Whats the point in playing without war?

[Sultan Bhargash]

Wrong: you dont just sit there building things, you keep in constant touch with the AI, making trades for luxuries, techs, etc. You improve territory.

If you are good enough at trading, you can get the AI friends to fight your battles for you. You dont have to send troops, just form alliances. If you find the AI is willing to fight your battles (I once finessed them so well they joined my cause for free), you will probably also be able to get a diplomatic win.

War is "fun" in Civ3, if you are built up ready for it and are the one doing the inflicting. On the other hand, I hate it when I am under seige (as in GOTM 2) having my precious improvements destroyed.

However, he is right, you dont get any "other" units, even freight and spies are gone. It would be more fun if, for instance, you could move entertainer, tax collector, scientist units around from city to city that needed them.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

OK..I have a question that is somewhat related. Has anyone played a game and did not have a single war? At some point, I find, I have to engage in a war..but that's me..I need breathing room.

If you have, could you please gimme map size and difficulty level..I am generally curious..and may give it a try. Might be fun.

 

[scavenger]

the AI will force war, even if you try to stay out of it, theres no way to COMPLETLY avoid war. If you're a little civ, they attack you cuz they can, if you're a big civ they attack you to get a higher score.

 

[Rymiss]

the AI will force war, even if you try to stay out of it, theres no way to COMPLETLY avoid war. If you're a little civ, they attack you cuz they can, if you're a big civ they attack you to get a higher score.

Not every game. In my current game im the biggest scoring nation in the world and the japs (a little civ) worship me basically and goto war with whoever I tell them too. Although the Germans were small and they picked a fight with me but a few turns later and they had one city left out of 10 so maybe that scared the other civs into thinking twice before declaring war with me?

 

[lwchen]

Try playing on Deity level. Believe me war is something to avoid whenever possible. With a 40% advantage in production, and at least that much in technology, even a dumb AI will quickly thrash your warmongering ass.

A good Civ player balances technology, city improvements (and yes there is much more than clicking the next building ... different circumstances require different build strategies), proper terraforming, and diplomacy with good ole fashion military might.

At the lower difficulty levels you can pretty much do whatever you want to win. But at Emperor and up your gruntfest style of play won't be the most efficient method available. In fact you'll be lucky to win on the larger maps.

I've never finished a game without firing a shot. But in the ones I won on Deity, I did as little fighting as possible and still barely won the space race. Perhaps your lone idea of fun is blowing everything up, but I personally think there is much more to this game.

 

[kamosa]

A couple of quick points.

First, by not focusing on war, I'm able to build more peaceful units and use them Strategically . I expand peacefully, giving and taking techs, trading resources and generally being a nice guy. Meanwhile I'm cracking the whip and building culture buildings in my cities, expanding my borders and cramping the AI civilizations in a way that would be hard to do militarily.

Second, I find building lots of units and engaging in pretty simplistic combats to be boring. I understand the combat rules, but if I wanted a unit combat game I would play Starcraft or Kohan. The thrill in Civ is that you get to manage a large empire. It's ok that you don't like it, you don't have to, but to dump on us because we do, is narrow minded.

System managing is fun for many people. That is why there are a ton of games in the last 10 years that focus on system managing. Sim City and it's clones, Roller Coaster Tycoon and the city builder series from Impressions(Ceaser III, Pharaoh, and Zeus) are just a couple examples.

In short you want to know what we are doing: We are thinking and planning and tinkering. For us it's fun to try to find the best expansion algorithm that combats corruption and still keeps us at peace with the English (which does involve understanding and maintaining lots of military units). Combat is obvious and doesn't engage us as much as it obviously does you. Don't dump on us just because you don't enjoy what we enjoy and we'll leave you alone with your hoard.

Lastly, why is it that you feel the need to attack how someone else is having fun? Why does it matter to you so much that you have to come to this board and attack it? Is it hurting you that someone is having fun in a way you don't understand?

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

You cant have a game where you are not in a war. You can have a whole game without fighting, though. Try continents or archipelago with large landmass, warlord or regent level. Play as the Egyptians. Spread as far as you can, build cities and fill the borders up of a reasonable size empire, one where you can have a forbidden palace and a wonder city.

The AI, especially Germany, will still demand stuff and start war with you but if they are not on the same continent you might never see them. Build Leonardos so you can upgrade if you have to in that later game- in my game I had spearman until I payed to convert them to Infantry during my "war", which was fought by my allies.

The big danger is, if you get other countries to fight for you, dont go signing a peace treaty until at least some of them do.