How many units should I have so I can play a peaceful game without being creamed by the AI because I'm too weak, and what can I do to prevent that?

Most games, I'm doing well until one of the AI declare war on me, often with little warning diplo-wise, and then they basically eliminate me. Anyways, I want to be mostly peaceful, but still have a decent military ready in case the AI starts anything...how do I do that?

First, it depends on what level you're playing. Most of the time on Prince and above you can't really expect to play a peaceful game from start to finish unless you master diplomacy very well. When trying this you usually get boxed in with only a few cities, which in turn means you fall behind in techs & power and you quickly become a sitting target.

If you do manage to have a decent number of cities, you'll have to constantly build defenders to be sure of keeping up in power with the AI. Make a Heroic Epic city and keep pumping out the best units you have. Don't forget the navy, you don't want a landing party near one of your less defended cities. Also, since it costs you quite a lot to upgrade, most of the time it's cheaper to build new units and delete the really obsolete ones especially if you're not going to war anytime soon. Keeping a warrior around when everybody has riflemen is of no use and it only costs money.

By the way, many times the AI will declare on you because you're weak, not because they hate you. Getting them to "friendly" or keeping up in power are your only options.

I play Prince. If there is a close neighbor, or someone like Monty close to my borders in the early game, then I often axe-rush them, so it's not 100% peaceful. I just don't know what to do with my military after that. Also, I'm usually a leader in tech, right behind, or even with the financial civs of the game. Since it's almost impossible to be 'friendly' with everyone...I guess I'm going to have to try that Heroic Epic city thing and replace my units...

I play Noble. I find that around 3-4 troops per city is a good defensive garrison, plus one cavalry unit per city (all cavalry units in one group in a central position).

I have found that keeping an ai sweet with gifts, same religion, favourite civic, giving in to extortion goes a long way. Also keep an eye on who is about, as you said kill monty if he's nearby, but catherine is the worst. I always keep my main forces in border cities.

Keep an eye on the power graph; if you're below half the power of the leading civs you're heading towards being a victim. Build/upgrade enough units to keep you in the top half of power and you should be fairly safe from opportunistic attacks.

Hmm...I gotta watch the power graph, because I'm pretty sure I'm always the lowest or second lowest in power...Is 3-4 troops per city enough though? I understand that border cities need more troops, but I don't want to spend too much money on military if it could be better used elsewhere...

Suggestions
1) Smash ealry agressive civs that are near. Monty is an example. Shaka, Alexander Napolean are others. Creative civs are also a problem. Set your parameter and borders early.
2) Make friends. Keep the popular religion even if you found and shrine a different one.
3) Watch the AIs for possibility of keeping their favorite civics. Monarchy for Ragnar/Cathy, Free market for mansa Musa/Hannibal, Org relion for Hatty and brennus etc...
4) Bride civc to go to war with each other.
5) Grovel and tribute. People like Julius, Napolean, Ghengis like people who tribute.
6) Build armies as big as possible when you think you have enough build some more. Put them in border cities. You do not need 5 units in your capital other civc have to go through several other cities to get to it (exception, costal capital.

I play Noble. I find that around 3-4 troops per city is a good defensive garrison, plus one cavalry unit per city (all cavalry units in one group in a central position).

Below Prince, that was typically how I played as well. Only went to war if invited to by a powerful AI against a weaker one that was relatively close by. Also made certain that my religion was the same as my most powerful neighbour (didn't matter who founded it).

But in Prince, I don't think that you can go this route successfully. Anytime that I have tried, one or two AI's have come after me (and not necessarily the Agressives either). I still try to coordinate religion and hand out presents, and trade to my disadvatage, but they simply don't care and will come at me simply because I am weaker than they. So learn to be a warmonger (the threads in the War Academy are a HUGE source of material) and then go out there and have at them! :D

That's what I did,. and it worked once I ironed out a couple of other paradigms.

Keep an eye on the power graph; if you're below half the power of the leading civs you're heading towards being a victim.

I've heard of this mysterious Power Graph, and have even seen it on several screenshots posted in this forum, but I have never seen it in any of my games. Is it F8, right? Did it come in with a patch or only with Warlords or something? I have I think the earliest release version of vanilla only, not Warlords.

It's F9, or the right-most button in the upper-right, below the Civilopedia. You will see the score graph, just select Power from the drop-down menu in the upper-left.

