I'm on my fourth game of Civ and the first one where I'm trying to do something else other than just kill and destroy. Actually, I wasn't ready to play a trade and science route to winning, it's just that my current game has me on a fairly small continent with 5 AIs and I have borders with all of them. I feel like I'm trying to hold Europe in Risk....
I'm having trouble with my diplomacy and trading. I've traded maps and technologies, and for the first time in my brief career, I'm trying build my reputation, so I've been trying to be generous with my luxuries (since I do seem to have most of them on the continent). I can't trade them until I have a road built to the AI capitols. My question is how do you do that? I'm trying to court the Germans, just because they border my most vulnerable flank. I've given them gold and had several trades of technology with them. I've built roads right up to their borders, but they won't build roads to connect with them. I've tried moving into their borders and building the roads to connect, but I get threatening warnings from them. I suppose I could ignore them, but then, I'm trying to get along...
Do I have to have nationalism first, or an embassey with them? One iteration of the game I was playing I did get an embassey, and I thought that would allow me to have mutual protection and right of passage, but they didn't seem to be offered to me on my diplomacy screens.
I've got to do something, I'm going to be the main squeezee if I try to go it alone.