defense

[Sisiutil]

Try not to keep all your units inside the cities. Fortify a few Axes with Guerrilla/Woodsman promotions somewhere at the borders with your closest enemies.

You don't really need too many units in all your cities, an Axe+Archer combo would be usually enough. Instead, build a decent stack of 4-5 or more units, like Axes/Swords with City Raider, and station them in the capital city.

Sorry, but I have to vehemently disagree.

The AI will usually waltz right by units fortified outside a city in your own territory, in my experience. Barbs won't, but that's barbs. The only time I've seen the AI attack fortified units is if they're in the AI's territory.

You don't need too many units in your core cities at the heart of your empire, one of which is usually (and should be) the capital. Where you need the bulk of your units is in your border cities, not sitting safely in the middle where they can't do any good--which includes not only defense and counter-attack, but also intimidation of potential attackers.

You might think that by locating units centrally, you can dispatch them where they're needed. But until you have railroads, if you have more than a half-dozen closely-grouped cities, they won't be able to get to the point of attack fast enough to make a difference.

 

[Andrei_V]

Well, my experience, especially with a few HOV games, shows consistently a little different thing. I am talking about low difficulty levels, Warlord and Noble.

As long as you keep a few fortified Axes at the borders, nobody attacks, even if you keep a single warrior in your cities. As long as you don't, you may have a dozen units in the cities, you'll get attacked almost for sure.

I had such experience over about 20 games or so, mostly on Great Plains map.

 

[Gnarfflinger]

One thing I've noticed was that the first thing they did in the war was attack the stack I had ready to return the favour if I was attacked. They had enough Artillery to wipe it out...

 

[Nares]

I don't like Open boarders agreements if I can avoid them. Only time I ever do that is if I'm between two nations who are at war and then I sell it to them both at a huge profit.

Well that's not very friendly, though it is lucrative. Not to say you shouldn't sell the OB, but AIs, like players, tend to be wary of closed borders.

I may leave people around but I don't leave them powerful enough to attack me even if they do rebuild.

Another preference here. It's generally a good idea to kill someone off. Leaving them around leaves them to not only work their way back into a position to do you some direct harm (though you acknowledge preventing that by leaving them with, for example, a single tundra-bound city), it also leaves them around to slander your good name to other AIs. I mean, I'd certainly be willing to part with much of my wealth and some technological secrets if it meant that a stronger AI would attack my enemy.

It sounds like you had one or two really pissed off AIs bribe one or two others into attacking you, while one or two others decided that attacking you while you were already entangled in a multi-nation war was a good idea. Basically, you got dogpiled.

Given your preference for keeping closed borders, I assume you generally turn down most trade options. Keeping good realtions with some of your neighbors is key, as it's really the only way to devote more resources to another front. I'll routinely see an AI I'm friendly with keep very light, outdated garrisons in a border city (talking like two Archers in a city when we're fighting with Maces/Cats). You can do the same if you make some attempt to keep them happy (adopt the same religion, or spread yours to them, trade with them, pay them tribute if necessary, etc).

 

[Valpo]

I would actually recommend you to pick an Aggressive leader you feel somewhat comfortable with, for instance Genghis or that Incan guy. Turn the difficulty DOWN a notch, turn ON always war and raging barbarians.

It will force you to play completely differently and actually focus on military and tactics. If you find it fun, it is an excellent way to learn both about the tactics and benifits of war.

Ok here is the thing guys that I was trying to explain earlier. I've played the other civ games before. 1, III, and now IV. . .

I've beaten it easy on cheiftan, I've come close to beating it on warlord and I want to finish a game on warlord WITHOUT CONQUERING THE WORLD. I'm just so damn tired of the whole take over the world thing. I did it I don't know how many times on Civ 3 and I'm tired of doing that. There are other ways to win this game. I'm not afraid of a war of opprotunity, I did declare war on spain and I pretty much conquered the contient. I still havn't finished their little island base off but they can't do much with it anyways and I'll get around to finishing them off with some older units.

