21-07-2002 00:23									#1
	Winning peacefully on emperor, is it possible? Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

After a couple of months of playing civ3 (not nonstop, I still get sleep between the sessions...), I have learned fairly well to conquer civ3 on emperor level with scores in the 3500-4800 range. My strategy is rather standard, play those war loving Germans, rush-rush with horsemen in early age, conquer my own continent (possibly leave a few beaten down civs in a corner to extort them for money/techs every now and then), consolidate, develop techs like a maniac, develop tank, make up a d-day fleet with 10 infantry and 20-30 tanks, establish a beachhead on other main continent by taking over a small city (my favourite period of the game), cash rush airport and then shooting over 10 tanks/infantry per round from my main production cities on my continent. Kick ass with tanks while still focusing on developing modern armour and deal the final blow by upgrading existing fleet of tanks into modern armour and then wipe out all remaining enemies. Not always easy, but definitely works.

In the search for more challenges, I will try again on deity level, though the production disadvantages to the AI are frustratingly unfair.

Still, though, I am missing something.

Playing brute lebensraum-driven expansionist German is fun, but my next goal is to lead a civ to culture/space race win with a peaceful, philosophic and art loving intellectual attitude. Never make one attack in the entire game, of course defend, but simply be the Good Guys who win through peaceful development instead of iron-and-steel militaristic force.

Trying this on emperor level, I am wiped out in early ages every time. I rather quickly get surrounded by aggressively expanding civs who do not seem to love peace and philosophy, and certainly do not intend to let me live in quiet peace next to them.

I can of course understand this when I encounter the brutal and simple Zulus, but it doesn't really matter which civ I meet early on, they refuse to let me live peacefully no matter what gifts I give them.

So my question in this long posting (sorry guys) is simple: is it possible to win peacefully on emperor/deity level in civ3? Anybody done it? Any tips and hints? Or is my peaceful dream an impossibility?

Oh, and why do the other civs never seem to want to buy one of your cities?

Last edited by buiz on 21-07-2002 at 01:12

	21-07-2002 01:22									#2
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The difference between Emperor and Deity is the most of any of the difficulty level jumps. I can win peacefully on Emperor, but Deity usually turns out to require warfare to do well. Winning is still possible with a decent start. The AI is pretty lax about building the spaceship (perhaps changed in 1.29, haven't played it yet), which gives the player a chance to build it even with a much smaller empire.

It really helps to cut back a bit on the number of AI. That way the expansion phase lasts longer, and the AI are less likely to attack if there is still room to expand. Make sure to never 'ruin' a civ with gpt deals, as if their economy goes sour they will end up attacking to break the deals, rather than sell off all their improvements and units. You can usually tell when this is going to happen. If a increase of 1gpt in the deal sends it from "this would be acceptable" to "they would never accept such a deal", it means that is the limit of their income, not counting what they reserve for research (you have to look at their cities to tell that). Let them keep at least a few gpt coming in.

	21-07-2002 01:30									#3
	Re: Winning peacefully on emperor, is it possible? Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by buiz Oh, and why do the other civs never seem to want to buy one of your cities?

To combat exploits that were involved with city trading.

It was possible (in the original version) to conquer the whole world except for the AI's capitols this way, with just warriors and a handfull of little cities. Firaxis just decided to disallow any exchange for cities, other than the peace treaty itself.

	21-07-2002 02:46									#4
	Re: Winning peacefully on emperor, is it possible? Support Apolyton

quote: Originally posted by buiz ... So my question in this long posting (sorry guys) is simple: is it possible to win peacefully on emperor/deity level in civ3? Anybody done it? Any tips and hints? Or is my peaceful dream an impossibility? ...

My best game was on Emperor level, apart from a very lucky OCC on Regent level, where all 4 civs where on the same tiny island and I razed them with a few units before 2700 BC, ~14500 score.

My best emperor game was as Iroquis on a large continent map with a good starting place. I went for blood quite early, with the excellent UU to help. It still took me a while of oscillating war/peace to finally conquer the whole continent in the industrial era. Then the civs on the other smaller continent declared war, and I used modern units to take the 2 last luxuries I missed before I made peace. Just a few turns later, victory was triggered by culture, at score > 6000.

So, to win peacefully with a good score on Emperor, you should have a good starting position, go to war early but still be a builder. The Germans you play are good for both early and late wars, as they start with warrior code. And imagine the production from a golden age with railroads, democracy and mobilisation - WOW!

	21-07-2002 02:57									#5
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i'm still on the second difficulty level on my 3rd game!

