I usually play 18 civs on Large at Noble because I like having lots of smaller state and 1-3 empires for more realism. Anyway my problems I always end up in a position where I'm alone agianst the world. I built my empire being nice but having lots of taugh border guards in stack of 3 every 4-5 squares or so because some of the Crazy militaristic nuts always attack me. I beat him back and then the next one attacks and so on and so forth. NO matter how strong I am the sheer number overwhelms me soon usually after the 5 or 6 civs attack me. Soon after that even my pals betray me and attack and I'm forced to cower in the cities pumping units like crazy while the pillage the countryside. This is all Marathon speed which means soon all civs are exausted and their militaries are gone which is fine but because I had to repel half the world I'm in no position to do anything but eventually force them to offer piece, rebult my infrastructure set up the military again and by that time it starts all over again. This is Balanced maps with everybody on one huge continent. Why do they all hate me so. Even civs left with nothing but 1 lausy city after the intense land grabbing join in. I didn't even offend most of them. They are like hienas going for the bone but if that were so why only me. There were tons of better targets out there. I've never seen 5 AI gang on another AI and last night I had 9 on me at the same time. My economy is usually in the dumps because of the sheer number of units I'm forced to keep to repel the next attack and all great persons go for research if I want to keep up in the science department. I was controlling 30% of the land mass and was the largest civ.

against 18 civs at noble i don't even get that far. i'm like a wounded deer in a tiger cage:cry: i just don't seem able to keep up in tech or military early enough.

I don't know if Civ4 includes some antagonisms for the AI against too strong opponents. This might be. Having 30% of the land mass with all others sharing the rest some may envy your power and want a piece of the cake.

But it rather seems to me that you fail on diplomacy. Playing with 18 players means you HAVE to deal a lot with your neighbours. Following some rules:

Find yourself some group of buddiess that are important to you. Those might be neighbors or very strong nations you want to keep as friends.
Ensure that those buddies you like to befriend do like each other as well. A fellow like Mansa Musa, Alex or Monty whom hardly anyone likes should be on your list of your "not friends".
Deal consequently. Who does belong to your group should be addressed courteously and nicely. You should trade with them and sometimes make a gift if you feel you need to please them. Adopt their relegion, their civics etc. A nation that you once declared war on cannot be counted to the list of your friends for sure. Nations that are hated by most of your buddies you should never trade with.
Keep up with the military. If you appear to have few friends or are even militarily weak you are a good target.
Without military you may even have a lot of money or the tech lead. With this you can buy yourself allies among your friends to assist your fight against your foe.
Etc. pp.


Civilization always was about more than building up and developing peacefully yourself. You have to consider your neighbours as well. On Noble this should be too easy. ;)

Well I did. Asoka and Kublai chan were mu best buddies. Asoka was at my whole southern border and Kublai half the northern. they helped me for huge bribes the first several times but soon because of close border tensions and free religion the became cautios and after that openly attacked me in the back. I was forced to go use the scorched earth tactic where I have a specialy pre-built group of fast units that go and pillage every last improvement they have after I kill their armies at the border. In fact I ended using it on all my neigbors eventually thus putting them so far behind in production and population that I could keep up as the AI doesn't have the habbit of builting workers in stacks of 5 like me for quick improvements. I managed to take 4 big AI that way without taking any cities but ensuraing that they won't be a threat for a while. They kept attacking and declaring wars though. But in all that comotion Washington almost snached space race amn I was forced to nuke his ass with 2 per every city he had and spies crawling all over his special resources. Now I'm desperatly holding against the world's armies scorching, nuking and killing all who trespass and they all have it in for me while the world is quickly turning into a desert due to overexesive nuking. I'll win time in 65 turns but the planet by then will be 90% desert. It didn't have to end this way. I wanted to win nice. Why do they all force my hand?

It might just be that given the options you've selected, the AIs will naturally reach points where "aggression" is where on the dial their mindset arrow points.

I've succeeded at playing whole games entirely nicey-nicey, but that was at lower difficulty levels. The higher I go, the more disagreeable the opponents get. At Noble I can't yet manage 'em as the power players do, and get thumped.