My whole thing was I just want to keep people off me so i can get a research victory or a cultural domination victory. Yeah sure I could go to war, smash everything and conquer the world but that kind of victory is getting pretty lame right now.

Edit: And Yes I trade often, I trade pretty much everything I have extra of, even if I don't get much for it.

 

[Andrei_V]

Maybe you should just pick a different map setting? I'd suggest Custom Continents one per team, 5 AI opponents on small/standard map size.

You'll typically see no one but barbs until Optics. This map is not very reach on resources, but it is good for cottage spaming, playing with economy rather than warmongering.

I had certain success beating the AI to the Space Ship on Emperor (sometimes without a single war), and even a couple of times on Immortal, though it was in the 1.52 patch.

 

[naterator]

If you have Montezuma on one border and Gandhi on another, guess where you should put the bulk of your forces?

that's why i use random personalities. sorry, off topic, it doesn't help your defense, buy it might help your deja vu.
i think even if you don't want to conquer the world, you still have to look like you could, if you wanted. once you've got a developed empire (a big one, hopefully) it's pretty easy to dominate the power graph. get enough of a power advantage and you'll be able to demand tribute from everyone, while you focus on your culture or space victory, or whatever victory you choose.

 

[Valpo]

Maybe you should just pick a different map setting? I'd suggest Custom Continents one per team, 5 AI opponents on small/standard map size.

You'll typically see no one but barbs until Optics. This map is not very reach on resources, but it is good for cottage spaming, playing with economy rather than warmongering.

I had certain success beating the AI to the Space Ship on Emperor (sometimes without a single war), and even a couple of times on Immortal, though it was in the 1.52 patch.

What does the patch do? I heard there was a patch comming out but I never heard that it actually had came out. . .

Should I take the time to download it, considering that Civ 4 already runs pretty stabily on my computer.

 

[Andrei_V]

What does the patch do?

It changes many of the game rules. There is a significant difference between 1.52 and 1.61.

Most of the discussions here refer to the latest patch, so you'd better download and install it.

 

[Compromise]

You don't really need too many units in all your cities, an Axe+Archer combo would be usually enough. Instead, build a decent stack of 4-5 or more units, like Axes/Swords with City Raider, and station them in the capital city.

...and station them in the capital city of your neighbor!

 

[InvisibleStalke]

One of the things I had to unlearn coming from earlier civs is that there is a benefit to having a big military. In CIV 2 I would run very light on military, going for technology until I had a big edge, then rushing troops, winning a war and going light again. With CIV 4 having one of the largest armies means that you don't get attacked. And it means you are in a position to pick your victims, often roping in allies and winning wars with small losses. Even if you don't want to conquer the world, you don't want to be defenseless either.

One of the best approaches to keep your military going is to build a good production city, put heroic epic in it and just keep it pumping out units even during peacetime.

Also you want to try and manage what wars take place. Make sure you have some allies (open boarders, good trades, give in on requests, same religion etc) and if you are on good relations with an aggressive civ, bribe them to fight enemies you are worried about but don't want to tackle head on yet.

Generally on the higher levels it pays to have an early war to get more cities quickly and control a larger area, even if you aren't planning on a domination win. With more cities and population you are going to progress more quickly to the other goals.

 

[pigswill]

It sounds like what you're looking at is deterrence. In my limited experience (playing on noble and prince) the key to deterrence is power (as measured by the power graph), you don't need to be top but you need to be near the top. Obviously you get power from military units, you also get power from military techs, military buildings and population. A key aspect of military units and power is that it's calculated on the unit's basic strength regardless of promotions; more modern units have more basic strength and thus add more to your power.
Another aspect of deterrence is diplomacy (religion being a major complicating factor). You can't please all the people all the time so its better to please some of the people all of the time.