who uses pacifism and why?

[MrCynical]

Since I generally have a fairly low number of military units Pacifism often has almost zero cost as a civic. A boost to great people production is always handy, and it's a lot cheaper the organized religion which ceases to be useful when I've built most of the cities' buildings. I've never been very fond of Theocracy, as it hinders the spread of other religions into my empire, and as I've said I don't build much military. Free Religion is the only other option I'll run in the late game, for the research bonus. However it is often preferable for diplomatic and spying reasons that I maintain a state religion, in which case Pacifism is my best option

 

[Yooka]

Since I generally have a fairly low number of military units Pacifism often has almost zero cost as a civic.

Absolutely everytime I am lower than 4th out of 7 armies in military strength, I'm getting declared on left and right. And after a while, it becomes a matter of (1) building up the army, or (2) letting go of major cities. No idea how I can use Pacifism given this.

 

[MrCynical]

Most of the time I stay on good enough terms to avoid wars, but I can generally defend myself on the few occasions diplomacy fails. Just because my military is small in terms of number of units doesn't make it necessarily weak. A few advanced units are generally more effective than several older ones. I usually have enough free units to have 3 or 4 units per city without significant cost even under pacifism.

 

[jerry247]

so I go with the flow when I play, I try to have a garrison for defense and a standing army for defense. are you saying you don't? I don't usually get an island to myself, so i usually don't go lite on the military. when my military is small i get trampled.

so does anyone have a strategy involving pacifism, or does everyone play random and just use it when its necessary?????

 

[robinm]

I'm stating the obvious to the point of uselessness here... so allow me to explain further

You use it if you have a good reason to want many GP.

The real question is why would you want many GP as your main strategy?

You can trade them in for tech's to get ahead in the tech race - allowing a smaller defensive army of higher quality units.

OR

You can buld up super specialists in key cities. Picture your super commerce city (many cottages) with high % science, library, university, observatory, academy, oxford university and 5 super scientists. Now imagine it's yor capital and you're running bureacray and representation as well.
EG
Assume 12 population, average of 4 commerce per tile = 50 commerce + 50% for bureacracy = 75 commerce
90% science gives 67 beakers
Add 9 beakers for each super scientist (extra 3 beakers from representaion)
gives 113 beakers. Now add building bonuses - 25%+25%+25%+50%+100%=225%, so total beakers = 367 beakers
... and thats only from a population 12 city.

You sometimes don't need any science buildings in the rest of your empire with this going on.

OR

you're aiming to make as many Great Artists as possible to balance your 3 culture cities for a cultural win.

OR

You're stacking as many Great Merchants into a GP factory city to further boost it's food to make more GP's..... enjoy the positive feedback loop.

Think of it this way : Pacifism vs. Parthanon

• Pacifism can be adopted when YOU need it, and dropped when you don't. Once you've invested 100's of hammers in the Parthanon you can never get them back.
  
• Noone can take pacifism away from you. There is no race.
  
• Pacifism doesn't have a huge up front cost in the early classical period when you really need the shields for something else.
  
• Pacifism gives a bigger bonus than the Parthanon.

Parthanon is loved by many players and I think Pacifism is better

The really interesting question is: "How can I apease, beat off, scheme with other civs to keep an agressive neigbour contained while I progress my GP plan."
The Answer - it depends. Treat every war as unwanted. Plan for it and make it as short as possible. Plan for it even if you didn't start it. Have friends... goos friends and many of them. Make your military high quality (many promotions). Defend well. Make them pay the full attrition bill for starting a war. have commece cities near the core, so the sow growing cottages / villages / towns don't get pillaged. GP factories on the outside are easy to rebuild (farms are quick to make with workers - towns take forever). The benefit to an empire of a GP factory gets exported to core cities, whereas the benefit of a commerce city (the cottages) and a production city (many infrastructure buildings) are not portable - so temporarily giving ground and loosing a GP factory is not the end of the world. Use choke points. Use yor navy if it's a watery world. Use pairs of combined arms fortified woodsman 2 or guerilla 2 defenders on border forest hilltops - the AI will go crazy trying to keep its rear safe as it storms deeper into your empire, and the attrition killing these disposable foxhole strongpoints will really hurt the enemy. If you plan never to need to assault an enemy city tem a smaller military can be used much more effectively.

