Does Civ 4 favour a warmonger?

[Urban Ranger]

For Civ 1, the best way to greatness is to wage war early and often. The sooner you manage to kick all competition off the surface of the planet, the higher your score. The Space Race is only a last resort. As a result, Civ 1 is a wargame in its very essence. It is a more complicated (and more fun) version of Warlords.

Now, years later, the latest incarnation of the game still appears to favour such an approach. Sure, the game is more complex now, and there are more victory conditions, but can you get a higher score winning a cultural victory than a conquest one?

Should Civ V fix this shortcoming?

[Hauptman]

I would not call it a shortcoming...

Land is power, the more land you hold, the more power you have. true in the real world, true in the game...

I have aquired "Huge tracks of land" without waring with anyone in a few games.... Culture flipping, early city spamming, Island hopping, etc. The more city squares you can work the more you will succeed in the late game... But that isnt the ONLY way. I can win a game with 1 city or 50. Yes 1 city is harder. Its a closer race, but its doable.

Personally I play this game for its strategic warring aspect. When to goto war, who to goto war with... Most strategy war games donot have that much descision making involved... If i had the programing knowledge, I'd make games with even MORE descision making involved... Try and get it as true to life as possible... Train more troops, or have them work in the factories to make more equipment, starve the population so the troops have more food and are stronger? someday, someone (or myself) will make that game for me...

[Dis]

weren't we saying the warmonger got screwed when this game first came out . Or maybe that was just me. I've since learned ways to wage war effectively, but it still isn't easy.

Yes the scoring is ****ed up. We can all agree on that. The scoring has never been perfect in civ games, however.

[Velociryx]

IMO, the Civ Series has NEVER been a war game. At least not in the truest sense of the word (compare Civ to any of the classic "grognard" wargames that SSI used to crank out, and you'll find Civ sorely lacking in almost every element that makes a wargame well....a wargame.

I totally agree that all previous iterations of civ were slanted in favor of the militant mindset tho.

Civ IV....I'm not sure yet. I agree that warring can take you quite far, but this time, there are certain limits (although by the time you REACH those limits, unless you are playing on gimungous maps, you control much of the world anyways).

In any case, I think that the solution to the problem (and we're getting there incrementally) is to bolster OTHER areas of the game and not pay much attention to warfare (warfare is the laggard in the game engine anyways, far, FAR less advanced than any other aspect of the design...it got a fresh coat of paint with promotions, but that was the first advance it had seen in about forever, and it was coupled with a general de-evolution of the system in any case (loss of ZOC for example), for a net gain of about zero.

For instance tho, if there was a "diplomatic memory" of the number of conquests you had already embarked on, number of wars you initiated, a Causa Belli system in place....all of these things would go far in limiting the POWER of wars without ever touching warfare itself.

I believe that's where the game will eventually get to.

-=Vel=-

[Blake]

Well, I do think that pretty much the easiest way to win is with either Tokugawa or Caesar. Granted they do get a great combination of traits, starting techs and UU that make conquest particularly easy for them. Perhaps in principle a non-conquest victory could be just as easy for leaders with less of an imperial slant. That isn't my experience though.

[johnmcd]

I only play huge maps and conquest and domination victories are just too time consuming to be bothered with.

[Blake]

You don't have to go for Domination to greatly benefit from doubling your territory holdings .
ed: The only exception is Cultural victory.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I'd say yes, and I don't think that peaceful strategy can compete with wargaming one points/success wise. It can be played though and be made into a winning strategy in single player, but it is not even in with a chance to be an "optimal" strategy on occasion.

I think well executed war style game beats it every time.

[The keeper]

A warmongerer will beat a pacifist.

Civ4 is winnable using many strategys. But score will be the highest being a war mongerer because land is the biggest component of score.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

yes, I should have added "speed" wise too, but I am trying to figure out how to speed up considerably this culture win type, and maybe there is still hope to speed the culture win up to realatively "fast" levels.

[uberfish]

Taking over an opponent's territory in one decisive war and parlaying that advantage into either domination or space victory is probably the highest percentage winning strategy on emperor+ difficulty levels. As in the real world, it's just as much about securing resources as it is about land. The successful conqueror ultimately gets bigger, more productive cities through having more health/happiness resources and more trade options, plus a larger chance of acquiring the post-industrial resources such as oil, coal and aluminium.

It is still possible to outresearch the AI and win by spaceship on emperor fighting only limited wars though, if you have a good starting spot. And there's always the cultural victory, but I would consider this an objectively weaker strategy since it wouldn't work if the AI was more aware of this win condition and sacked one of your 3 cultural cities with tanks.

[paleman]

Another factor favoring conquest/domination on the score front: the earlier you finish the game, the greater the boost to your score. Only conquest and domination are achievable before the modern era.

A case in point: when I've won domination victories in the modern era, my score was not significantly greater than when I won a diplomatic victory around the same time while holding, say, 55% of the land. On the other hand, my scores on domination victories which ended before 1800 are greater than all my modern era finishing scores by a factor of 4.

[Veritass]

Originally posted by Blake
Well, I do think that pretty much the easiest way to win is with either Tokugawa or Caesar.

I will grant you that the scoring is messed up, but this quote says a lot about whether Civ is a war game or not.

If I am a reader of these forums, and I start up a game and choose to be Caesar, then I am pretty much saying to myself, "I want to play an early-era war game and conquer the world using Praets." If I start up a game and choose to be Gandhi, then the opposite is in effect and I will probably be warring very little.

As it is, I do neither of these. I prefer to start up the game with as much randomness as possible, and have to modify my thinking as we go: Look at the leader I was rolled -- time to set up my initial strategy. Look at the starting position I have -- time to adjust my strategy for this game. Explore the world and find some new neighbors -- time to adjust my strategy. Discover the world is very big or very small -- time to adjust my strategy.

[smbakeresq]

I think the "fix" needs to be in the scoring system. In any game, the victory conditions drive the game, and the emphasis being on land favors warmonger strats.

A modded scoring system might be the answer....

[Boppo]

Personally, when I am playing a SP game I don't care what my final score is. As long as I win the game I am satisfied.

Haviong said that, the game is slanted to score higher for quick domination and conquest victories. All of my highest scores are from those types of victories. In a tournament or competitive situation there is a decided slant in that direction.