surviving a wolf pack

[Hamilton321]

How does one survive an attack by multiple strong, aggressive civilizations at the same time? This happens to me occasionally when there are 2 or more very aggressive civilizations (like Julius Caesar and Napoleon, or Monty and Alex) and I've only been able to make it through without getting conquered or seriously weakened three ways; A. bribe some other people to war. B. draft/whip until my cities had very low population and C. once I was playing as Churchill and I was able to survive via building walls very quickly and then tons of longbowmen and the fighting a very long war of attrition where I was eventually able to subdue one opponent and make peace on reasonable terms with the others.
So I was wondering are there any better ways to deal with these "wolf packs"?

 

[Anysense]

1. Do not mess up diplomacy;
2. Strike first;
3. Bribe them against each other.

 

[PsychopathicWarmonger]

It's important to keep a strong military, regardless of your victory-type, be it cultural/scientific/diplomatic or conquest.
If you do not have a strong military, you will be invaded. It will happen.
Now you were asking about combined invasions. Keeping allies is important to stop that from happening, because often if you want to go to war with someone for a resource/land etc. wouldn't you much rather have an ally to make the whole thing easier? Especially if your target civilization has friends of their own.

Keep on your toes, and have a support network, is what I'll say.
Because if the war-mongering civs notice you're all alone and fragile...

 

[unas876]

If two warmongers go after you at the same time you probably messed up the diplo beforehand. At least in most cases.

If you're using a mod like BUG (I think also BAT) you get the red fist icon next to the civ on the scoreboard when they are at war or, more importantly, when they start plotting war. If you don't, either get one of those mods (very helpful for countless reasons) or keep checking in with the warmongers every turn to see if they say "We have enough on our hands right now" when you try to bribe them on somebody else. That also means they are in war-plotting mode.
So if you know in advance that they are plotting, you have enough time to figure out whether you are a likely target or not and can do everything thats necessary to survive, like whipping city defenders, walls, castles etc, maybe even troops for counter-attacking.

 

[Hamilton321]

I read that Napoleon often faced several enemies at once, but he used "interior lines" to repeatedly emerge victorious, would there be any way to do something similar in civ?

 

[diegobueno]

be part of the wolf pack, not against them, bribe them against each other, and when they are overextended or week, backstab them.