Very military Civ this iteration

[knightblaster]

I am generally someone who has preferred to play Civ in a very casual way, settler mode, and peaceful games focused on science, culture and so on. I find that this isn't really doable in Civ VI. I have started multiple games with different civs and in different situations (lots of civs, or a few of them, big map, small map, etc.) and no matter what you are in a war relatively early -- if you go for peace mode, you are surrounded and attacked.

You may say "well that's just realistic", but this is settler mode, number one, and, number two, in prior Civ games it was very possible to play at low settings and peacefully and rarely, if ever, get attacked. I do not like being forced into militaristic mode no matter what kind of game I am trying to play. Yes, I know it is easy enough to repel the attack, and I have done that in two games, but I do not want to play that way, it is irritating and annoying and I have not had to do that in prior versions. I dislike.

Hopefully there will be a mod soon enough tweaking this at the lower settings.

 

[jozef57]

i do understand you, but. i am playing my first game. with standard setting and except with barbarian no war yet i am at 1800 it depends what you are doing i think too

 

[Frank327]

Yeah I think building a few military units early on solves your problems. Even on emperor with scythia as neighbour, while settling two early cities and building two early wonders (hanging gardens, oracle), scythia doesn't seem to be attacking me. Even though she's pissed off. Might be luck of the draw though.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I would say it depends on the game. My first finished game as Rome was very militaristic. All my AI niehgbors kept declaring war on me and I was happy to oblige. My second finished game as Amerca was almost entirely peaceful. I initiated one short war against England when they captured 2 of my city states. I liberated one city state and took 1 English city before making peace. England denounced me a lot but kept the peace. Then, at the very end of the game, the Aztecs declared a surprise war. It was around 1900AD and the Aztecs still had swordsman and a couple crossbowman. I had infantry and the Rough Rider. I just defended for a short bit and then the Aztecs sued for peace.

If you don't declare war and don't capture AI cities, you can usually place a pretty peaceful game. If you want a peaceful game, avoid getting warmonger penalties and avoid capturing AI cities. Even the AI cedes the cities in peace, they will still denounce you and if they denounce you enough times, they will DoW you again and again.

It also helps to keep a strong military as a deterrent. In my America game, England kept saying that they were scared of my military because I had a large army stationed in the English city that I had captured. So having a large military, but not on the border, will sometimes deter the AI from attacking you.

 

[LikeMike]

I also prefer to play peaceful - but so far I didn't have a problem doing that. If you build a couple of military units for barbs and upgrade them when available, my neighbors left me alone. I got into one war (that another party got involved in) so far - it is very easy to defend your cities, without focusing on military, even getting one or two of your opponent. I realize you might not even want that, but like others have said, keep an archer in every city plus 1-2 spare ones and a 2-3 other military units and you should be fine.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

I never played settler mode but that's interesting that you find it aggressive enough to challenge a peaceful game.

Main advice I'd give is work on your diplomacy and military. I believe the AI's calculate their diplomatic points they have with you with your military strength along with their primary and hidden agendas. Some Civs like Norway and Aztec will surprise war you just for the hell of it anyway even if you're friendly. If you look at score and under domination it will give a number value for everyone's military strength. I'd say keep your military strength in the top half of the group (top 4 for 8 player standard).

If you're by an aggressive Civ it's likely that you will be going to war at some point. Best advice I have there is build an early military and take them out early (especially in settler mode) or scout out another civ neighbor of theirs and get a good relationship going with them, also becoming the suzerain of a city-state near them can help 'distract' some of their military.

Oh, and ARCHERS. Use them

 

[KVS]

Playing as Russia on Prince I was expanding in a direction away from both my closest neighbors (Rome and Washington). I had a decent sized army of mixed units that were upgraded accordingly. Rome issued a DOW on me and after slugging it out for a bit, I captured Rome and kept it. Even though I did not instigate the war with Rome, several turns later Teddy issued a surprise DOW on me because I'm a war monger. LOL Is that a result of taking and keeping Rome? Would I have been better to raze Rome? Or was it the fact Rome offered peace just before I took the city and I declined? I usually try to avoid war (going for a Science victory the majority of the time) while keeping an average size military. So far, Civ VI is making me much more of a war monger than I have ever been in previous games. It's an interesting development. It could be the luck of the draw or maybe I just make others mad! Enjoying the game so far but in this regard it's a departure from previous Civ games for me.

