I have a terrible habit of retiring late in the game after losing 1 or 2 cities.

[Callick]

I have always been more of a peaceful/culture based Civ player (well, since 3, of course), and I've noticed that aside from aggressive culture bombing this game doesn't really seem to reward peaceful play. Even on Warlord one of the AIs has abitrarily declared war on me every single game I've played and totally steamrolled my outlying (yet important, resourcewise) cities. Since I play so peacefully, I obviously don't spend a lot of time pumping out military units, even if it's just for defense. At best I will have 2-3 of the decent units for that era fortified in each city, which isn't so bad to fend off 5 or 6 units. However, the AI ALWAYS brings in about 40 units in a few stacks and totally crushes me after a while of my city resisting.

I don't really know what to do. Help Please? :-D

 

[phatlip]

Heh, same problem here too. I'm not entirely a peaceful/cultural player - however i really like to mix war with peace - and war not to win the game (i go purely for a realistic experience, so score/space/diplomatic would be my goals) but to gain resources, power or to help friends and take revenge for threats.

However, i realise this gains you enemies, and the AI holds grudges - so i choose my enemies wisely and keep a reasonable defence up on the borders.

What REALLY gets me, is then when random AI civs declare war on me and charge in with ridiculous amounts of units.

Is this just the difference in civ4? You can have many mnay more troops and not have it mess with your eco?

Also, how does the AI manage to have such great culture when they have all those units? I must be really missing something, because i can only get one or the other.

My cities are all large, but their production is still hardly anything to shout about. Infact i'm the largest civ in the game - no.1 in score - and i am 7th in power and behind (just a touch) in science (but from nearly everyone).

All i can think of is to maybe stay quite small in the begging, focus on military and small amounts of culture - lots of military all the time and just try to sneak some culture in there everynow and again, expand through war very slowly. Just seems not reasonable to be big and peaceful - because you really need to work your eco and culture to stay comptetitive, and then you have ****-all military.

Please help also!

 

[Si_Lurker]

2-3 defenders per city are in general overkill, except for border cities.

What is neccessary is maintaining combined offensive force (few of your strongest units - defenders, skirmishers, offensive units, catapults) that can take out any invaders as they appear and bolster up border cities.

Also dominating your landmass or have less land borders helps.

Otherwise for any kind of victory production is key. In any game since CIV1 through MOO I was mainly judging power of oponents on 1 technology and 2 production. If you're behind in technology, you might compensate by strong defenders and colateral damage, if you're behind in production, you don't stand much chance.

So forges in all cities - after first 2-3 cities I usually build granary, lighthouse, forge, followed by courthouse, market and then barracks, culture or science.

If you're playing for builder or science, have your initial 1-3 cities focus on culture while the rest should supply your military needs. Also if you're weak try to improve relations with AI by converting, trading, giving in to demands, helping, adopting civics...

 

[cosinus]

did you do the religion thing. it's somewhat important to have neighbours that are the same religion with you. at my current game i play india. nearly all of my units are outdated and i have 1 unit in every city - not more. but i converted all of my neighbours to christianity. this makes them very friendly with me. they love me. i play on noble. now i have made china (the 2nd in rating - i'm the 1st) my ally through religion. when i get attacked i can get them to declare war on my enemies thus drawing a lot of his forces away from me.

if you are a peaceful player that does NOT mean you have to be weak. the reward for playing peaceful is a good economy which allows you a strong defense.

cosinus

 

[SwedishChef]

Hmmm. My experience has been very different. After winning games on settler (for fun), noble, and prince, I'm not sure I've ever been attacked - and if so, it must have only been once and not that serious. (This is not counting the one time an enemy I'd previously had a war with decided to take a revenge shot at me.)

I have won all these games space race or diplomatically. I cannot say for sure, but I THINK the reason you guys are being attacked might be that you're 7th in power.

I mean, who would you pick to attack in this example: You just got through the early game and had to expand west and north instead of south where you first wanted to because another civ got there first. Then the resources start showing up and you see both iron and oil, which you lack, in the radius of one or two cities to the south, and oil and coal near 1-2 cities to the west. Who do you attack? I hit the guy with the weaker army, in all likelihood (though I admit I'd think about who was likely to vote for me if I'm going for a diplomatic win). I'm presuming the AI is doing the same we are - coveting the goodies!

I'm sure you are careful builder players, as you say. So just watch your "Power" graph and ranking and don't drop below 4 (I prefer 3 out of 7) - keep your military more modern with either upgraded or newly built units. One large stack in a fairly central location in a medium sized empire should be able to reach most of your cities in 2 turns or so via roads, wouldn't you say?

And if the #1 or #2 "Power Graph" nation demands something of you when your army is in the #7 spot? GIVE IT TO THEM.

That's my suggestion. (I got attacked a lot in Civ3 early on, and I noticed that a stronger military seemed to do a lot to make the AI think twice.)

 

[doubledanger]

Well what I do is initially build up a huge army, you've just got to. Get two defensive infantry per city for defense, then build a mobile army of at least 10 units, to use wherever needed. If you don't have this kind of strategic infrastructure the AI is going to take advantage of you.

