I'm glad that Brave New World expanded the peaceful game and made it easier and even more fun to win without being a warmonger, but the more I play, the more I think it's easier to win by just completely avoiding early and mid-game war. The repercussions, in particular happiness and diplomacy, for warmongers are so significant and long term that they end up setting your civilization back quite a bit, and it's difficult to overcome them.
Civilizations with early military advantages are actually a bit of a double edged sword because while you can conquer your neighbors, it will anger the rest of the world, which will hinder your trade and trade routes, while also causing your happiness to plummet, which will slow your growth, production, gold, GPP, and research. Sure, the Zulu are powerful enough to conquer any civilization that they choose in the early-mid game, but good luck keeping up with the AI once you start taking cities and your diplomacy and happiness dwindles.
Civilizations with advantages in culture, tourism, research, religion, gold, etc. have none of the negative consequences that militaristic civilizations have to suffer from. Neighboring civilizations will watch and remain friendly with me as I peacefully become 100% influential over their civilization, but if I dare take another civ's city, they won't forgive me for the rest of the game.
Ideally, the game should have an equal strategical balance between warmongering and peaceful playing. Of course, you can still win by warmongering, but my point is that it's significantly more difficult than playing a peaceful game. In previous versions of Civ, I've always believed that warmongers got favored, but I think Brave New World reversed that too much, and I hope an upcoming patch will balance it more so warmongers aren't excessively punished.
Thoughts?
Civilizations with early military advantages are actually a bit of a double edged sword because while you can conquer your neighbors, it will anger the rest of the world, which will hinder your trade and trade routes, while also causing your happiness to plummet, which will slow your growth, production, gold, GPP, and research. Sure, the Zulu are powerful enough to conquer any civilization that they choose in the early-mid game, but good luck keeping up with the AI once you start taking cities and your diplomacy and happiness dwindles.
Civilizations with advantages in culture, tourism, research, religion, gold, etc. have none of the negative consequences that militaristic civilizations have to suffer from. Neighboring civilizations will watch and remain friendly with me as I peacefully become 100% influential over their civilization, but if I dare take another civ's city, they won't forgive me for the rest of the game.
Ideally, the game should have an equal strategical balance between warmongering and peaceful playing. Of course, you can still win by warmongering, but my point is that it's significantly more difficult than playing a peaceful game. In previous versions of Civ, I've always believed that warmongers got favored, but I think Brave New World reversed that too much, and I hope an upcoming patch will balance it more so warmongers aren't excessively punished.
Thoughts?