Sid Meier's Civilization Series (Main Titles)

It's funny because Polynesia was the warmonger in that game. They were constantly at war, they captured everything, and they did backstab India.

I quietly sat and traded. I only went to war with the Zulu because they were the second civ I met and spent the entire game bullying my city states. And that wasn't until the Modern Era.

My reputation finally repaired itself in the last five turns, that's when people started asking me to join them in a war.

edited 23rd Sep '14 9:32:42 AM by Rotpar

I mean in the cases where you are attacked. Happened to me that Moctezuma attacked my very capital and I pushed him back. I pushed him back enough that the city he had made riiiiight next to my capital city was soon overwhelmed too. So the guy spites me and wants peace, and I refuse it. I take his city, and from then on, everyone hates me even though the guy has done nothing but piss me and everyone off.

That is what I mean with "getting away with peace scot free". He declared war out of nowhere (if I well remember, we even had a declaration of friendship), he attacked me, he lost, and everyone hates me because I retaliated to that. The one who is not rolling over and being a free kill is me.

You do realize that in real life Germany still exists, right? We didn't wipe them off the map after WW 2, even though there were real Nazis and Hitler and everything.

Actually post WW 2 lots of stuff happened to Germany, including the de nazification, the split of east and west and it basically became a puppet city for a little while. And more importantly, no one blamed the other countries for Germany, but Germany itself.

Yes, because they surrendered. That's what surrendering means: they give up all their stuff to the people who beat them and the fighting stops. The other guy gave you all his cities and probably a bunch of GPT and you're complaining that you didn't wipe him from the map.

edited 23rd Sep '14 9:43:52 AM by Clarste

The important difference here being that Adolf Hitler isn't the immortal ruler of Germany. I'm sure things would be different if he still sat on the throne nursing a bruised ego and sullenly promising to be a good boy.

Anyway, the warmonger rules annoy me because they're pretty opaque. And because they're in the way of my preferred playstyle in the decade-and-a-half I've been playing these games: sit at home, do your own thing peacefully, crush the asshole who attacks you. Other than my Venice game I've had no problems with the rules, and to be fair I did start the war after events that I guess would justify it. I just didn't expect my reputation to instantly die over slugging it out in the gulf and bay between our cities.

And I have no idea if the AI plays by these rules at all.

edited 23rd Sep '14 9:46:44 AM by Rotpar

Yeah. His promises to "be good" are empty. It's not an issue of "wiping you out because how dare you slight me" but of "yeah, I don't want to go to war with you ever again and you just keep declaring war on me anyways"

"What are you all getting upset for? I was attacked! It was in self-defense! He's gone to war with all of you all before! So why am I the bad guy here!?"

"So you "self-defensed" your way across 3 continents, 8 cities, dozens of unit companies, all while denying 6 peace treaties - of which our spy-er, our "ambassadors" affirm that at least 2 of those would be considered "fair" - and dropped 2 nuclear weapons on their lands across 50 turns. The bottom line here is that you are simply too good at "self-defense". Besides all us other nations were about to retaliate! By voting for an embargo in 14 turns on top of delivering a strongly worded letter."

Politics. -_-

edited 23rd Sep '14 10:25:08 AM by Spirit

Nah, it was still catapults and same continent stuff.

Even if you did not absolutely exagerate the levels of self defense to that of nuclear invasion, my complaint is about the game itself's mechanics, so I'd rather politics and RL judgments were kept away.

Being refused trading for all the length of a game since the medieval eras over ousting from power a warmongering idiot who bit off more than he could chew is definitely annoying.

Warmonger penalties do decay over time, though I think they should really make them decay faster.

I find it rather easy to deal with agressive Civs who tend to settle near my lands. I don't build much army (so I appear weak), but I save money and start building walls and useful stuff in my cities. Usually, guys like Attila or Alexander can't resist (the important thing is to keep a scout to be ready to bring reinforcements when the attack is imminent). Then bunker down on the closest city you have, quietly exterminate whatever the AI uses against you (a couple of range units and one or two defensive melee ones should be enough, plus you may pop a GG along the way), and THEN attack the annoying nearby city. If you destroyed enough of the opposite army, the AI should just ask for a peace treaty that gives that very city to you. Then you may either burn it or puppet it.

It worked wonderfully as Genghis Khan against Alexander: this bastard managed to burn down my second town (can't remember the name), but then I rushed on Sparta while he had no units anymore, and he asked for peace while giving it to me. And then the rest of the world declared war on him because he looked weak, and I actually became his closest ally by reviving him when Napoleon took Athens (which made in turn the whole world attack France, allowing me to conquer Paris). Bottom line: I already had destroyed France and Greece was barely more than my slave when the Keshiks appeared.

I've found a problem with modded buildings in that the AI can't properly prioritize between building and money. Whenever I run with a lot of additional buildings I notice the A.I.s are all bankrupt.

