always went well at Immortal

I go crazy over city states, to the point I no longer overbuild even monuments in exploration for the influence. If you're the first to suzerain a military city state, you can get +50% commander experience. The bonuses that are a percentage base per suzerained CS can really add up. Cultural city state can give a free policy slot, and I'm a slot slut. Finally, some of the unique improvements, notably the monastery and stone heads, can be game changers.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I go crazy over city states, to the point I no longer overbuild even monuments in exploration for the influence. If you're the first to suzerain a military city state, you can get +50% commander experience. The bonuses that are a percentage base per suzerained CS can really add up. Cultural city state can give a free policy slot, and I'm a slot slut. Finally, some of the unique improvements, notably the monastery and stone heads, can be game changers.

My favorite is to have scientific city state first to get one tech from each new city state and when befriend as many as them as you could. In antiquity you could have techs and civics if your first two are scientific and cultural, although it's harder to find them quickly in antiquity as you need to open the map first.

 

[Tanel]

I would say that playing peacefully in the Antiquity age is generally the better option as a war generally kills your tempo but I find that on Deity the AI mostly doesn't let me play peacefully all the time which is good.

In Exploration war is a lot better especially if you do so early because the AI is really weak after the age transition and it's easier to fit into your other plans. Taking developed cities in prime locations is a lot more useful than starting out new ones when there aren't a lot of good spots remaining.

 

[aelf]

I think it's same as previous Civ games: If you get bogged down in a costly war (including opportunity costs) with little or no gain, you will fall behind. But even a meatgrinder will win you the game if you end up with substantial gains like the enemy civ's capital.

Easiest way to see this is to try the Exploration Age military dark age and beeline for a neighbour's capital. It's make or break. You only have 1 city to start with, putting you way behind, but once you capture the capital, chances are you will find yourself transforming into a dominant power on your continent.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I would say that playing peacefully in the Antiquity age is generally the better option as a war generally kills your tempo but I find that on Deity the AI mostly doesn't let me play peacefully all the time which is good.

In Exploration war is a lot better

I don't play on Deity but I prefer to war in Antiquity, stake out my place on the map before the AI gets too big. The age reset really works well especially if you are way over the settlement cap.