who uses pacifism and why?

[jerry247]

I can see using it a spiritual quick switch for a few turns to pump out a GP, but anyone have a long term strat for peace on prince or above?

 

[Shillen]

It's great for cultural victories. Getting a lot of great artists is important.

 

[oagersnap]

I've used it a lot. If you don't focus that much on millitary and use a philosophical civ, it's very useful.

 

[Bobbalouie]

I've had fun using pacifism and then getting all the cool civs to adopt it. I had Julius Caesar pacified.

 

[Pentium]

anyone have a long term strat for peace on prince or above?

I do . I like Pacifism very much, because it's simply the best for fast research (Great Scientists). If I have a lot of religions I revolt to Free Rel later, but sometimes I just stick with Pacifism.

 

[Shillen]

I've used it a lot. If you don't focus that much on millitary and use a philosophical civ, it's very useful.

This is a train of thought that I see a lot that isn't right. Philosophical civs actually get less benefit from pacificism or the parthenon than non-philosophical civs do. Therefore I'd be more likely to run pacifism as a non-philosophical civ than as a philosophical one.

 

[Boppo]

It can be very useful in the cultural border wars, especially if you put some of your commerce into Culture.

It also seemed that the AI was less likely to attack me when I had a small military. Might have been coincidence though.

 

[Zelda's Man]

I also find that it is typically the cheapest in turns of upkeep for my games. Financially it is a better choice than the others.

 

[Nestorius]

Stuck on an island as a philosophical civ, having already built the Parthenon and national epic, why would you not want to spam great leaders?

 

[petey]

This is a train of thought that I see a lot that isn't right. Philosophical civs actually get less benefit from pacificism or the parthenon than non-philosophical civs do. Therefore I'd be more likely to run pacifism as a non-philosophical civ than as a philosophical one.

But if you're running a GP strategy, then all the extra bonuses help - with any strategy, the more multipliers you can get, the better. Your logic is like saying that Aggressive civs shouldn't build barracks, since many of their units get promotions anyways.

 

[Dreef]

It's great for cultural victories. Getting a lot of great artists is important.

That may be true but I got a cultural victory on monarch last night without producing a single great artist. It was my first ever cultural victory and very clumsy at that but I didn't feel that great artists were a missing piece of the puzzle. Of course if you have the 100%GP trait you would be foolish not to take advantage of it.

I think running Free Religion gunning for a cultural victory is important because you avoid any negative religious modifiers in diplomacy.

 

[Pentium]

But if you're running a GP strategy, then all the extra bonuses help - with any strategy, the more multipliers you can get, the better. Your logic is like saying that Aggressive civs shouldn't build barracks, since many of their units get promotions anyways.

It's different. Units from barracks will get +4 exp anyway. Phi civ with Pacifism will get 3 time the GPP it normally would, while it'll get 2 times without it. So it's only a 50% bonus. It's even less if you have more multiplayers (NE, Parthenon)

 

[jerry247]

so how many units do you have? I use a garrison of 2 inner cities 3 outer and a roaming army of 4 plus a defender and a few cats for each section of my empire (usually 2 stacks). pacifism would break me. I feel I need to war a little in prince and I understand its mandatory above. do you all just have tiny empires?

 

[Toshiro126]

Originally posted by jerry247
do you all just have tiny empires?

For me, it depends if I'm going for a cultural victory. I won on Prince the other night. I only built seven cities, and had two more enemy cities flipped over to me through my culture.

It seems like for other victory types, you would need good sized empires though. I am curious how many cities other people normally build on their own, versus how many they take over.

 

[Yooka]

It's different. Units from barracks will get +4 exp anyway. Phi civ with Pacifism will get 3 time the GPP it normally would, while it'll get 2 times ***without it. So it's only a 50% bonus. It's even less if you have more multiplayers (NE, Parthenon)

*** = "it normally would", as implied

Are you sure you worded that correctly? Because I am genuinely confused.

I would think that the bonus from Pacifism would be tacked on after the PHI bonus, making it effectively 100% + 100% . Then again, that sounds like alot. So what are we saying they do to nerf this?

Oh, I think Jerry is chompin at the bit for your long term strat, Pent.

 

[jerry247]

Oh, I think Jerry is chompin at the bit for your long term strat, Pent.

no, i use it I win seems like a strat

 

[trundle]

This is a train of thought that I see a lot that isn't right. Philosophical civs actually get less benefit from pacificism or the parthenon than non-philosophical civs do. Therefore I'd be more likely to run pacifism as a non-philosophical civ than as a philosophical one.

