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Seeing some threads recently that revolved around warmongering strategies, it got me to thinking in the opposite direction and a variant possibility. By variant, I mean that often I'll play imposing certain restrictions upon how I play. So I developed an idea I called The Pacifists, even though that's not entirely accurate. Here are the restrictions I am playing with, although these aren't ideal in terms of purely winning strategy along these lines:
1--May not build any forces that have higher attack values than defense values. This means no horsemen, no archers, no knights, you get the idea.
2--May not declare war
3--Must accept peace if other civ asks for it. (This is not ideal if one wants to have the possibility of a UN victory. So if one wants to keep that open, ignore this option.)
With that in mind, I started a game, Regent level, standard sized world, continents, average terrain conditions. I chose the French for the Industrious trait, along with the musketeers, since they could give a little counterattacking punch if needed at a potentially important time. I also feel the Egyptians could be good for this strategy, with the attributes of Religious/Industrious, that means cheap cultural development, and the rapid workers.
Now, before I start playing with variant restrictions, I always try to figure out what my strategy should be. First, I borrowed from a common victory method of OCCs, the 20,000 point culture city. So I decided that I would do everything I could to build cultural improvements and wonders in Paris. Second, I would need to expand rapidly through settlers because I would be getting little terriotry through any millitary conquest. That made the Pyramids a priority as well.
I got a decent start location. Horrible luck on goody huts though, every time I popped one I would get barbarians or 25 gold. There was a thicket of jungle to my south, which was good in that it gave me a defensive barrier. However it was bad in that it meant slower development for cities there. As it turned out, due to the nature of the map, I lucked into having an isthmus to the south and west: a great chokepoint that could be used to secure a good stretch of land. But in a fit of idiocy, I failed to recognize that, and ended up in a city cultural battle with the Romans and Iroquois down there.
I am now in the year 1800 with the game. It looks like it's going to be a spaceship launch: Paris won't accumulate 20,000 culture until around 1950, and the techs for the spaceship are being researched presently. I feel pretty good about the position--I've got plenty of mech infantry and artillery to fend off any attacks. That sort of combination, defensive units plus a good force of bombardment units has been key. I've been sneak attacked by the Iroqouis, Romans, and Americans, in that order. Against the Iroqouis and Romans, I immediately bought millitary alliances with everyone else available. With the Americans, because I had damaged my reputation by accepting peace while in the alliance against the Romans, I couldn't get any alliances. And with Abe in an MPP with Otto, I fought a strictly defensive war, pounding Abe's invasion forces with artillery and mopping them up with infantry.
Due to the culture building emphasis, plus some aggressive city placing, I have flipped about ten cities over to my side.
Forbidden Palace placement wasn't ideal. Since I knew that I had very little chance of spawning a great leader, I decided that I would need to build within the range of cities that aren't totally corrupt. So I ended up with a little bit of overlap, but it was worth it.
So I'm fairly convinced this is a viable enough strategy at Regent level. It's not going to yield a huge score, but it is satisfying, I think, to those of us of the builder persuasion. This is as pure of a builder game I ever played. The irony is that it took some warmongering to figure it out.
1--May not build any forces that have higher attack values than defense values. This means no horsemen, no archers, no knights, you get the idea.
2--May not declare war
3--Must accept peace if other civ asks for it. (This is not ideal if one wants to have the possibility of a UN victory. So if one wants to keep that open, ignore this option.)
With that in mind, I started a game, Regent level, standard sized world, continents, average terrain conditions. I chose the French for the Industrious trait, along with the musketeers, since they could give a little counterattacking punch if needed at a potentially important time. I also feel the Egyptians could be good for this strategy, with the attributes of Religious/Industrious, that means cheap cultural development, and the rapid workers.
Now, before I start playing with variant restrictions, I always try to figure out what my strategy should be. First, I borrowed from a common victory method of OCCs, the 20,000 point culture city. So I decided that I would do everything I could to build cultural improvements and wonders in Paris. Second, I would need to expand rapidly through settlers because I would be getting little terriotry through any millitary conquest. That made the Pyramids a priority as well.
I got a decent start location. Horrible luck on goody huts though, every time I popped one I would get barbarians or 25 gold. There was a thicket of jungle to my south, which was good in that it gave me a defensive barrier. However it was bad in that it meant slower development for cities there. As it turned out, due to the nature of the map, I lucked into having an isthmus to the south and west: a great chokepoint that could be used to secure a good stretch of land. But in a fit of idiocy, I failed to recognize that, and ended up in a city cultural battle with the Romans and Iroquois down there.
I am now in the year 1800 with the game. It looks like it's going to be a spaceship launch: Paris won't accumulate 20,000 culture until around 1950, and the techs for the spaceship are being researched presently. I feel pretty good about the position--I've got plenty of mech infantry and artillery to fend off any attacks. That sort of combination, defensive units plus a good force of bombardment units has been key. I've been sneak attacked by the Iroqouis, Romans, and Americans, in that order. Against the Iroqouis and Romans, I immediately bought millitary alliances with everyone else available. With the Americans, because I had damaged my reputation by accepting peace while in the alliance against the Romans, I couldn't get any alliances. And with Abe in an MPP with Otto, I fought a strictly defensive war, pounding Abe's invasion forces with artillery and mopping them up with infantry.
Due to the culture building emphasis, plus some aggressive city placing, I have flipped about ten cities over to my side.
Forbidden Palace placement wasn't ideal. Since I knew that I had very little chance of spawning a great leader, I decided that I would need to build within the range of cities that aren't totally corrupt. So I ended up with a little bit of overlap, but it was worth it.
So I'm fairly convinced this is a viable enough strategy at Regent level. It's not going to yield a huge score, but it is satisfying, I think, to those of us of the builder persuasion. This is as pure of a builder game I ever played. The irony is that it took some warmongering to figure it out.
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