How to stop getting beaten up?

[Frodo88]

I am playing China (Noble level) and find that all of my neighbors (Noble level) are consistently attacking me. Is there a strategy to reduce the chances of getting attacked that I can adopt without building a massive army (that I cannot support with my gold).
Thanks,

 

[Dnomal]

Playing as China... the Cho-Ko-Nu is extremly effective at destroying enemy stacks.

I found that one way to avoid war, was oddly to keep units away from the border, keep them a ew tiles out of LOS and your opponent tends to ignore you, i he (or she) dosent then you at least have the element of surprise.

if you are short of gold i recomment building gold for a while to get ur eco. back on its feet, works like a charm.

 

[ice2k4]

I believe noble is the first level where civs start attacking you if you fall behind in power. There are three ways to deal with this.

A) Build large army to stay ahead in power graph.

B) Start an early war and you will be ahead in the power graphs as long as you destroy a civ or two.

C) Play the diplo game carefully. Make friends with the more powerful civs. Every 5-10 turns go around looking at potential threats. Open the diplo screen, and mouse over a civ that is in red under the Declare War section. If the mouseover text says "We have our hands full" it means they are already engaged in a war, or they are about to enter one, and many a times they are about to declare war on you. If you feel that the civ is likely to attack you, and not another civ, go to a friendly agressive civ, and bribe them into war against the one you feel is going to attack. Don't go to war yourself though. Constantly bribe civs into war, so they are kept busy and never attack. I forget what article this is in, but there is a detailed one on this strategy in this forum.

Good Luck.

 

[Uncle E]

Sharing the same religion as your neighbor is a good way to cover yourself for a while ... building an early cottage economy coupled with shrine income will allow for a good sized army that keeps you off the bottom of the power graph. Diplomacy + a big stick!

 

[JohnYoga]

I believe noble is the first level where civs start attacking you if you fall behind in power. There are three ways to deal with this.

A) Build large army to stay ahead in power graph.

B) Start an early war and you will be ahead in the power graphs as long as you destroy a civ or two.

C) Play the diplo game carefully. Make friends with the more powerful civs. Every 5-10 turns go around looking at potential threats. Open the diplo screen, and mouse over a civ that is in red under the Declare War section. If the mouseover text says "We have our hands full" it means they are already engaged in a war, or they are about to enter one, and many a times they are about to declare war on you. If you feel that the civ is likely to attack you, and not another civ, go to a friendly agressive civ, and bribe them into war against the one you feel is going to attack. Don't go to war yourself though. Constantly bribe civs into war, so they are kept busy and never attack. I forget what article this is in, but there is a detailed one on this strategy in this forum.

Good Luck.

I need to start doing this...Great idea! Thanks! John

 

[Sisiutil]

To follow up on and sort of combine what Uncle E and ice2k4 said, religion is a very important factor in diplomacy, almost as much as where you stand in the power graph.

Don't adopt a state religion for a while, and don't even try to found one until you feel comfortable at your chosen difficulty level. Stay neutral until you have nearby religions spread to you. Adopt the one that will benefit you the most strategically and diplomatically--which usually means you'll adopt the religion of the biggest, baddest neighbour you have. They will then become very unlikely to attack you, and will probably back you up if some godless heathen declares war on you.

At the very least, this should buy you the time you need to build up your own infrastructure and army so you can defend yourself or, better still, go conquer the world.

 

[ice2k4]

To follow up on and sort of combine what Uncle E and ice2k4 said, religion is a very important factor in diplomacy, almost as much as where you stand in the power graph.

Don't adopt a state religion for a while, and don't even try to found one until you feel comfortable at your chosen difficulty level. Stay neutral until you have nearby religions spread to you. Adopt the one that will benefit you the most strategically and diplomatically--which usually means you'll adopt the religion of the biggest, baddest neighbour you have. They will then become very unlikely to attack you, and will probably back you up if some godless heathen declares war on you.

