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+