I think Civilization would benefit from a "war for specific objectives" system like Paradox games do - so that not every war is for the complete and utter subjugation of other nations - particularly towards the end of the game. Especially stuff like wars to force enemies from settling near you, to leave city states alone, to warn them again attacking X race (as apposed to making peace after they declare war for only ten turns or so), to do things like limit their military, etc - especially since in situations where you actually can ask the AI to do stuff like that they only agree if they like you, which means going to war makes them more likely to toe the line with you if they remain powerful even after if you win.

This kind of happened to me once, except it was Caesar, he built several cities right next to mine as advance positions, tried to take over my lands and then refused to give up any of the (very small) cities he built right next to mine even after I crushed his armies and he was surrendering. In order to protect myself, I had to capture one of the cities. This happened in the Classical Era, but it took me until well into the Industrial Era to get rid of the warmonger penalty from that capture, not helped by all the other times I had to check other nations (much of which was continued assholery from Caesar).

edited 24th Sep '14 3:25:00 PM by KnownUnknown

I'd like that as part of the victory terms definitely; There have been times where a Civ has persistantly harassed me so that the only way to stop them was to bite down on the warmonger score and take a city. I'm not sure how obtaining Gold off them would work, but I'd like to see Gold claimed from war victory as being something as steady as unit maintaince perhaps; I am pretty sure now they can ignore it outright. Barring spies or at least killing a number of them at once. Or set up promises which if they defy, it would give you a significantly reduced warmonger score to declare and then start tearing them to pieces.

Still, Civ is not EU; it's much more a boardgame than a history sim (not to call EU super accurate) and needing a pretext, would be too much of a pain, in my opinion. It'd be like having to come up with a reason to declare war in Risk.

Meanhile even in Domination, I find my wars can be pretty surgical; I only need their capital to win. Sometimes, I need another specific town based on Wonders and/or some kind of production output to either stop them or help myself or both or just to shut down their expansion. In those cases, war can be strategically played to avoid increased warmonger penalty and unhappiness.

edited 24th Sep '14 6:36:09 PM by Fauxlosophe

I didn't say needing a pretext. I'm not talking about casus belli, I'm talking about having an outcome for war that isn't either destroying the entire race or having them throw very simple gifts at you to get you to stop - by adding promises and provisos that go a bit deeper than just giving money or cities or even forcing peace. One of my only real gripes about Civ V is that it deals with a lot of mechanics but reduced the amount of influence the user has with the AI or between AI (which wasn't all that much to begin with, but hit its peak in Civ IV) - especially in regards to war, the AI is sometimes astoundingly simpleminded.

In lieu of being able to influence other nations through the world council in a meaningful way (which also bugs me in contrast to Civ IV), more developed war goals would be an interesting way to introduce something like that without changing the system too much.

Then again, they could just improve the AI so that they take more things into account. One of the main things I would like is a way to "encourage" nations not to declare war on certain Civs with the span of time equivalent to a promise not to settle (which would be a must for a wargoal), because the AI doesn't seem to care if the enemy they want to go to war with has a defensive pact with the most powerful nation on the planet, which I'm pretty sure it did in IV. And relying on Defensive Pacts in general is irritating, because their mechanics are weird and sometimes they bug out entirely.

Also, vassalization was nice - so much that I'm a bit surprised they didn't bring it back in one of V's expansion packs. It both put other nations under your protection and was a good way to keep a troublesome Civ under your control after a lengthy conflict. It, map trading and the ability to stop wars with the Apostolic UN are the main things I miss from IV.

edited 24th Sep '14 7:19:03 PM by KnownUnknown

I hated Vassel states. In Civ 4 I took my time and utterly destroyed my neighbors because I had to. No Vassel State was ever offered to me in that game on any difficulty. Then I'd find out there are three civs on my continent, including me, and one civ in the rest of the world when I start caring about the rest of the world. Because the AI vassel states to AI and it seemed so easy for them to do it that I came to expect the entire game to be entirely me vs the world which is also why I never got far in higher difficulties.

I have never understood the early game rush. Trying a quick game with Huns vs. India. Been struggling to build an army, fight the barbarians, keep my army from disbanding, and get the technologies I need. Even with the Hun's vaulted battering rams I can't take Delhi with my army. The city kills one unit every turn and it takes about a dozen to get reinforcements to the battlefield.

In games like this it always feels like there's two dozen things that must be done before you can wage a war of conquest.

Uh. Are you tanking the arrows they lob at you with the units that took the 33%x2 defene from ranged assaults thing?

It doesn't help that by the time you do get an army up and march it across the map they're already starting to become obsolete.

Honestly I don't think I ever managed to capture a city in any of my games in the ancient era. I even tried to play as the huns for a early rush and it didn't work.

edited 26th Sep '14 11:51:45 AM by Spirit

I can't really tank anything since the enemy decides who to shoot at. I'm trying to cover my rams, fend off the enemy warriors, and get around the jungles, hills, and river bordering our turf. There is a southern flank of plains that I'm exploiting as best I can. It's more open room to work with but crossing the river puts me in range of the city. And for some reason, the enemy units have fortified that area instead of the defensible terrain.

