does anyone know why i almost inevitably have at least 1 civ who says "i will never trade with you, our worst enemy!" often they're nowhere near me and i've had little or no interaction with them. is it assigned randomly at the start or a consequence of civics? i usually play isolationist and often my worst enemies have free religion, so i have no idea.

Worst enemy is a relative term. It simply means that off all their attitude scores, yours is the lowest. It's possible that you could only have a -1 but the rest of the nations are positive to them, or something like that. (I've never tried, but I wonder if it's possible to be their worst enemy and yet have a positive score.) You can become someone's worst enemy simply by declaring war on a friend of theirs.

Well, there are several reasons. Refusing demands, declaring war on their friends, border tensions, different religions.

But I usually get this after the "You've traded with our worst enemy" modifier. It seems by trading with their worst enemy, you become the worst enemy, even if you haven't met!

You'd think to be fair, the original worst enemy would get a negative modifier for trading with you, the current worst enemy, making him the worst enemy again, giving you another enemy-trading modifier making you the worst enemy giving them a modifier....but no, it stops with you. :crazyeye:

You'd think to be fair, the original worst enemy would get a negative modifier for trading with you, the current worst enemy, making him the worst enemy again, giving you another enemy-trading modifier making you the worst enemy giving them a modifier....but no, it stops with you. :crazyeye:

well said :lol:

If you have any spare, gift them a resource. It takes a while, but trade will open the door to better relations down the road. Eventually, you will be able to get open borders, trade tech, etc. And you can always cancel the resource gift whenever you have a better use for it.