stop asking me to open my borders

[Oggums]

I always play totally isolationist and I've never had a problem winning a game. Now that may change as my difficulty levels increase, but so far I haven't seen any reason to open my borders.

As you increase your difficulty level, you will start needing the extra trade and ability to send in missionaries, as well as the improved relationship it gives that you'll probably need to start tech and resource trading (and also to keep them from attacking you). If you don't open borders, they'll start demanding tributes. And if you refuse those, they'll come knocking with an army and try to take it.

 

[automator]

friendly ally can see you are weak and send a stack in - they do it all the time to me.

No, no they can't. Part of the change to cIV from civ3 is that once war is declared, all units are kicked out of the borders. So if they've sent in a superstack in open borders, once they declare war the units will be sent outside your borders and they can then move in. If your undefended city is away from your border, it'll take a couple turns before the AI gets there.

 

[Eigenvector]

A couple of turns, there's enough time to amass a huge army to counter...

 

[BCLG100]

for some reason civ4 it takes me ages to get my war machine rolling, during which time i often lose a city or 2 (i get them back) its just annoying.

 

[Kieran]

No, no they can't. Part of the change to cIV from civ3 is that once war is declared, all units are kicked out of the borders. So if they've sent in a superstack in open borders, once they declare war the units will be sent outside your borders and they can then move in. If your undefended city is away from your border, it'll take a couple turns before the AI gets there.

I know. They only have a single unit scouting inside your borders that gathers all the info they need to know. The superstack moves in from their side after they declare war. The point is they know what to build and how many.

 

[ZippyRiver]

Open borders are ok. Opening up to a civ right next to you takes a bit more strategy.

For the trade part, it's better to have open borders with a civ far away as you get more money. If you open borders with one far away and one close, you might lose a couple of distant routes for a cheap close one, but i am not sure about that. Will have to check that out.

For neighboring civs, I have found they usually want open borders to send in their missionaries (Egypt loves doing that). Once they have their missionary spread the "gospel according to Sid", they don't need open borders to see what is going on around your empire. For local open borders, i will sign them but change to theoracy right after. If they want to scout out my map, fine. So what. As long as i can deny them the "eternal spy network" any info they get from scouting will be irrelevant by the time they decide to start a war.

given that thought, it seems they quit asking for open borders when you do have theocracy chosen.

 

[cinattra]

I can't imagine isolationist working until you get mercantilism or whatever it is that allows you to trade with your own cities.

 

[RED DIAMOND]

Since I always play as Mansa Musa, I go for mysticism,, meditaion and Buddhism. Then get the Oracle and as the gift take Monarchy. You can then develop those wineries. Then moved to the theo tech, prior to open borders tech. Once I have my missionary army ready to invade and spread the word, I open the borders and the enemy can't stop the spread and therefore can't stop my money making machine.

However, I did notice on higher levels that they tend to "figure out" your plan after a few cities and if they have it they will adopt theo on ya, heck even Ghandi went theo on me.

 

[Point13]

Since I always play as Mansa Musa, I go for mysticism,, meditaion and Buddhism. Then get the Oracle and as the gift take Monarchy. You can then develop those wineries. Then moved to the theo tech, prior to open borders tech. Once I have my missionary army ready to invade and spread the word, I open the borders and the enemy can't stop the spread and therefore can't stop my money making machine.

However, I did notice on higher levels that they tend to "figure out" your plan after a few cities and if they have it they will adopt theo on ya, heck even Ghandi went theo on me.

What a bastard, I hate playing against theos. I can't spread my 2nd religion (I usually get 2) I use organized religion myself, the building bonus rocks.

 

[la cosa nostra]

I'm playing a game as an isolationist keeping all my borders closed.
Every 5 turns all the leaders ask me 'How does this deal sound? open borders for open borders'
Will they just drop it?

Hey Kerian:

*open borders

how does this deal sound?

 

[Abdomination]

When war is declared by the computer, aren't all hostile units automatically ejected from your borders?

And founding a holy city and opening borders is a fantastic way to bring an extra 20+ gold into your civ

 

[calyth]

I still don't quite understand all this isolationist game play.
Religion can still spread (but much more limited) to your territory. If you happen to pick a religion that you didn't found, then the AI could simply build a shrine and know how spread out your troops are anyways.
And if an AI wants to fight another AI, so be it. As long as the guy being clobbered isn't my friend per se, I don't see any reason to prevent them wasting away their production by creating more and more military units.

 

[Thalassicus]

As has been stated, the AI is unable to determine the distribution of your armed forces without scouting out your territory personally.

Also, another point to mention is that once all your trade routes are used up, there's not much benefit to opening additional borders with civs.

Thirdly, having open borders with everyone makes everyone uniformly mad

So I use these three things together. Open borders with a distant, territory-controlling civ or two in a 7-civ game, and leave all the rest closed. This way I enjoy both the trade benefits and my neighbors are less likely to be aware of my weaknesses. I play non-religious civs, so I don't lose anything there, and carefully pick which civs to ally with to prevent difficult diplomatic relations.

One other point is that having closed borders prevents them from settling land behind you, including by sea, all the way to Astronomy. I've used this to my advantage to secure a strip across part of a continent, blocking access to the land behind it until I am ready to expand into it myself.