Edited to add: Washington attacked me with a wave of warriors, slingers and catapults! I was defending with pikemen, crossbows and bombards. I thought that was interesting...

 

[Frank327]

Playing as Russia on Prince I was expanding in a direction away from both my closest neighbors (Rome and Washington). I had a decent sized army of mixed units that were upgraded accordingly. Rome issued a DOW on me and after slugging it out for a bit, I captured Rome and kept it. Even though I did not instigate the war with Rome, several turns later Teddy issued a surprise DOW on me because I'm a war monger. LOL Is that a result of taking and keeping Rome? Would I have been better to raze Rome? Or was it the fact Rome offered peace just before I took the city and I declined? I usually try to avoid war (going for a Science victory the majority of the time) while keeping an average size military. So far, Civ VI is making me much more of a war monger than I have ever been in previous games. It's an interesting development. It could be the luck of the draw or maybe I just make others mad! Enjoying the game so far but in this regard it's a departure from previous Civ games for me.

My suspicion is that you get a warmonger penalty when you sue for peace and take cities. But when I conquered all of Russia and didn't need a peace deal, I didn't get warmonger penalty. So maybe just taking the entire civ in one go will solve that problem.

 

[KVS]

My suspicion is that you get a warmonger penalty when you sue for peace and take cities. But when I conquered all of Russia and didn't need a peace deal, I didn't get warmonger penalty. So maybe just taking the entire civ in one go will solve that problem.

That makes sense. If a civ asks you for peace and you say "Nah...I'd rather have the city" it would stand to reason that you would appear to be a war monger...

That is a good point about taking an entire civ to end the war instead of making peace.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

My suspicion is that you get a warmonger penalty when you sue for peace and take cities. But when I conquered all of Russia and didn't need a peace deal, I didn't get warmonger penalty. So maybe just taking the entire civ in one go will solve that problem.

The civ you were at war with will continue to hate you if you take their cities, even when they cede them to you in a peace deal. So, yes, wiping out the entire civ is the surest way to stop the AI from denouncing you again and again and declaring war on you again.

 

[tat501]

Almost everyone else is saying the AI is terrible because; 1) It doesn't go to war. 2) When it does it doesn't actually attack and try to win.

Civ isn't and has never been Sim City. It's not a city building game, but an empire building game. You have opponents. They are supposed to want to compete with you and win themselves (although they don't seem to have any interest in pursuing victory conditions which is a bit stupid but whatever).

If you want to play your style of play on settler you can. But just build a few units at least. Just devote a couple of turns to cranking out a number of warriors or something to put the AI off and then forget about them if you want to.

 

[knightblaster]

Interesting.

Here's a few examples.

One I was playing as Japan. It turned out a lot of civs were near me -- Greece, Rome, America. Made friends with Greece and Rome and was on a talking basis with Teddy. 50-60 turns in, bam, Teddy attacks me. I didn't attack anyone, had not annexed anything, had no military units. Out of the blue wham bam attack. I guess he didn't like one of my friends? Neither of them was at war with him.

Another example was a test game. Started as Japan, and set the number of civs to 3, to avoid the issue that came up in the previous paragraph. Met Marie Antoinette fairly early. Was friendly in terms of diplomacy. Just expanding, no military units, doing the peaceful route. And then, bam, surprise attack from Marie about 80 turns in.

I did another start after that where I built units and kept them around the cities, and did not get attacked. It appears to me that unless you do this, there is a very high risk of getting attacked, at least that is what has happened in the games I have played -- and, again, this is settler, and I had attacked no-one in those games and really had only 1-2 military units and was playing diplomacy as well.

 

[knightblaster]

Civ isn't and has never been Sim City. It's not a city building game, but an empire building game. You have opponents. They are supposed to want to compete with you and win themselves

Yeah, not my first rodeo in Civ. My point is that you COULD play this way in PRIOR Civ games, but you CAN'T in THIS one. I guess that means the earlier ones were SimCity and not Civ. Who knew?