The advantage is mine, but I can't take the city with what I have now. It'll be about twenty turns before I could upgrade to swordsmen. I can't field too much larger of an army and ultimately there's only so much space to maneuver around. Granted, those two rams did a ton of damage when they had the chance, but the city wipes out my entire force before I can beat it. I'm trying to rush another ram down here and hoping India doesn't far out two more warriors or an elephant or something else before that.

I can't complain too much. I hated losing cities in the older games because a single barbarian walks in, steals half my gold, and burns it down automatically. So I like cities being tough. I just don't understand early game Zerg Rush tactics at all.

edited 26th Sep '14 12:14:05 PM by Rotpar

The AI tends to be extremely stupid and only attacks the same unit they attacked first. So enter first with your tanky unit, like, the warrior thing with these upgrades, and let him take punishment while two or three (preferably more) catapults rail down on the capital city.

Capital cities are very, very hard to take though

I'll have to try that out. Hope it works because the bombardment/elephant combo is devastating. I have no catapults because I'm playing the Huns and heard the rams were a Game-Breaker.

Again, I just don't play this way. Maybe I should have swordsmen, catapults, knights, and a few wonders before I try this...but is attacking two hundred turns into the game an "early rush"?

Funny, I'm reminded for some reason of Empire Earth. It wanted to be RTS Civ and started with a pretty absurd cave-man era. There was no strategy involved at all—literally because it hadn't been invented yet. You had dudes with clubs, dudes throwing rocks, and a spell-casting shaman. Build a horde of dudes and throw them at the enemy and hope you have more...or don't and just power through that era to the Bronze Age when the game turns into a clone of the first Age of Empires.

edited 26th Sep '14 12:31:22 PM by Rotpar

@Spirit: Ancient? I don't think many can manage that. I'm usually in the classical era before I have two cities down with settlers. Before Knights or Pikemen though? I can do a lot of damage.

200 turns is a bit late for "an early rush" but I don't think much is expected before turn 100 on a standard speed game. Maybe you could take a city and certainly a couple workers/easy kills for XP and Culture, but I'd say Mid-Classical Era is about as early a rush as one should make against a reasonably difficult opponent (ie. Not settler or warlord)

Personally, I am inclined to do the Celts and rush Honour with a hint of Piety which synergizes really well with Holy Warriors and Picts. Used well, I can raid with Picts and use the piety they get from unit killing to buy more Picts until I have enough for an army. Throw in a catapult or two and Just War for my enhancement belief and I can have a solid lead by the time I'm upgrading them into Pikemen (sacrificing free piety but giving me a +50% boost towards cavalry on top of the strenght upgrade. Picts spammed with HW and backed up with JW are pretty strong, backed up with +15% for an Adjacent unit and +15% from a General, and your Picts get a stunning +80% bonus (not including promotions) that carries over on upgrades. Spamming fast enough in the early eras, give me an amazing raiding force which only gets more powerful as the game goes on with increasing ranks and levels.

How you play it should depend on your Civ; Huns for example could benefit from a Liberty Rush of Opener->Republic->Collective Rule before opening Honour Opener->Warrior Code. If you manage a Pantheon, I'd be pretty tempted to take God of Open Skies to help you rush all of this.

The end result of that would be +1 Production Flat to all cities, P Lains producing +2 Hammers +1 (and +2 with Farm) Food and +1 Culture. This alone makes the Huns pretty powerful: tack on +15 percent bonus to Melee units and +5 percent to buildings (Courthouse, Barracks, Walls, etc).

Provided you are in a Plains heavy area, this should give you enough production to fund a decent army to take down a Civ or two before Medieval Era.

I've never played them personally, so I can't give estimates on how quick you could do this, but it would make for a very powerful rush and be pretty threatening for Civs who aren't focusing military (and even some who are)

edited 26th Sep '14 1:20:20 PM by Fauxlosophe

Everyone focuses on Hun battering rams, which is wrong. How does that work out for the AI (which doesn't seem to understand they're not spearmen...)? The Horse Archers are the OP unit. Get them logistics so they can move + fire and you essentially own a pack of early Keshiks (albeit a lot easier to catch before they also have +1 range, so be careful).

If you're lucky enough to transform a ram from a ruin, or hard-build while a very close civ has one city, go ahead, but otherwise they're just a minor part of an army like all siege weapons for pre-artillery forces.

edited 26th Sep '14 5:31:00 PM by montagohalcyon

I fought an early-game war against Attila once and he flooded the board with rams. It was very scary until I surrounded the city he wanted to take with my own units except for one hex. The rams couldn't attack without taking multiple turns navigating the terrain, and I just picked them off one by one after their support units died.

Many turns later, I marched up the map to finish conquering him and I found almost a dozen battering rams just wandering aimlessly around his territory. I felt kind of sorry for him.

edited 26th Sep '14 5:33:26 PM by Fighteer