When you go to look at the score and how you rank against other Civs (I forget the keyboard command) there is an arrow next to the score button on the left. That is a drop down menu and one option is power (thers are production, GNP I think). Also if you go to the demographics screen you can see the number of soldier and rank.

I'm usually a leader in tech, right behind, or even with the financial civs of the game

I think thats important right there. You can bribe weaker AIs to war with some of the warmongering AIs. That will keep them busy for a while, and they shouldn't be able to beat you too much in tech. Also, for a space race, if you keep up in tech then you can get spies out to the top dogs in case you ever have to destroy their production.

Main points are-
1. See whos around you. Warmongers like Monty, Cathy, etc. are bad news.

2. If a warmongerer is near you that you haven't killed, if you get defensive pacts with other AIs around you then your in good shape. You just make peace a little later, and the AI is kept busy fighting the other AIs. Often times in late games, a massive war breaks out as a bunch of defensive pacts are enabled, but you need to have acouple up-to-date units in threatened areas and let the dogs fight each other over the steak.

3. Often, 2 AIs will keep asking you to stop trading with the other. Go ahead and severe contact with one of them. Assess the risk and go. If Monty doesn't want you trading with Ghandi, screw Ghandi and please Monty temporarily. You're right when you say that it is impossible to keep everyone pleased, but a cautious or even Annoyed Ghandi is much better than a Cautious Monty.

Spock, great assessment except about Montey/Ghandi. Monty is the one AI I would not trust at all, he can be friendly all game then stab you in the back and send a stack of knights against your modern army. Anyone else I would do it but not Monty.

Yeah... I guess Monty is off in his own special land of nuttville. But if you get Monty pleased with you enough so that you can bribe him into war, then it might pay off to be on Monty's good side for a little.

For my third point above, even though you might be reluctant, it can be important to do it. Even if Ghandi is your top tech trader with you or trades resources with you, all you need to do in non-huge map is keep close enough in tech to get spies. If you bribe AI's into war, eventually only 2 or 3 strong AI's will be competing for the psace race. 2 or 3 top dogs are easy enough to get spies out there and keep sabotaging their last spaceship part until you are done.

This is all really good advice. I used to be an addicted builder . . . "Army? Why?" Reading the articles in the War Academy certainly helped me become an effective warmonger (though I haven't tried a conquest victory yet, but I've done domination a few times).

Here's the main thing I learned to use even when I play for a peaceful game: always be building units. I will rarely go against this, not build a unit in any city for a few turns at most. If I keep it up, invariably I get attacked and it hurts.

The other thing I've learned on my own is to maintain an offensive force for defensive purposes. Nothing is sweeter than decimating some invading SoD with a bunch of cats/trebs and mopping up with a few macemen. You don't want their stack freely pillaging your territory while you wait for them to attack your cities where your defenders are huddled.

Monty a nutcase? I find him completely dependable. He'll backstab you every single chance he gets. Isabella is my personal nutcase. She's usually fairly bizarre, but my most recent game I shared her religion, had a civ between us so no common border, was trading a lot, gave in to her one demand to stop trading with someone else, and she was pleased with me. And then BAM she invades with a stupid stack that didn't even get a chance to pillage a single plot -- never reached a city. WTF was that about? And then never sent anything else for twenty turns or so before she finally agreed to speak to me. Agreed to peace, paid 270 gold and 19 gpt and was immediately pleased. Can you say "severe PMS"?

I was glad she didn't send anyone else because Alex dogpiled the next turn (probably bribed as he was lower in tech than even her). He paid by being kicked completely off the continent, though. I left him his single-plot island on the other side of the map to wallow in freakish misery. :)

So to sum up: even when playing peacefully, you must think militarily (or select "always peace" option).

Create a "buffer state" by signing OBs w/ a civ that hates the aggressive ones (Gandhi or Asoka), then letting them settle. If a land invasion of your territory is drawn up, the buffer can be bribed to mobilize in your favor. And if he doesn't, at least he doesn't have OBs w/ the warmongers. It should give you enough time to beef up your military in order to strike back hard.

How many units should I have so I can play a peaceful game without being creamed by the AI because I'm too weak, and what can I do to prevent that?

Most games, I'm doing well until one of the AI declare war on me, often with little warning diplo-wise, and then they basically eliminate me. Anyways, I want to be mostly peaceful, but still have a decent military ready in case the AI starts anything...how do I do that?

Use F9 to calculate Military power.