The ultimate GP focussed strategy looks like this:

Philosophical leader
Parthanon if you're lucky
Representaion
Caste system (if you want to make artists, merchats or engineers)
mercantilism
a reasonable sized empire - lets say 10 cities on a normal map.

2 production cites to make enough military to survive
2-4 commerce cities to keep the economy and Science rolling
4-6 GP factory maximum food cities

A focus for your GP's. Which ones do you want, why, and how will they give you a route to victory?

Lets say you want a spaceship victory

Early on you make super scientists in one of the commerce cities and make it a super science city with Oxford Uni. Mid game you drop great engineers in your best production city, and put the iron works in it.

Let game you use Great Scientists to rush techs. You aim for a tech lead through the modern age, with enough production cities to build the SS. If you need more productrion use your redundant workers to change all the farms to workshops / watermills in some GP cities and build the cheaper SS parts. If it's still a close race then spam a Great Engineer and use it to rush the Space Elevator.

I'm not saying this is the best GP strategy - just the one that uses as many game mechanics that focus on GP's as possible. It may be TOO focuses for some situations

 

[jerry247]

now thats what I was looking for. I was thinking of trying it w/ a small set of cities (like 6 or 7) and using a philo leader. thanks for the info!

FYI, caste system doesn't work for engenieers i wish it did

 

[PanzerEric]

Nice post Robinm. States very well several different options for implementing a GP strategy. I personally tend to use Great Merchant as a super specialist. In a recent game on Emperor i joined 11 Great Merchants to my main commerce city with market, bank, Wall Street. This city alone generated nearly enough "fixed" commerce to pay for an empire of 19 cities and the 3rd largest standing army (out of 6 remaining civs) while running between 80% and 90% research.

Alas, I came in 2nd place on points when the French won on space race. My army was farily decent in size and the units were modern, Louis had a strong enough army to prevent me from disrupting his space parts build. He also had lot's of culture so most other civ's liked him well and would not war with him.

Back to the main point, a good GP strategy is absolutely essential to win on Emperor and above IMHO. Using GP to pay for empire, keep up on tech's or improve cities among other things is essential.

Question: what does the AI do with GP's? I have never captured a AI city that had a super specialist in it so I'm not sure if the AI joins the GP to a city. I'm guessing they mainly use for tech promotion, wonders or????? I know in some games it seems a GP is born every 5 truns somewhere in the game.

 

[Thalassicus]

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.

It's a technicality, but good to keep in mind they're additions, not multipliers. The difference between 100% and 200% is 2x, 200% and 300% is 1.5x. There's few bonuses in CIV that are multipliers...Bureaucracy being one.

When choosing civics I compare my net tax and research before switching to one with after switching to it. Sometimes you gain, sometimes you lose with the same tech: it just depends on the situation of your empire.

 

[carn]

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.

You misunderstood the point, he said "less useful".
And you're example is correct, if there is already a library in a city, it is more likely, that the cost of the university are not worth the extra science gained compared to the same city with the decision to build a library or not.

As someone above said for a philosophical civ to get the same benefit from pacifism as a non-philosophical, it needs to produce already more base great leader point, though this is often true.

