Rob: In contrast to James's approach, I sought to develop a few, highly specialized cities to wage the many coming wars. I knew ahead of time that I'd pay heavily in the form of unhappiness if my empire grew too large too fast.

As a militant nation, I begin the game researching Archery to bring a deadly rain of arrows to my foes. I select the Honor social policy tree, which provides bonuses to my armed forces. Through exploration, I discover that -- not so unlike the real-world Japanese -- I'm alone on a continent except for two minor city-states. At this time, I ignore them, since their defenses are too great to breach with my puny warriors. Instead, I'll concentrate on ridding my lands of barbarians.

Japan's starting continent.

Since I need to capture all five capital cities from the other world powers to win the game, I focus my efforts on sea exploration. I uncover a continent to my south, which is home to the Iroquois. I immediately declare war.

I've read a few observations of brain-dead A.I. in Civ 5, and now I've experienced it myself. Without initiating any attack, the Iroquois offer peace several turns later that would lavish my people in gold. Insane! I only have two warriors and one archer sitting outside the border of Grand River.

Little did I know that they were right to plead for peace so soon. Within a short period of time (675 B.C. to 150 A.D.), I completely eliminate the Iroquois from the game with just those three units. Insane, indeed.

My victory is short lived; even though I installed puppet regimes into the three conquered cities to mitigate rioting from an unhappy occupied people, my nationwide unhappiness grinds my progress to a halt. My cities refuse to grow at a normal pace, and all my plundering has put my finances in the red!

To be a proper warmonger, I've ignored city infrastructure and culture to foster my grand military. Now I have a "colony" bringing my economy to its knees while the people revolt. I'll have to rethink my strategy in order to capture the four remaining capitals.

James: My earlier years saw much tougher times than Rob. To explain, here's a brief overview of my initial attempts to abide our original, stricter rules for pacifism: Because I knew that having fewer military units would be a pressing issue -- and because I was originally supposed to adopt liberal social policies -- I decided that rapid expansion would be my best option. The idea was to produce as many settlers as quickly as possible.

Siam's beginnings.

While spreading myself out may seem counterintuitive, the idea was to have a large number of cities -- since I wouldn't be getting any new ones in the late game -- hidden behind one unified border. This would allow me to juke my military limitations by leaving posterior cities unguarded and using the extra fighters to shore up a single border with multiple units. Also, my overarching ethos pretty much forced me to grow quickly, anyway, because the Freedom policy tree encourages rapid expansion through city population bonuses and improved settler-production time. Really, it wasn't a bad idea.

The problem did come from the rapid expansion, but in a way that was more direct than you might expect. It wasn't so much that I spread myself too thin or anything as amorphous as that; rather, my rapid growth pissed off every single nation on my continent. I tried simple variations on this strategy several times, with each successive attempt more and more focused on placating my neighbors. And every single time, a coalition of multiple civilizations and city-states annihilated me before I reached the year 1 A.D.

So, I emailed Rob, and we went back to the drawing board for my pacifist requirements.

Rob: While we discovered that our original, strict adherence to pacifism didn't work out, I also came to realize that unending war is just as prohibitive of a normal game of Civilization. I've completely disregarded diplomacy, and as a result I've passed up some sweet peace treaty deals.

At this point in the game, I've discovered all the other powers -- America, China, Persia, and (by coincidence) Siam. Of course, I immediately declare war on each as I meet them. But I'll periodically receive a plea for peace from one or the other, even though I've only graced their coasts with my navy. Maybe wild tales of my Iroquois conquest have spread throughout the world?

The above was typical of the deals thrown my way.

These pleas come in the form of huge sums of gold (several hundreds), gold payments per turn, and big chunks of strategic and luxury resources. Every time I click "reject," part of me thinks of all the good those agreements would do for my continuing happiness and monetary issues.

So what do I do? Well, what any maniacal madman would -- I razed the captured Iroquois cities to the ground to lift the burden off my nation (except for the capital, since the game rules prevent me from doing so).