In almost every game I out-tech Napolean. He will keep making all those ridiculous demands. If he's my neighbour I'll usually rush him early to get rid of this guy. The problem is when he is at the far end of the same continent. It's very costly and painstaking to kick this shortie's fat axx. A lot of time I'll give him a few freebies to keep him calm. But recently there were just a couple of games he kept demanding some very important techs like education and philosophy when I was doing the liberalism race, which I'll never give them out. He then declared war on me even in both games he was pleased, and more annoying is he didn't actually have too many units. By the time I sent my troops to start the counterattack, my cities already developed war weariness. It's simply sick. I'd like to hear some suggestions facing this type of leaders (his friend Louis also does a lot of these annoying things. Those Civ people really have a problem with the French).

This is one thing I really hate Civ4. War against enemies a few borders away has always been a rarity because of the high cost and logistic issues. Even fighting a war far away in modern time is very expensive (just look at the war on Iraq, no political implication here). The lack of the concept of supply lines to me is really a big thing. I just hope if there is Civ5 please think about this.

If a faraway civ declares war on me, I generally don't send troops there to wage war but rather just reinforce my active defenses and continue as if there was no war.
Assuming that Napoleon decides to march from the ends of the world and finally reaches your lands, then I can kill them within my cultural area not getting any WW at all.

let'm come I say. Its not very often that the AI launches a decent assault force from long range, so its pretty easy to deal with.

War against enemies a few borders away has always been a rarity because of the high cost and logistic issues. Even fighting a war far away in modern time is very expensive (just look at the war on Iraq, no political implication here).
Which raises the questions if civs should be allowed to borrow money from other civs or from "itself" (perhaps by mortaging its buildings which might get sold off if payments are not met)
The lack of the concept of supply lines to me is really a big thing. I just hope if there is Civ5 please think about this. This could be interesting or it could be a big pain. Perhaps there should be penalties for operating far from the nearest city or fort. Penalties for operating within enemy controlled territory (behind enemy lines) would really hurt the warring party, though.

As for Napoleon, try to stay above him in the power graph (if you are out-teching him, it shouldn't be hard).

And as the others have mentioned, I tend to ignore threats from a long ways away. Often the offending party may have a group of units nearby but once they are dealt with it turns into a phony war which can be ended without pain.

The lack of the concept of supply lines to me is really a big thing.

I totally understand what you're saying. Ive always seen the extra maintainence cost when your troops leave your borders as an extension of this...the extra cost is, in effect, the supply line of sorts. Not a perfect solution, but there definately is a penalty.

do you get war weariness simply from being at war, or from haveing units in enemy lands?

and how does it increase, by loseing cities? by loseing units? or simply by time? You would think a cold war would have little effect. While loseing armies, and shelling out large upkeep for units in enemy lands, or haveing your cities raised would have a big effect

let'm come I say. Its not very often that the AI launches a decent assault force from long range, so its pretty easy to deal with.

The problem is, even as a defender the war weariness will still finally kick in. Certainly I can use hereditary rule and happiness is usually not an issue, but just in case if I have Pyramid I'll still like to stick with representative.

And unless you destroy at least one of the AI cities, a lot of the time you won't get peace. Another complication is he might get other parties involved. It's true I can surely recruit an ally, but this mean I have to give away some crucial techs, and give these AIs a reason to expand.

For as long as all fighting happens on tiles where your culture is dominant, no WW will accrue. This means that you can fight a defensive war indefinitelly.

Phony wars are part of the diplomacy. You can use the opportunity to get some other civs to declare on Napoleon and get MMS diplo bonus out of it. If the price is a very important key technology, it might be a bit hard to do it, but which one is worth more?

I just played an amusing game where Napoleon was actually my best friend (I was playing as Mansa Musa). He was on a completely different continent on the other side of the world, so he never attacked me. I think he was preoccupied with his Spanish and Aztec neighbors, and actually ended up being a good trading partner for me. I ended up winning via space race, after a protracted late-game war with the Greeks.

I agree that Napoleon and Louis are very demanding. They are always looking for freebies. I tend to tell them to kiss off.