3. Often, 2 AIs will keep asking you to stop trading with the other. Go ahead and severe contact with one of them. Assess the risk and go. If Monty doesn't want you trading with Ghandi, screw Ghandi and please Monty temporarily. You're right when you say that it is impossible to keep everyone pleased, but a cautious or even Annoyed Ghandi is much better than a Cautious Monty.

one very important thing is to pay attention to how they feel about each other. an AI will only demand that you stop trading with his "worst enemy". that's whoever he's maddest at as long as he's annoyed or furious with somebody. if he's cautious or higher with everybody, he has no worst enemy and it's your lucky day. if he's cautious or higher with everybody that you care about, then it's also your lucky day. in that case, you're likely not trading with his worst enemy since you don't care about that guy. he probably already doesn't like you enough to trade, so you won't have any ongoing trades for your designated friend to demand that you cancel, and if you do, you can cancel them since you've already decided which party you want to get the -1 with.

yes it is impossible to keep everybody pleased with you and with each other, but that's not necessarily what you need. you can do a very useful substitute by deciding who you do want to please for now, and who is on the "you're going to be rejected everything anyway, i don't care about you, get out of my face" list.

and then if you have some luck, and pay attention to the diplo screen (not everyone has the patience to check it as often as i do, i'm rather obsessed), and if the stars/map/religious groups align, and the people on your "i want to please these guys for now" list are cautious/pleased/friendly with each other, you can trade with them freely, since they will not demand that you cancel trades with each other. well, as long they remain that way. even if one or more drops to annoyed with another, if they're furious with somebody else they're not the worst enemy ... yet. but you can't take for granted that it won't change.

like, i want my health resources. if i don't have rice, and i don't have a relatively easy way to get rice for myself, i want to trade with someone that nobody scary will come demand i cancel trading with. that would make me lose 2 health, and lose -1 relations with one side or the other, not good. if i can get it from someone on my "you're the list of friends for now" list, and he's getting along with everybody else on that list, then it's totally safe to trade with him for now.

i'm really careful with diplomacy, far more than sane people are, i admit it. but it helps me. now granted i need the help since i am like the world's worst warmonger *giggle*. i'm not good at early wars and i have a broad definition of early. so i need all the help i can get. probably most people don't need to rely on diplomacy even 1/10th as much as i do, and i know that some people hate to have to deal with it, they'd just rather bash heads. i get a kick out of it. part of the beauty of civ4, so many different ways to play! but maybe these thoughts will help somebody out in some future game.

example from a recent game spoilered to spare those bored by my ramblings. caution: this game was wicked fun so i'm quite overenthusiastic still. get this ... i just won a game with Aggressive AI turned on (i had never tried that before, but it was for an RB event so i said what the heck i'll try it). and the only leader that ever declared war on me was Montezuma. he'd have done that in an always peace game, you know he would have! genghis, hatty, peter, isabella, fred, huayna, saladin, julius, alex, toku, ... none of them ever picked a fight with me. a big part was religion. my religion spread to several key parties, part naturally and part due to my effort. i used that as part of my way to pick the "i want to please these guys" list. part of how i picked them was to pick the warmonger-y ones; they like each other behind-the-scenes anyway so why not use that to my advantage? i also manipulated religion to make somebody not get along with the rest ... i wanted to kill saladin, so i sent him missionaries of a different religion, so that he'd change and my friends would not like him as much, and then i'd not get as many "-1 you declared war on our friend" penalties. the guys in my religious group got along with each other, so i traded with them. if at any time they looked like they were going to start bickering and become worst enemies, i cancelled ongoing trades (OB/resources) just in case, so that i wouldn't get negatives if they did come demanding. i never got a single "you refused to stop trading" or "you traded with our worst enemy" penalty except with freddy, hatty, and isabella. they were all permanently on the "i don't care about you" list, so that was fine. well, permanently meaning "until the warmongers killed them". and every time one of them died i got more nervous, since then i looked like more of a juicy target i'm sure. but no one who mattered to me ever gave me those annoying negatives. and even with those folks dead, nobody picked on me :).