Carn

 

[Big J Money]

If looking at it as Parthenon VS Pacifism, one thing to keep in mind is that you are less likely to achieve the Parthenon, but you are less likely to be able to retain Pacifism. For example, if you build the Parthenon in your capital, you won't lose it; or if you do, you will likely lose the game anyway. This means your Parthenon bonus is very stable. However, I've noticed that I've never been able to retain Pacifism during war time. If playing versus the AI, this may not be a trouble, but when playing versus other players, I think the wise players will declare war on you simply because you are in pacifism. It's like a little white flag that says, "Come kick my ass and force me from pacifism, because I obviously need the GP!". If you aren't religious, this is going to really bring on "the suck". So, be careful how you use it. Don't become too confident and think that you can switch to pacifism and actually not have a military. Also don't ever bank on the pacifism bonus, because a smart Agg player will not allow you to keep it.

There are my 2 cents.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[CivCorpse]

Philosophical civs actually get less benefit from pacificism or the parthenon than non-philosophical civs do. .

If a Philosophical civ has one specialist (using one to make the math easier) and it runs pacificism it receives an extra 3 GPP's from the civic

If a non-philosophiocal civ one specialist (using one to make the math easier) and it runs pacificism it receives an extra 3 GPP's from the civic

thus both receive an extra 3 GPP's, at what point did 3 become less than 3?
I recommend researching mathematics.

And by the time you get pacificism with a philosophical civ you have probably already popped out a few more GP's than your non-philosophical counterparts, thus you need the extra GPP's even more than they do because of the increased cost of GP's

 

[DaviddesJ]

If a Philosophical civ has one specialist (using one to make the math easier) and it runs pacificism it receives an extra 3 GPP's from the civic
If a non-philosophiocal civ one specialist (using one to make the math easier) and it runs pacificism it receives an extra 3 GPP's from the civic.

thus both receive an extra 3 GPP's, at what point did 3 become less than 3?
I recommend researching mathematics.

Each Great Person costs more GPP than the one before, so additional GPP are worth less, the more you have. Thus, an additional 3 GPP is worth less to the Philosophical civ than to a non-Philosophical civ, because the former will have accumulated more GPP.

P.S. I have a PhD in mathematics.

 

[narmox]

Each Great Person costs more GPP than the one before, so additional GPP are worth less, the more you have. Thus, an additional 3 GPP is worth less to the Philosophical civ than to a non-Philosophical civ, because the former will have accumulated more GPP.

P.S. I have a PhD in mathematics.

It can't really be worth less, you're still making 3 GPP more thus getting your GP out faster. Yeah in % it's worth less, but in absolutes (3 GPP) it's worth the same.

 

[DaviddesJ]

It can't really be worth less, you're still making 3 GPP more thus getting your GP out faster. Yeah in % it's worth less, but in absolutes (3 GPP) it's worth the same.

If you otherwise would generate 300 GPP, then an increase of +300 GPP gets you an extra Great Person (1st=100 GPP, 2nd=200 GPP, 3rd=300 GPP). But, if you otherwise have 600 GPP, then an increase of +300 GPP isn't enough to get an extra Great Person (4th=400 GPP). In the former case, +1 GPP is worth 1/300 of a Great Person, but in the latter case +1 GPP is only 1/400 of a Great Person. The value is not always the same.

 

[Roxtar]

Caste system (if you want to make artists, merchats or engineers)

Scientists, not engineers. Anyway, whether or not I'm Philo &/or use Pac, I seldom have any incentive to use Caste because:
1. It doesn't allow me to hurry production by whipping (Slavery does that).
2. Merchants, artists & scientists don't provide hammers, & by hiring them in an already low-hammer city, I only slow production further (even if research, commerce or culture goes up).

But back to the topic, I usually play as Saladin, so I almost always adopt Pac ASAP, that way I can make the most of my Philo trait. I may not necessarily be able to get very many more GPs than I would get as a non-Philo civ w/o Pac, but the sooner I can get 'em, the better.

 

[dar]

Scientists, not engineers. Anyway, whether or not I'm Philo &/or use Pac, I seldom have any incentive to use Caste because:
1. It doesn't allow me to hurry production by whipping (Slavery does that).
2. Merchants, artists & scientists don't provide hammers, & by hiring them in an already low-hammer city, I only slow production further (even if research, commerce or culture goes up).

