Is there any advantage not to get rid of the other civilisations on your continent?

Question

I wonder if there are good reasons to keep some civilizations on your own continent ?

I think about "commerce treaties" or "exchanges" that would be more interesting, than harvesting the resources myself...

In fact, having neighbors on the same continent is quite demanding in terms of diplomacy. I believe it would be easier to deal with neighbors that live on other continents, so that they will be forced to come by boat or plane.

So, Is there any advantage not to get rid of the other civilisations on your continent ?

Answer 1

It kind of depends on how you want to play. In most Civ games, (5 included) there are distinct advantages to having more cities that generally outweigh the disadvantages, although the argument could be made that Civ5 has done a pretty good job of trying to balance these things.

So, if you're heading for a Cultural victory, you probably want to leave them alone, simply because conquering them is either going to be bad for your culture score, or bad for your economy/happiness.

Having a good set of trade partners can be important, especially if you have many extra resources to trade, but there's no distinction between trade partners who are on the same continent as you or on different continents, so I wouldn't think it would matter.

Personally I find that the more territory I control, the better my chances of victory are, and I tend to conquer anyone on my current continent. Waging a war by air or by sea is decidedly more difficult (especially if the opponents are AI), so I tend to have more of a chance to prepare in situations where my enemy is separated from me by water.

I also find that, especially in the higher difficulty levels, the AI is more prone to attacking me regardless of any shared history or previous successful diplomacy, so the faster I push them out of my area, the less of an immediate threat they are.

Answer 2

You want to conquer and puppet them, puppets have gold focus, so they tend to bring lot of money. And if you deny them food after they are confortably large (destroying farms/building trade post on places with less food) you can manage their size = their unhappiness and with per pop and per city bonuesses from policies/wonders/nation you can get to positive numbers.

BUT if you wipe them out totaly, you are considered warmonger (by all civs who knnew you when you wiped them), and you cannot trade with dead civ. And if you take their capital, they hate you more (harder to force them to trade with you).

So you should leave them one city and trade with them (better to say, give them money and then sign research agreement) and you should consider leaving them their original capital (but not much strongly, usualy you want it because its good city).

Answer 3

Not taking out your neighbors can provide a huge advantage in RAs even with the recent nerfs. If you're able to get the porcelain tower, and certainly the rationalism policy, Ras become by your highest source of research. Taking out such neighbors early prevents this advantage.

If you're going for a self-propelled science or diplomatic victory then there isn't a good reason to not conquer and possibly puppet enemies on your continent. I do suggest leaving at least one small city so you're not branded a warmonger though.

Answer 4

Wiping out civs make the other ai player very angry. Sometimes I leave them a small village so the other player are not hostile all the time