now here's how much i needed that diplomacy to help me in that game ... i started thinking "okay i have to kill saladin, i need his land and resources, and he's the safest one to kill since the only new neighbor that gets me is the ocean, rather than say, montezuma" in 700 BC. i finally got around to declaring the war in, well, 1178 AD. that's rather a long time. mind you, i had some things to take care of, shiny wonders to build, etc. i played poorly in some ways due to i constantly misjudging the speed of they'd research stuff, it was prince and i'm not used to them being that slow. and it took an awfully time to get saladin to stinking convert to conf to save me -1 with 4 people, so that wait was not entirely due to me stalling from fear. but i mean seriously folks, how many of you would wait that long? that's your proof right there of how much i need this kind of help, and the fact that only monty ever declared on me in a world with Aggressive AI turned on (and a world where i had luck, mostly good, some bad) is your proof that it can work ;).

i am little miss hippy diplomatic jedi mind tricks. it doesn't always work. the point of this ramble is that it saved my candybutt during that game, amazingly astoundingly well. you can clearly see that i needed all the help i could get, given how much time it took me to declare on saladin *giggle*. but i did totally demolish saladin him once i finally got started! and both times that monty declared i won, yeehaw! and i had a LOT of fun and surprised the heck out of myself. the goal of the game was cultural victory, never allowed to run slider above 20%. for me the biggest OMG i won moment was realizing i'd survived from 4000 BC until 1872 AD, when the last two hit legendary. the official victory message on the screen? that was like bonus points in my head. the diplomatic screen at the end with those guys i'm always scared to meet sitting at pleased without civics and religion bonuses? doublebonus. i actually don't even know what my official in-game score was, i don't give a flip. i lived through it, that's the wow part for me, and i hardly even had to fight. it was one of my most fun and surprising-to-myself OMG-i-did-this games and therefore very high on the silly scoring system in my head.

Swallowing your pride and paying up tribute demands helps a lot.

If you don't want a war, try and stay in the same religion as the more psychotic leaders. Once you have decent relations, they readily accept bribes to attack other civs which will keep them busy and permanently taint their relations with the victim civ.

Check the diplomacy screen of aggressive leaders, under the declare war section if they have "enough on their hands" it means they are planning an invasion of someone (either you or another AI)

Finally, if you have a neighbour that you can't get along with and expect to be fighting eventually, either attacking them first when you have a military tech edge or bribing someone else to attack them is the best form of defence.

i'm really careful with diplomacy, far more than sane people are, i admit it. but it helps me. now granted i need the help since i am like the world's worst warmonger *giggle*. i'm not good at early wars and i have a broad definition of early. so i need all the help i can get. probably most people don't need to rely on diplomacy even 1/10th as much as i do, and i know that some people hate to have to deal with it, they'd just rather bash heads. i get a kick out of it. part of the beauty of civ4, so many different ways to play! but maybe these thoughts will help somebody out in some future game.

[/spoiler]

Here's a question for you then. Vanilla, Prince, Normal Size, Continents. I shared my side with Catherine, Julius and Victoria. On the other continent were Frederick, Asoka and Cyrus. As at year 2000, I have eliminated JC and Cathy, while Cyrus has fallen to the other two. I am behind on tech, but leading by about 300 points on the table. All four are "Friendly" towards me. Frederick completes the UN, and I eventually lose when he takes a diplomatic victory. All four of us are fairly close on the power graph, although he is on top. I don't have anything worthwhile to use for bribery.

How do I counter this?

All four are "Friendly" towards me. Frederick completes the UN, and I eventually lose when he takes a diplomatic victory. All four of us are fairly close on the power graph, although he is on top. I don't have anything worthwhile to use for bribery.

How do I counter this?

yeah the UN is where it's trickiest. that's the only place (that i know of) where the net +/- modifier is what matters, not simply the category of "Friendly" or "Furious" etc. some of what i've picked up is in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145865), you might find it interesting. a lot i've picked up here and there and through my own games, so that's really the only specific link i can give and it's far from complete as far as how best to manipulate it.

some things i try sometimes, when wars to change populations and vote numbers aren't what i desire. spoilered for space since it may be of interest only to you.as you'll see in the link, to get them to vote for you for diplomatic victory, they need to be net +8 towards you (including invisible modifiers) and that number needs to be higher than their total (including invisible) with the opponent.

if some voters are on your side already, it can make a difference to trade or gift them health/happy resources (even when you lack techs to gift) to boost their population/votes. also be sure not to trade your opponent or anybody on his side happy/health resources that are making his population bigger = more votes. in my experience health is a bigger issue for the AI than happiness is at that stage of the game. if you have the military power and/or are confident enough that he won't declare war/you could handle a DoW if you fail at sabotage, send spies to sabotage fred's corn and stuff. -2 health in every big city really can hurt them when the cities are already at -8 health. costs i think 200g gold and it's at least a little hit to him everywhere. he'll farm it again but you'll have 200g again. be a pest ;). it's fun and often i have enough leeway with Fred that a few -your spy was caught isn't a risk even if i'm light on power.