Caste System is powerful because it lets you make a superpowerful focused GP factory. Ie: you can hire 10 scientists and be sure the next gp will be a scientist, or 10 merchants etc. The alternative is hiring however many of each specialist you are allowed by the buildings the city has, which makes your GP generation fairly random.

I don't see the point in using specialists in every city in your empire, except in very marginal cities such as tundra coast with a fish.

 

[narmox]

If you otherwise would generate 300 GPP, then an increase of +300 GPP gets you an extra Great Person (1st=100 GPP, 2nd=200 GPP, 3rd=300 GPP). But, if you otherwise have 600 GPP, then an increase of +300 GPP isn't enough to get an extra Great Person (4th=400 GPP). In the former case, +1 GPP is worth 1/300 of a Great Person, but in the latter case +1 GPP is only 1/400 of a Great Person. The value is not always the same.

So let me get this straight

yuou make 10 GPP/turn

with pacifism you make 20. That's an increase of 10

If you're philosophical you'd make 30. That's another increase of 10.

I see an increase of 10 for both. Same value. Just because you're pumping out GP quicker and need more and more GPP to get new ones, doesn't mean the gain is lower for a philosophical civ than another one. Just because the % gain is lower doesn't mean the philosophical civ gains less than a non-phi civ. You still get GP faster than a non-phi civ, or than a civ without pacifism, etc.

I mean.. With your logic you'd rather get 100% of 100$ than 10% of 1 000 000$ ????

 

[Riffraff]

So let me get this straight

yuou make 10 GPP/turn

with pacifism you make 20. That's an increase of 10

If you're philosophical you'd make 30. That's another increase of 10.

I see an increase of 10 for both. Same value. Just because you're pumping out GP quicker and need more and more GPP to get new ones, doesn't mean the gain is lower for a philosophical civ than another one. Just because the % gain is lower doesn't mean the philosophical civ gains less than a non-phi civ. You still get GP faster than a non-phi civ, or than a civ without pacifism, etc.

I mean.. With your logic you'd rather get 100% of 100$ than 10% of 1 000 000$ ????

i think you havent quite understood the ponit davidessJ is making:

The absolute number of GPP points is not relevent - the number of new GP is. As an example:

You are a philosophical civ, generating 10 base GPP in your (only) city and not having pacifism. You create 20 GP points a turn and in 50 turn you will have generated 1000 GPP - giving you 4 Great People.
Now compare the same civ but with pacifism: You now create 30 GPP/turn - giving you 1500 GPP after 50 turns = 5 Great People

You increased the production of Great People by 1

Now consider playing a non- philosophical civ and also generating 10 base GPP in your city.
Without pacifism you are stuck on your 10 GPP/turn and will produce a total of 500 GPP in 50 turns, giving you 2 Great People
Now if you had pacifism though, you would have generated a total of 1000 GPP, giving you 4 Great people

You have increased the production of Great People by 2.

Looking at the figures relatively makes the difference even greater. While your incresed your GP production by 25 % with a philosophical civ, you doubled it with a non-philosophical civ. (in that period)



This was a bit of a hypothetical situation of course, but you can clearly see the differences in effectiveness that appear.

 

[mpogr]

In my current game I'm running pacifism with not-so-big-but-modern army (I'm at riflemen/grenadiers/cavalry age) with 90% science and positive cash flow.
The reason for this is I own 2 holy shrines (both cities captured, one shrine own-built, another captured as well) generating tons of money for me.
And I'm speding production cycles in some of my cities to produce even more missionaries for both religions I posess.

 

[Stalker0]

Paci + Representation + Caste System = Science Machine!!

I can often double or even triple my science rate through the combination of +6 beaker scientist (and masses of them) + the techs the great scientists give me.