 

[tat501]

Interesting.

Here's a few examples.

One I was playing as Japan. It turned out a lot of civs were near me -- Greece, Rome, America. Made friends with Greece and Rome and was on a talking basis with Teddy. 50-60 turns in, bam, Teddy attacks me. I didn't attack anyone, had not annexed anything, had no military units. Out of the blue wham bam attack. I guess he didn't like one of my friends? Neither of them was at war with him.

Another example was a test game. Started as Japan, and set the number of civs to 3, to avoid the issue that came up in the previous paragraph. Met Marie Antoinette fairly early. Was friendly in terms of diplomacy. Just expanding, no military units, doing the peaceful route. And then, bam, surprise attack from Marie about 80 turns in.

I did another start after that where I built units and kept them around the cities, and did not get attacked. It appears to me that unless you do this, there is a very high risk of getting attacked, at least that is what has happened in the games I have played -- and, again, this is settler, and I had attacked no-one in those games and really had only 1-2 military units and was playing diplomacy as well.

From my observations it has ALWAYS been the case that if you have absolutely no military you will be attacked. Civ 5 was the same. At least until BNW where maybe it changed a bit but I don't know because I'd become trained to always build enough units.

 

[knightblaster]

From my observations it has ALWAYS been the case that if you have absolutely no military you will be attacked. Civ 5 was the same. At least until BNW where maybe it changed a bit but I don't know because I'd become trained to always build enough units.

Not for me. In Civ V and Civ IV I was able to do the peaceful route with diplomacy, science, culture, etc., and never really fight -- at least not until much later. It was possible to play everyone off in other ways in the early game. This version seems very much programmed to bumrush you unless you have a defence force to offset the bumrush -- that makes it feel more like StarCraft than Civ to me (where you have to defend against the early rush so you can survive it, and then you get to the actual game).

 

[gberetfr]

So the fact that without military units the AI will attack you even on low difficulty, changed from previous versions, and it sounds very much logical that it did.
I don't know how you managed to do it (you turned off barbarians also ?)
Having no military units is like shouting : come to conquer me !
Anyway, now you know it, just build a few units, keep them within your borders, the problem should be solved and you can continue to play the way you want.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't had this problem. If anything, it feels like building a decent early army - even just for deterrence - is easier than it was in Civ V.

 

[knightblaster]

So the fact that without military units the AI will attack you even on low difficulty, changed from previous versions, and it sounds very much logical that it did.
I don't know how you managed to do it (you turned off barbarians also ?)
Having no military units is like shouting : come to conquer me !
Anyway, now you know it, just build a few units, keep them within your borders, the problem should be solved and you can continue to play the way you want.

Yes it's logical and yes I know how to get around it. I said as much in my OP. I do not like that I have to play that way, however, that was my point. I never said it was not playable, but that I personally found it annoying, and I do.

Yes, I always turn off barbs -- I find them annoying. Again, this is an accepted playstyle, otherwise the game wouldn't give the option to do it. Settler, in previous versions, was a setting that had a totally non-aggressive AI, and that isn't the case in this version -- it's different and I do not like how it is different. It is still playable, and I never said it wasn't, and I know how to play around it, but I dislike having to do that when I didn't have to in previous versions by tweaking the settings and my gameplay -- that was my point. It's feedback.

In any case, I'm guessing there will be a mod at some point which tweaks things up and down in the AI. It seems more aggressive at lower settings and more passive at higher ones, which just seems to be messed up.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

Again, keep an eye on military score under domination. If you fall too low there you're a sitting duck. If you have a neighbor like Cleopatra then you need to be in the top two or Norway will respect you if you're top two or three in your Navy.

I like the mechanic. It forces you to invest into military and not just AFK science/culture victory.

 

[knightblaster]

I like the mechanic. It forces you to invest into military and not just AFK science/culture victory.

I don't like it. And I don't think describing the previous versions science/culture type game play, in a turn-based single player game, as "AFK" is appropriate, either. To each their own, I suppose.