	21-07-2002 06:01									#6
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I've only tried a purely defensive game a couple of times, and a long time ago, so my failure then is probably not conclusive. Is the problem in your peaceful games that you get attacked, or that you can't acquire enough cities without war (or both)? If it's the fomer, then develop a credible defense, despite your peaceful aims. The AI will still attack, but you can fight them off, especially if you make alliances (or at least avoid having them made against you). That said, the AI is much more likely to sue for peace if you don't just fight it off, but take at least one of its cities. I'm not sure whether this breaks your ground rules, but if it does, try razing the city, or giving it away to a weak civ. More of a problem might be generating sufficient research on emperor with less than ten cities, especially if you wisely devoted some of your development to defense.

	21-07-2002 15:05									#7
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The basic problem is that the surrounding civs quickly start extorting me and then shortly afterwards attacking me. Being a peaceful civ I can only defend and beg for peace, but it has not worked so far. The tech race is also quickly lost, since once you lose the possibility of devastating one of your neighbours and then sue him of all techs for peace, it is close to impossible to keep up with the AI.

Have anyone out there ever managed to win on emperor/deity level without attacking at all?

	21-07-2002 15:39									#8
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If I want to win peacefully I've always used one method of keeping civs from attacking. I keep them with military alliances against one (preferably big) civ. If that civ dies I target another. It is expensive (unless you have a heap of luxuries) and I can't see it being affordable past a large map, but it keeps everyone on side.

	21-07-2002 16:35									#9
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Aeson,

When you win peacefully on emperor, do you mean that you don't start wars, or that you don't resort to them to make substantial gains once someone kicks off?

In my sole emp (Iroq) game, I only declared war once, getting in others to crush the Zulus early on, then built my second core. From there I was attacked by two other civs, both of whom I destroyed in reply and eventually built the SS (but only because the Greeks weren't trying). If I hadn't initiated the first war, would this have counted as a 'peace win'?

I've just posted 'Peace Dividend', my monarch peace-strat, and am wondering if it can be adapted for emperor.

	21-07-2002 17:11									#10
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I read through your post, a lot of good stuff there. I do think it can be applied to sparcely populated Emperor maps, though the crowded ones do tend to require early warfare (or an early settler from a hut) to get enough cities founded.

I haven't played many peaceful Emperor games, mostly just to see how many wonders I could build, and then end up as cultural or spaceship victories. I only fought defensive wars (declared by the AI), never actually taking cities. The leaders generated from the fighting help though.

In 1.16f it was possible to trigger domination without fighting in some Emperor games (Huge/Pangaea/Up to 8 AI). It wasn't truely peaceful as it relied heavily on renegotiating peace treaties to extort cities from the AI, and culture war after. But there was no conventional warfare or capture of cities required.

	21-07-2002 18:18									#11
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I might try a standard pangea with three rivals on emp to see how it goes playing peace/builder.

I'd also considered the variant you mentioned including extortion. But if this is part of a peace renegotiation, rather than just a threat, then failure to secure a deal starts a war which you've started, right?

	21-07-2002 18:44									#12
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Yes, you can make sure they will at least re-sign the peace treaty by checking the F8 screen. If on the power graph you are more powerful than the AI, they will pay something to re-sign.

It's a moot point now as I think they got rid of the 0 turn war trick in 1.29f, so cities for re-signing peace treaties would be no more. In 1.21f the only way to get the cities was to actually cancel the peace treaty, but stay in the diplomacy screen and offer a new treaty.

Still should be possible to extort techs and money this way though.

	22-07-2002 03:16									#13
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I had one emperor game with absolutely no war whatsoever. It was more or less by accident: I wanted to test how much city flips you could have to your advantage, and in order to have lots of city flips, you need relatively fixed borders. IIRC, I had 7 or 8 cities flipping to me.

The key in that game was that I was playing a huge large continent map, with only 6 AI civs. Further, I was playing the Persians, and had access to 3 luxuries myself, with the monopoly on one of them. I gave in to each extortion of the AIs, even if I thought they were not going to attack me. And, I traded with all of them, luxs but also each tech I got first. I researched most industrial techs, and sold it to all of them that could give anything for them (I remember I practically gave motorized transportation away, trading it to worldmaps etc. You wouldn't do this in a normal game )

Finally, I built the UN, and won diplomatically... nearly all civs voted for me (one abstained, and of course one voted for himself)... score in the 4000s. A cultural win was also possible, but I was bored too much, if there is no war there is a little distraction.

After that game, I tried to recreate the experience a few times, but each time I was attacked. It truely was a one of a kind game, I'm sorry to not have kept the save game. If you want to try it, make sure all civs are always polite to you (by the end of the game I had to give techs, or several hundreds of gold to some, they wouldn't be bribed by 100 gold anymore). Further, keep a decent military, so they don't think you're an easy target. But, don't build too many troops, or the AIs will see you as a threat and will combine their forces against you. And make sure there is room enough for peaceful expansion or you will be attacked...