one DP is free--it won't earn you a negative modifier with the other civs. so if you can get one of the friendlies that's voting for fred to sign a DP with you, and if you have enough time for that +DP proves we are close friends to build up, that can be the difference in his vote. signing 2 or 3 does earn you a -1 with other others tho, only the first one is "free" politically.

also look at what you can do to make any of them like him less, whether or not it makes them like you more, as long as it doesn't make them like you less. for example favorite civics. if fred is using one that's not his favorite (US is), that is the favorite of someone who's voting for him, try to bribe fred out of it. that way he loses the +wise civics with that voter. you have to change out to have the option to bribe them to something else, but when you switch back soon, the +s you built over time with the voter are still there. doesn't always work and sometimes isn't a possibility, like say Free Market has been voted in by UN. that's mansa's favorite civic so both candidates will get the +wise civics with him by default.

I've often remained with a much smaller army than my AI opponents, and have had pretty good luck with it. (I suppose I should say that I've been playing Monarch level on Vanilla Civ IV.)

Until Galleons, I only worry about keeping my cities well stocked with military units near the border of my biggest concerns -- meaning unfriendly neighbors, or friendly, but untrustworthy sorts like Monti. A single warrior or archer is plenty within the center of your empire, or on icy outskirts.

Just keep your army updated. Six units defending a border city aren't very good if you're way behind in technology. But with a smaller military you should have a better infrastructure of libraries and markets and the like.

In later years the railroad makes beating off invasions relatively easy.

There is only the tactfully difficult area where other civs may have cavalry, and you haven't developed railroads yet. I often find I focus on my military more at this time. Also -- and you may have already guessed this -- I have had some unfortunate experiences with barbarians in the early game. Sometimes, you know, one warrior unit is NOT enough to watch a city. The game does give you some warning through the alert system when an enemy unit is starting to approach one of your cities, so I would lastly just encourage you to make sure you pay attention to those every turn, not just once in a while.

Good luck.

I have found that keeping an ai sweet with gifts, same religion, favourite civic, giving in to extortion goes a long way. Also keep an eye on who is about, as you said kill monty if he's nearby, but catherine is the worst. I always keep my main forces in border cities.

i didn't key in on this the first time. the border city thing is a good idea.

oddball tip of the day: if you have bored workers (when you're waiting around for RR/bio/state property for example), it can be really useful to do useless stuff! improve the tiles that are not in your city crosses but that are in the "buffer zone" between your culture borders and your cities. the AI has this "must kill the perman ... oooooh shiny, time to pillage" tendency, which can buy me time to shift units to where i need them, make/draft/whip more, you name it. especially in that "we're waiting to learn how to make railroads" stage when your troops still move slowly.

this has saved my candybutt in more than one OCC. and there i can't even move in back-ups from other cities obviously. but it extends the time you have to react between that terrifying (for me at least) "OMG they are coming at me! :eek:" turn and the turn when they reach the improvements that i do care about and they're banging at the city walls. pre-mined and roaded hills that later turn out to have coal or aluminum on them is always good too! they earn a little gold from the pillaging, but for me the time i earn is far more valuable in the big picture.

Here's a question for you then. Vanilla, Prince, Normal Size, Continents. I shared my side with Catherine, Julius and Victoria. On the other continent were Frederick, Asoka and Cyrus. As at year 2000, I have eliminated JC and Cathy, while Cyrus has fallen to the other two. I am behind on tech, but leading by about 300 points on the table. All four are "Friendly" towards me. Frederick completes the UN, and I eventually lose when he takes a diplomatic victory. All four of us are fairly close on the power graph, although he is on top. I don't have anything worthwhile to use for bribery.

How do I counter this?

If an AI got voted secretary general by a large margin, you may be in trouble. Check the diplomatic relations screen to see why they like Fred more than you. You may be able to counter this by getting the AI to switch civics to remove a favoured civic bonus. Consider declaring war on Cyrus yourself to get the shared military struggle bonuses.

Consider declaring war on Cyrus yourself to get the shared military struggle bonuses.

