Civ 5 makes us/rewards Pacifists

[nepereta]

For the following reasons.

Map Size

is collosal compared to the old Civs and there is no penalty for distance to capital. There is so much empty space. You are encouraged to snag 'happy resources' where ever you can.

Empire Wide Happiness

means its far better to have home grown cities than nasty cities belong to others.


Maritime City States

means excessive food and being able to settle anywhere!

One unit per tile

means you can stop warmongers 'absorbing' other empires and city states by simply blocking their routes. I've stalemated numerous wars via this.

[jshelr]

I hear what you're saying. the "earth" map, particularly, seems to start the human player in north america and leads to a peaceful early game. However, I've had a couple of second place finishes on King level by being peaceful as one of the AI civs becomes a superpower. This happened in Civ IV also, but seems to be more common with the new game. People are probably going to respond that early warmongering is easier in civ V and that you should simply ignore the effects of unhappiness. I'm agnostic at this point, but I've not found the game quite as easy as some posts here and on other forums suggest. (By the way, how did they manage to change "Monarch" to "King" without starting a revolution among our better half?)

[MxM]

I disagree. Civ V does make peaceful strategy more valuable, and you can actually win games with it. But, especially at higher level of difficulty one have to be prepared against attacks of some of the really large empires that usually happen in the game.

Having valuable peace strategy is a GOOD thing about it, but, do not underestimate the power of warmongering in this game. Plus every unit have 2 moves minimum, which makes map size smaller.

[pdxsean]

Aside from making us conscientious money managers, I don't think Civ V makes us do anything. Like all Civ games, it does reward a variety of game styles, and you can use the advanced game settings to customize your game to tweak it as you like.

[MxM]

Well, in Civ IV, you more or less HAVE to go to war to win the game at difficulties starting with prince. In civ V you do not have to, and for me, it is a big plus.

[Dinner]

You didn't have to go to war even at higher difficulties in Civ4. If you let your military situation get weak then the AI would attack you but if you kept a good force as a deterrent then the AI would go after weaker prey. That's smart and as it should be. You could win a space race or cultural victory or even a diplomatic victory though without ever going to war.

[pdxsean]

I found not going to war much easier in Civ IV than in V. Mostly because, in 4 you could maintain a reasonable military without hurting your budget too much. In V, it's tougher to keep a standing army later in the game, especially if you have a steamrolling AI on the same continent.

[dregor]

I've found that King and up there's usually 1 or 2 computer opponents that really turn on the warmongering. Unfortunately they're not very good at the process so sometimes it's not a problem at all. Other times tho, scary what they can drop on you. The AI also seems to very actively seek out City States to conquer, making it difficult to exploit them with patronage unless you have the military to protect them.

If the AI gets tweaked so they can take better advantage of the new combat mechanics, it could get kind of scary quick

[nepereta]

I guess I need to move on to King and try more stuff. With regard to Patronage and enemies attacking. If you Patronage everything you see you get a steady stream of units. You can then either physically block off the enemy by a mixture of units and territorial boundaries and give aid to your ally by gifting him 5 or 6 strong units on the outset of hostilities. Also the Patrons are all on the coast afaik. The main hassle I find is when the patron declares endless war on a civ. That sort of thing needs careful management.

[jnh140]

Yeah, if you played on prince and below, the game is really a pushover. Its sad from a strategy game standpoint that the AI needs special bonuses before its competitive, but hey, AI routines can only do so much.

Eventually they do a disco slide of death accross the map, and if you don't have the units for that yet, you will get steamrolled.

[MxM]

You didn't have to go to war even at higher difficulties in Civ4. If you let your military situation get weak then the AI would attack you but if you kept a good force as a deterrent then the AI would go after weaker prey. That's smart and as it should be. You could win a space race or cultural victory or even a diplomatic victory though without ever going to war.

If I did not go to war, then usually I did not have enough cities to produce science/armies/wonders/ship parts by mid/late game. Having war and assimilating couple of cities (just a couple with good resources) somewhat early in the game made it win or lose for me on prince and above levels of difficulties, regardless from what path of victory I take in late game.

[Hermann the Lombard]

In certain circumstances a "Horseman Rush" is devastating, promoting aggression rather than pacifism. Another approach that I've found effective is carving out elbow room (preferably a land mass), then switching to culture or science or--especially if you've preserved the local city-states--diplomacy.