DeepO

	23-07-2002 00:05									#14
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buiz

I think your experience has been shared generally. Mini tourney IV and the Alamo game being developed now are really reflections of 1/ how routine it is to win a normal game below Diety and 2/ how overly long it takes to complete one after it becomes clear you will win and 3/ the size of the jump to Diety, which is too much for some of us and represents the "wrong type" of difficulty for others. Another way players seem to be responding is the search for the perfect game or attempting to be hyper-dominant right from the start. I've found playing the same game as a group and sharing stories about the experience to be fun and to be a learning experience.

	25-07-2002 23:41									#15
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Try these things:

In the beginning expand rapidly, build military units and yet don't go to war. If your neighbors ask for tribute accept. If someone attacks you despite all that, buy an ally.

About technology, don't research warrior code, horseback riding, iron working etc. Just try to get a later technology and exchange it. Mathematics-Currency or Writing-Literature these should be your goals. In the mini tourney as the Germans, played some while ago, I just researched Mathematics and Currency and that got me out of the ancient era (about 850 BC).

There are many other tips but these are what I remember now. Hope you find them simple and usefull.

-

	26-07-2002 03:35									#16
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... once you know how...

I never fight wars, which is good because I suck at it.

I have an old thread around here discussing CIV III's impact on the One City Strategy. Complete peace is one of the pre-reqs.

I play on emperor normal maps.

Alkis points out perhaps the single most important factorfor success. Do not research tech, buy it. This keeps you current and convinces the other guys to keep you around because you are paying extortionary prices for your technology.

Make sure all of your cities have 2 defenders and dedicate one city to building nothing but offensive units.

Always pay off the aggressive races and they will always find someone else who won't (usually another aggressive race) The AI's are single minded, they will leave you alone if they are in a war with someone else.

Finally, let the AI expand to your borders rather than the other way around. If you camp next to them, you piss them off. If they camp next to you, they will flip. Wait for the extermination wars to open gaps for a later wave of expansion starting in the mid-to-late medieval period.

Keep building those offensive units, keep the workers away from the borders, and always play nice...

	26-07-2002 04:46									#17
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ShuShu, I think there is one thing that is a bit missing in your explanation, I too tried it many times. But there is the factor of expansion: AIs will declare war on you, no matter how nice you are and how much you pay, if they fancy your territory. Especially early on this is true, and when your neighbours are aggresive it is even more true. Sometimes, you don't get the chance of paying tribute to them, they go from polite to sneak attacking in one turn and there is no way you can hold them back.

This is especially true when facing the Zulu on a continent, while the Zulu do not have other neighbours: they only see one way of expanding, and do it at all costs (meaning war with you). Of course, in OCC (I read your thread about it, and wanted to congratulate you, I will try it too one time or another) there is no real risk of them needing your territory, as you have a small territory compared to them. And most likely, there will be another civ around who do has a good bunch of land.

Anyway, lately I found it more easy to be a bit aggresive myself in the early game, or to just sit wars out until the aggresor contacts you to offer peace: when you keep to defense, and do not attack them in any way, your contact with him does not take much of a hit. It is easy to get him back to polite in 20-40 turns...

DeepO

	26-07-2002 05:28									#18
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quote: Alkis points out perhaps the single most important factorfor success. Do not research tech, buy it. This keeps you current and convinces the other guys to keep you around because you are paying extortionary prices for your technology.

this used to be true, now after 1.29 it seems that doing your own research looks like a viable tactic again.
Besides, if you pay for your research, you are making the ai rich.
I tried a game where i did no trading (techs) at all. It might be coincedence but the tech race was alot slower.
I guess mainly because I deprived the AI off his main source off income (since humans have to pay more to the AI than AI to AI)

So do your OWN research as much as possible.

	26-07-2002 05:35									#19
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All is good, as long as there is much trade in a game. I tend to trade away techs as well, you really can deprive the AIs of doing it good for themselves. But indeed make fair deals, or they will not like you for it

DeepO

	26-07-2002 15:27									#20
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Don't listen to him. Who need those fair deals. AI is a total cheater on deity level. If you want to win you should cheat too.
F.e.
When you are in war and if you feel that your enemy is started to suck, (when he will offer a peace treaty and will agreed to pay gold per turn.) you should destroy him compleately, forget about compromise. Just remember that AI is cheater on deity and if gave time to your former enemy, sooner or later he will atack you again.
So, before sign peace treaty, set your science on 0% to gain maximum income. Then offer a peace treaty and all your income per turn as payment, demand a peace treaty and as much enemy cities as possible. Sign the treaty. The cities is yours now. Broke the treaty. Fight a couple of turns. Repeat the process. Soon enemy will have only capital with its entire army within. Finish the bastard. Btw, population of cities will be considered as people of your own nation. And one more thing, other countries will stop to trust you. Why? If in your future deals with them you'll offer them gold for smt (even 1gp), they will always refuse. No big deal.