Problem may be is that you don't have enough money to keep those units updated - Simple - For about three turns cut all research and culture, and just build up your treasury, then selectively upgrade your units. Try to keep your treasury over 1000 at all times, in case an enemy approaches a city you weren't expecting.

That's just my take though.

 

[Si_Lurker]

Upgrading units is not worth it IMHO, unless they are highly promoted - usually a peaceful builder won't have a lot of those due to civics and lack of wars or if you have emergency and you have to upgrade them at the start of sneak attack.

Usually your high production citites can make a defender in 2-3 turns. So once you get new military tech, have one of cities start making new units and disbanding obsolete ones.

Again 2-3 defenders per city without offenders is not so good. Sure you can sit behind the walls with longbowmen, but during this time AI can pillage your entire land, lowering your production capabilites and producing aditional units, tilting balance in it's favour.

 

[Seanirl]

Well you can't expect to present a free country to take without somebody declaring war. Fact is, you need to defend your cities or they'll pounce on your weakness.

 

[bobbobjack]

I think a solution for builders would be to "sacrifice" a city. Instead of building all the good improvements, i choose a city with relatively medium production, i only build a barrack in it and then only units. So while my other good cities can focus on improvements, science and wonders, i still end up with a good army.

 

[mrjepson]

One way to minimize the impacts of war is to have a couple fast units that respond to war by pillaging the enemies improvements. The AI will be much more amenable to peace once it starts losing resources.

I have been playing on Monarch as a peaceful builder and it hasn't been working our for me either. Last night I tried playing only aggressive and attacked the first computer I could find, stealing their free worker they start with and pillaging their improvements. I did this to both my nieghbours and although they hated me for it all they could do was grin and make peace. They also rarely bothered me after that despite hating me as I always had atleast 10 offensive units wandering around (generally killing barbarian cities). In short I think you have to be a bit aggressive in order to survive, otherwise you are just asking for it.

 

[Lord Genghis]

I think SwedishChef makes a good point re: the power of your Civ.

Also be mindful of what Civ's you are sharing the world with, if you happen to have alot of Aggressive leaders on your planet, you need prepare for war, as its a matter of when, not if.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Funny topic because they made culture and "builder" strategies much more powerful in Civ 4 over Civ 3, and weakened military.

All you need to do is devote 1 high production/low commerce city to military that constantly builds a variety of defenders for your empire. Build Walls where necessary and you'll be safe.

 

[Cironir]

I have won all these games space race or diplomatically. I cannot say for sure, but I THINK the reason you guys are being attacked might be that you're 7th in power.

Hmm, my experience differs. Last night I played a "noble" game and I was about 500-800 points ahead of the AI civs (by ca. 1600 AD). Catherine, ranking #2, declared war twice on me, even though I had not gone out of my way to upset her (I also didn't go out of my way to please her.) The wars did not go in her favour, because I had placed quickly available troops all along our border (was planning to invade her and made preperations to damage her infrastructure fast). Perhaps it was because I had gathered troops? Almost human-like behaviour.

 

[Thehistoryman]

I agree. with MeteorPunch. I think the game actually punishes overly agressive play. I have been much more peacful(well more realisticaly so) then i ever was on three.

 

[Padmewan]

I tend towards peaceful builder too, and so I also get caught up in this trap. In my latest game I turned on "Raging Barbarians" and that forces some discipline on you to generate military troops. If you go hunting for those barbs, you'll also pick up a decent amount of XP, although as in Civ3, there's a cap to how much you can advance from fighting barbs.

 

[xifeng]

I would like to add one point: If you block a civ from getting important resources, it may hit you.

 

[Volstag]

I have always been more of a peaceful/culture based Civ player (well, since 3, of course), and I've noticed that aside from aggressive culture bombing this game doesn't really seem to reward peaceful play. Even on Warlord one of the AIs has abitrarily declared war on me every single game I've played and totally steamrolled my outlying (yet important, resourcewise) cities.

This will sound strange, but I've had just the opposite experience with the game. The AI is, seemingly, way too peaceful. Thousands of years can elapse in my games w/o a single war, and when there is a war it's usually very short, no territory changes hands, one-on-one, etc.

In a way, I'm jealous. I'm more of a builder myself, but a game w/o the occassional hostilities is rather, eh, boring.

 

[ffifield]

This will sound strange, but I've had just the opposite experience with the game. The AI is, seemingly, way too peaceful. Thousands of years can elapse in my games w/o a single war, and when there is a war it's usually very short, no territory changes hands, one-on-one, etc.

Tokugawa and Isabella always fight wars with me if they're in the game. I hate 'em both.

 

[joequality]

Tokugawa and Isabella always fight wars with me if they're in the game. I hate 'em both.

yeah, Isabella's a dirty *****: she's attacked me every time

 

[kandalf]

I have never been attacked in the game that Im playing right now and Im at 1750 or something. No one is very angry at me either. And Im so ahead with culture, it's not even funny. I think that next game I will move up to prince or what ever is after noble.