Concerns about the new "Warlord"

[One_more_turn]

Firaxis indicated that Civ IV original was too much builder oriented and thus want to make warmongering more fun with the upcoming expansion.

My own playing experience shows however that warmongering is still the best strategy. Nothing secures your game position more by having the largest land area, the most population, the highest GNP, and biggest army. Basically, you have the initiative if you are the aggressor. Especially at higher levels, some AIs (notably Washington and Mansa Musa) could easily build run-away lead in technologies if left unchecked. In those situations, aggression remains the only way to win the game.

Now Firaxis is intent to encourage warmongerings. This, I'm afraid, will narrow winning options and make game less fun.

I'm interested in your opinions.

[Blake]

CIV has always meant to be a balanced game between Warmongering and peaceful building.

And in any case it's obvious that on the higher difficulties the player should need to warmonger to gain an advantage, what advantage can a human possibly have other than more land (etc)? There are limits to the gains from higher effeciency and the AI is not incomepent enough to allow itself to get out-expanded.

In any case as long as the Warlord provides strictly warmongering benefits much the same drags on warmongering will remain - city upkeeps and unit upkeeps. The balance between warmongering and building should be largely preserved.

[Nugog]

Blake

[LordShiva]

Warmongering

[johnmcd]

No, I agree with the original poster. It's all about war, continuous war. Even in OCC games I routinely have to go city razing to stay competitive.

Tech and building is only a means to the warmongering end.

I think this is only really because the AI resources are handicapped up to such an extent that making better build choices isn't really meaningful in securing better game positions. On the other hand, its military isn't handicapped up enough to counter better deployment choices. The playing field that is open to competition is the battlefield, so that's where you have to complete.

If the AI enjoyed the same odds advantages over the human it does over the barbarians but had to throw up buildings and wonders for the same cost as the human I suspect we'd see a change in the way people chose to play.

[proviisori]

more strategic options

[Prussia]

If you take away the building part of the strategy, it turns into a RTS, and that's not what makes Civilization such a fun game.

You won't realize how much fun the peaceful building your empire is until they take it away and you start to miss it.

Trust me, that's what makes the game the way it is.

[Yosho]

Re: Concerns about the new "Warlord"

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Firaxis indicated that Civ IV original was too much builder oriented and thus want to make warmongering more fun with the upcoming expansion.

My own playing experience shows however that warmongering is still the best strategy. Nothing secures your game position more by having the largest land area, the most population, the highest GNP, and biggest army. Basically, you have the initiative if you are the aggressor. Especially at higher levels, some AIs (notably Washington and Mansa Musa) could easily build run-away lead in technologies if left unchecked. In those situations, aggression remains the only way to win the game.

Now Firaxis is intent to encourage warmongerings. This, I'm afraid, will narrow winning options and make game less fun.

I'm interested in your opinions.

You can win without fighting at all, at least up to Emperor, and at least if you start off either on a large island/continent by yourself or on a continent with only friendly AI's of your religion.

On Emperor, by making smart choices about your builds and your techs ect, you can beat the AI in a pure tech-building-economy race. It can be done. I'm not sure about higher levels, as I have not gotten there yet.

[Metaliturtle]

It is probably possible, the only deity win I ever got I was constantly at war with someone though, and lucked out and adopted Isabella's religion and monopolized a strategic resource (Coal) I won by spreading religion like a fiend and getting a culture victory, but mainly because Isabella protected me while we were at war with other civs.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Civ without war just takes too long. I finally had to turn off space race and time victories in order to 'force' myself to go to war more frequently.

Even then, last night, I was in perfect position to crush Greece around 200 AD and found myself turtling instead.

Horrible.. horrible mistake. I didn't even realize what I had done until I was finished playing for the night and thought 'DAMN IT! Thats exactly what I was trying to avoid!'

I get too caught up in building new cities and expanding 'my own' territory that I avoid wars which would ultimately be more beneficial.

The few times I have remembered to wage some early wars, it's always paid off in spades.

[psyyco]

And why firaxis don´t help builders ? warmongers strategy is the way to increase territories and population, but techs and buildings are the base of the game, in my personal opinion, of course

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
Civ without war just takes too long.

I find the exact opposite. In games with a lot of wars, I usually end up quitting just because all the unit management bores me to death

As far as Mansa and Washington go, I typically am in a position to ally myself with them. I'll generally have a defensive pact with one or both and I will beeline certain techs in order to sell them for other, less important techs. By the end of the game, I of course will hold back space race techs and similar and I usually do quite well

[Urban Ranger]

I pointed out the same problem a long time ago. That is, Civ favours warmongers.

[Nugog]

And of course CIV is loosely based on actual history, and actual history is known for it's huge periods of peace, and loads and loads of civ's that were never involved in war...........

[One_more_turn]

Yes, the scoring system favors large, populous empires, and how early you win the game.

None of this is achievable through peaceful means. Thus, if you want to be as good as Dan Quayle, then build only 3 cities and pray AIs will leave you alone so you can get away with a cultural victory. Now if you want your civ rating to be as good as Augustus Caesar, you gotta go on the offensive.

There is no incentive being peaceful if you want high scores.....