At the very least, this should buy you the time you need to build up your own infrastructure and army so you can defend yourself or, better still, go conquer the world.

Be careful with religion though. In some games it can mean everything and others it can mean nothing. If you get Catherine in your game, you have two options. Catherine appears to be pleased with you when you adopt her state religion, yet shes a lonewolf. She will attack you at some point in the game if you are below her in power, no matter what the diplomatic relations with her are. You could either take her out early when you have a chance. (Early war) or you can befriend her as much as possible, bu be aware, especially if you border her, she will attack when she gets cossacks.

There is the huge upside to religious diplomatic affiliations. Isabella. Isabella will be the most loyal civ you ever meet as long as you adopt her state religion. I've never been attacked by her (all the way up to and through monarch level, i don't play higher) as long as I've adopted her state religion. Shes a war machine, and especially on jihads. Anyone who doesn't adopt her religion is a potential goner, as long as she has enough cities to build a military. Bribing her into wars will be extremely easy, and she could be your protection for the whole game. If you get attacked, simply bribe her into war against the enemy, and watch the enemies forces disappear from your lands to go fight Isabella.

 

[Grimus]

Very Important: do not neglect your military!!

I have a very bad habit of sometimes go into a building frenzy until I stop to look around and realize that my army is outdated and/or numbers are too low.

If your heart stops in terror every time you hear the war horn go off and someone declares war, that means you better start building some military, lol.

Lately I've been trying to develop the habit of decimating a neighboring Civ right from the start or very early just to increase my power from the beginning and to have a nice ex-capital full of resources become my GP farm.

 

[BundtCake]

Very Important: do not neglect your military!!

I have a very bad habit of sometimes go into a building frenzy until I stop to look around and realize that my army is outdated and/or numbers are too low.

If your heart stops in terror every time you hear the war horn go off and someone declares war, that means you better start building some military, lol.

Lately I've been trying to develop the habit of decimating a neighboring Civ right from the start or very early just to increase my power from the beginning and to have a nice ex-capital full of resources become my GP farm.

Yeah, I do the build frenzy as well... what would y'all say would be the best point to start developing an army, when I have access to axemen (make 'em city raiders), archers (for defence on the warpath), and catapults?

I currently have Monty to my south...

 

[frankcor]

I currently have Monty to my south...

It's only a matter of time before he attacks you -- regardless the power chart situation.

 

[BundtCake]

It's only a matter of time before he attacks you -- regardless the power chart situation.

Yeah, he already has. He's on the island to the south of me, I'm on my own island, and we each have a city on another, smaller island to the right of me. I think he has something like 8 archers defending said city. <sigh> this is no longer Warlord difficulty.

 

[Grimus]

I'm starting to learn that you should always have some cities building units, especially the production cities. Flip flop between cities and let others handle the unit production when you need to build more buildings.

When my units start to become very obsolete I take a few turns at 0% research and start upgrading to increase my power and scare away some of the other bully civs looking to pick a fight.

You can start to chill on the military unit production when it starts to cost you a little bit too much money to upkeep (you're the judge) and you're not going to war anytime soon. Just make sure you keep them fairly up to date.



Also, to shed away from the builder/turtle crutch and become a more aggressive player, I recommend starting a new game while choosing an aggressive leader such as Shaka (my favorite), Ghengis, Cyrus, or Julius and going on the warpath from the start. Your main agenda is to obliterate everyone, nothing else... and only build the buildings that you absolutely need.

This is what helped me anyway. Why spend the resources and time to build everything yourself when you can just TAKE IT from civs that are building things at decreased costs and getting ahead of you.

If the AI was truly 'smart' then I guess you wouldn't need to go on the warpath... but at higher difficulties the AI gets to 'cheat' so much that you need to take advantage of them and take things from them with force in order to keep up in the race.

 

[tycoonist]

if you want to build but not war, just build units while waiting for that new wonder/building. if your city really has nothing useful to build ie. only walls post-gunpowder, just build a couple of units