having difficulties on fractal maps

[dfn]

This is the second game that I'm playing on a fractal map, and am getting swarmed.
The first time I was going for a domination victory, and after killing my first civ, *seven* civs declared war on me. Two of them were Bismarck and Alexander. I held off one, but the other got me. That game is pretty much over now, though I'm still playing.

The second game that I started was with China, but this time I wanted to try a cultural victory. Similar story. Surrounded by 4 civs, one of them is Bismarck, and he just swarmed me with his UU. Nothing I could do...

Both games were played on Prince difficulty, huge fractal map, no ruins. With China, I started concentrating on culture but had to shift to war because of my proximity to Bismarck. I've attached a saved game, if anyone can provide some tips, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

 

[pincus]

Build up enough of a military to not be viewed as helpless. If guessing, like Civ 4, barracks and such boost your power score, so get those in a production city.

Are you getting the insulting diplo messages? Bismarck seems to love those. They're a good warning you need to boost your power score, and luckily, it just takes some cash.

 

[dfn]

I don't get those messages. Basically, in both games, what happened was I got the generic "This is my time to strike!" message, from many civs, and then the ones that are close just start attacking.

 

[IgnatiusTBarfat]

When you interact with Civs, you often have more than one response that might be a 'No'. For example (and I'm paraphrasing here because I don't recall the messages precisely), "Hey you civilization leader over there! The Foobar's are a bunch of turdlings. Let's form a pact of ZOMG don't tell them we are conspiring against them!" where you can reply "Sure man!", "How dare you!" and "Nah, not right now dude." Those last two are both negatives, but the former puts you on a 'bad' path for future relationships relative to the latter.

So, my tip is to pay attention to how you decline (or which you accept) interactions with other civs. You may inadvertently be annoying them into hating you.

Or you could just be unlucky.

 

[Buccaneer]

Barfat is correct. You can ignore diplomacy just by taking the safe answers, there's really not much depth to that at all. Declare wars early and then play it safe. Have a production/military city cranking out units for the offense and defense.

 

[dfn]

I always try to take the safe answers, but it doesn't matter. Someone will attack me, and if someone else doesn't join in, they'll crowd my cities and start building right next to me. Basically, this just leads to more conflict a few turns later.

However, I'm only having difficulties on Fractal maps. It seems that I always end up with 6-8 Civs around me. If I play continents, or small continents, then I really have no problems. I'll try building barracks and a few units... My other problem might be that I hate expanding quickly after I have my initial 4 cities. I end up with one production city that builds wonders instead of units, heh.

 

[hellboy909]

When you interact with Civs, you often have more than one response that might be a 'No'. For example (and I'm paraphrasing here because I don't recall the messages precisely), "Hey you civilization leader over there! The Foobar's are a bunch of turdlings. Let's form a pact of ZOMG don't tell them we are conspiring against them!" where you can reply "Sure man!", "How dare you!" and "Nah, not right now dude." Those last two are both negatives, but the former puts you on a 'bad' path for future relationships relative to the latter.

Oh man, you seriously owe me a new keyboard AND monitor.