At the beggining prevent AI expasion to your borders. AI building setlers MUCH, MUCH faster then you are. The only way to win some space for your future Empire is to stop AI expantion. To do this you'll need at least 3 units (f.e warriors). Move them a little far then site where AI we'll more likely intend to build city, but which you want for yourself. When enemy settler will apear, place your units in line and block his way. The line of your 3 warriors will be an obstacle for AI. AI will not attack you, but it will move its setler up or down (right or left depends on situation). Move your units at the same direction. Next turn AI will return on its previous location, you must return your units too. All next turn repeat this. You will "dance" with AI until your setler will be ready and then, you should move your settler there and build a city.

Research tech. When you research smt new sold it to everyone, try to receive as much gold per turn as possible. It will help you to be first in science.

P.S. I don't have any patches so, in last versions smt could be different.

	26-07-2002 15:55									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Serb Then offer a peace treaty and all your income per turn as payment, demand a peace treaty and as much enemy cities as possible.

This was solved in the first patch, as it is a clear exploit. Now the AI will never, ever give you a city when you are offering gold. You can of course still make peace, gain some cities, and start war in the same turn again, but this will ruin your reputation with all civs the AI gets into contact with (or already in contact with). Possible way to counter this: the Arrian deception. This tactic (no exploit!) means you can do whatever you like to a civ, breaking treaties, declaring war, etc. so long as you will wipe him out before he can contact someone else. It also works with multiple civs: if you are on an isolated continent with two civs, you can be a bastard to them, as long as they are destroyed before any other civs get to them. It is tricky, if you miss it by one turn, you have a shot reputation for the rest of the game.

quote: The only way to win some space for your future Empire is to stop AI expantion. To do this you'll need at least 3 units (f.e warriors). Move them a little far then site where AI we'll more likely intend to build city, but which you want for yourself. When enemy settler will apear, place your units in line and block his way. The line of your 3 warriors will be an obstacle for AI. AI will not attack you, but it will move its setler up or down (right or left depends on situation). Move your units at the same direction. Next turn AI will return on its previous location, you must return your units too. All next turn repeat this. You will "dance" with AI until your setler will be ready and then, you should move your settler there and build a city.

This is a clear exploit, and there is even an extended version of it that I posted a few months back. You can have a line of warriors blocking a narrow continent, with one gap between them. The AIs will go for the gap, but as you can yo-yo this around, eventually you can keep all their settlers and much of their troops tied up here.
It is an exploit, as a human wouldn't fall for it for more then a turn. One thing of note: if you block the AI, it will get annoyed with you. Do it long enough, and it will declare war. It is a provocation, like trying to inflitrate their capital with spies: if these are caught, the AI will get mad about you, after a few of these attempts even the most peaceful civ will declare war.

quote: P.S. I don't have any patches so, in last versions smt could be different.

Why don't you have any patches? It surely makes the game feel different, and not only bugs and exploits are removed, but there were quite a few changes to the gameplay and AI as well. You should get them asap...

DeepO

	26-07-2002 16:01									#22
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I stop to play Civ3 long ago

	26-07-2002 16:03									#23
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so the patches might make you enjoy it again

DeepO

	26-07-2002 20:46									#24
	Good point Deep... Inflate your Upload Space

I play on Pangea because I hate boats... so I am rarely shacked up with a frisky zulu. Although it does happen occasionally.

I still don't get in trouble though because I leave a lot of room for the other civ to expand, and that buys me the time to have an adequate response availble by the time the other has filled the confined space. Once they get boats, they really won't be gunning for you anyway.

But your point is exactly why I suggsted letting them expand to you rather than the other way around. They are much friendlier when they are sending settlers through you territroy than when they are sending knights...

	26-07-2002 22:01									#25
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ShuShu, you're right, but as I tried to acquire a lot of cities by culture flipping when being peaceful, I need the added pressure. The zulus are just great to have as a neighbor, up until late in the industrial ages their borders are only 1 tile from their cities... they fall so easily you start to pity them. But you can only do this when you build yourself, as they will build a little farther away. It is a delicate balance between cultural pressure, and diplomatic relation, as you need both to be in your advantage.

DeepO