That's a great tactic that I learned a while ago from reading the ALCs: just because you're at war, doesn't mean you have to fight, but it can earn you points with others. :)

I can't remember if it was mentioned above, but it's a good idea to bribe your neighbors (i.e. "friends") into attacking another civ before you go to war. It doesn't always have to be the civ you're attacking.


You may want them to help you attack your target. And you get diplomacy points with them.
You may want them to stay out of "your" war. ("Hey, I actually wanted to keep that city!" and "Stop pillaging my future land! Those are towns! Stop!")
But you definitely don't want them invading you while your back is turned.

Getting the AI civs to fight each other also keeps them from becoming too buddy-buddy.

yeah the UN is where it's trickiest. that's the only place (that i know of) where the net +/- modifier is what matters, not simply the category of "Friendly" or "Furious" etc. some of what i've picked up is in this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145865), you might find it interesting. a lot i've picked up here and there and through my own games, so that's really the only specific link i can give and it's far from complete as far as how best to manipulate it.
.[/spoiler]

That was very useful KMC. I went back to an earlier save (1900) and re-played the game. This time I changed my research strategy, picked up Medicine, and then employed it to talk Asoka into a Defensive Pact. That provided the swing votes necessary to prevent Freddy from his Diplomatic victory. With that in the bag, I focussed on building improvements rather than troops and ended up with a solid 6000+ point Time Victory. Not huge I know, but my third win and best ever score at Prince level.:)

Not huge I know, but my third win and best ever score at Prince level.:)

that is huge! you learned some things, got a win, and your best ever score :). plus i was helpful, so i get bonus score points in my personal scoring system ;). yay!!! and grats!

Swallowing your pride and paying up tribute demands helps a lot.

If you don't want a war, try and stay in the same religion as the more psychotic leaders. Once you have decent relations, they readily accept bribes to attack other civs which will keep them busy and permanently taint their relations with the victim civ.

Check the diplomacy screen of aggressive leaders, under the declare war section if they have "enough on their hands" it means they are planning an invasion of someone (either you or another AI)

Finally, if you have a neighbour that you can't get along with and expect to be fighting eventually, either attacking them first when you have a military tech edge or bribing someone else to attack them is the best form of defence.

All excellent points Fish. Playing Contimnents makes that easier. Despite the fact that I started with Mining (playing Mao) I successfully researched and got Hinduism instead of chasing BW as I normally would. As the only game in town, the other three factions soon adopted it (although Cathy subsequently lightbulbed Taoism and switched). By that time however, I had enough troops to defend and she went after Victoria first. Weakened by that conflict, she was easy pickings for me later on.

I was checking the Diplomatic screen regularly once Freddy built the UN and the Secretary's position. But I could see no reason (other than the size of his armies) as to why they liked him better. Relations between the 4 of us were all "Friendly". As you will see in my subsequent post, the replay did manage to pull this one out (for a Time victory).

I've often remained with a much smaller army than my AI opponents, and have had pretty good luck with it. (I suppose I should say that I've been playing Monarch level on Vanilla Civ IV.)

Until Galleons, I only worry about keeping my cities well stocked with military units near the border of my biggest concerns -- meaning unfriendly neighbors, or friendly, but untrustworthy sorts like Monti. A single warrior or archer is plenty within the center of your empire, or on icy outskirts.

Just keep your army updated. Six units defending a border city aren't very good if you're way behind in technology. But with a smaller military you should have a better infrastructure of libraries and markets and the like.

In later years the railroad makes beating off invasions relatively easy.

There is only the tactfully difficult area where other civs may have cavalry, and you haven't developed railroads yet. I often find I focus on my military more at this time. Also -- and you may have already guessed this -- I have had some unfortunate experiences with barbarians in the early game. Sometimes, you know, one warrior unit is NOT enough to watch a city. The game does give you some warning through the alert system when an enemy unit is starting to approach one of your cities, so I would lastly just encourage you to make sure you pay attention to those every turn, not just once in a while.

Good luck.

I typically play that way as well (larger garrisons in border towns) although I have discovered that, at Prince level, you HAVE to take out at least one, usually two AI's to win. Size seems to matter, big time, at the higher levels. The AI's always seem to REX, leaving you little room to build your own towns beyond 3 or 4. As for Barbarians, I try to have a Chariot in every city to help the Warrior defend in the early game. They will win every time against Warriors, and sometimes even take out Axemen one-on-one.