That's true only if you look at two identical civs where one has philosophical and the other doesn't.

But if you're running philosophical, you should probably be aggressively pursuing GPs (or you're wasting a trait). Since there's more emphasis on GPs, that extra 100% will most likely be worth more.

 

[petey]

It's different. Units from barracks will get +4 exp anyway. Phi civ with Pacifism will get 3 time the GPP it normally would, while it'll get 2 times without it. So it's only a 50% bonus. It's even less if you have more multiplayers (NE, Parthenon)

OK, change my example to saying that it's the equivalent of saying it's a waste to build a university in a city where you've already got a library. It doesn't add another full 25% to the research in the city, so it's a useless addition, right? Of course it isn't - more multipliers are always good.

Sure, the Parthenon only gives a 25% bonus in GPP to a Philosophical civ instead of the 50% it gives to other civs. But that 25% bonus can shave lots of turns off of of getting the Prophet for the Shrine or the Academy for the science city or an Engineer to beat the AI to a Wonder. It's as good as an Industrious civ building a forge in the city where they want to build a Wonder - it doesn't help out as much as it would a non-Industrious civ, but it still shaves time off. Similarily, Pacifism only gives a 50% bonus to a Phi civ, or 40% to one that already has the Parthenon, but that's still a huge bonus. For a GP strategy, it's as significant as putting the Academy in your science city is for research.

 

[Yzen Danek]

so how many units do you have? I use a garrison of 2 inner cities 3 outer and a roaming army of 4 plus a defender and a few cats for each section of my empire (usually 2 stacks). pacifism would break me. I feel I need to war a little in prince and I understand its mandatory above. do you all just have tiny empires?

Even your description here suggests that you have a standard operating procedure everytime you play, which is always going to limit your ability to take advantage of whatever situation you're given.

It's true that using Pacifism and maintaining a large standing army can be hard if you don't have the finances to back it up. There are some games where it will really trip you up even to try.

Whether or not I use pacifism is going to have a lot to do with which Civ I get assigned and what the map looks like. Spiritual civs that go hard on religions typically have no trouble with money; if I have 5 or 6 of the shrines and have spread those religions diligently, I'll have a positive cashflow even with 0% set to income and a large standing army. But, on maps where I have an island to myself, I'll go extremely light on garrisons, and focus on a powerful navy, which can equate to a lot fewer units, especially pre-Astronomy, where just a few stacks of Caravels can often block all incoming lanes for Galleys (and thus incoming troops).

In situtations where I don't need more luxuries or food resources in trade, I'll often trade my extra resources to other Civs for nice gold/turn amounts, which again gives me a large positive cashflow.

So, there's a lot of ways to be able to afford the upkeep for Pacifism. Most games it doesn't come down to merely the cost, though; it has a lot to do with whether or not twice as many Great People is really going to do a lot for you.

 

[DaviddesJ]

This is a train of thought that I see a lot that isn't right. Philosophical civs actually get less benefit from pacificism or the parthenon than non-philosophical civs do. Therefore I'd be more likely to run pacifism as a non-philosophical civ than as a philosophical one.

But if you're running philosophical, you should probably be aggressively pursuing GPs (or you're wasting a trait). Since there's more emphasis on GPs, that extra 100% will most likely be worth more.

Both of you are too vehement, and the truth is that the benefit of Pacifism is most typically about the same for the two cases.

The important fact is that, because each GP costs more than the last one, the number of GP that you generate grows only as the square root of the number of GPP that you generate. So, the Philosophical civ with Pacifism generates 22% more GP than without: the increase from +100% GPP to +200% GPP is a factor of 1.5, and sqrt(1.5) = 1.22. While, the non-Philosophical civ with Pacifism generates 41% more GP than without: the increase from +0% GPP to +100% GPP is a factor of 2.0, and sqrt(2.0) = 1.41.

If the Philosophical civ generates X times as many GPP as the non-Philosophical civ, before any bonuses, then it's generating sqrt(2.0*X) times as many GP as the non-Philosophical civ, including its Philosophical bonus. Thus the Philosophical civ adds 0.22/0.41 * sqrt(2.0*X) times as many "extra" GP as the non-Philosophical civ, with Pacifism, or sqrt(0.58*X).

Thus, the point where the two get an equal benefit is when the Philosophical civ is investing about twice as heavily in generating GPP as the non-Philosophical civ. And I think this is pretty close to the "usual" ratio, so, usually the benefits for the two civs are roughly the same.