Trading When All Powerful

[Panzerking]

I am wondering if anyone has any tips for using trade when you are a powerful empire. I play on Prince Level and have found that when you are "Supreme" other civs are mostly very hostile and so war is quite frequent which hinders trade. Even when not at war sending a caravan or freight to a rival's land will more often than not lead to a Hostile or Icy emissary requesting an audience (then demanding this or that which inevitably leads to war). On a couple of occasions my caravans have received sneak attacks. I wonder if some of the more advanced players deliberately keep themselves weaker (perhaps below Supreme and Mighty) so-as to appease the other civs and make trade-routes easier. At the moment I generally find myself trading only with coastal cities which I can enter without landing anywhere so that I do not have to speak to anyone and the only risk is attacks from other naval vessels. Anyone have any tips??

 

[Ali Ardavan]

At times, I send a cannon fodder along the way. I pick an unneeded obsolete unit and send it along with several caravans. I try to make sure they all make contact with the enemy during the same turn. The enemy spends all its effort in getting rid of the military unit and ignores the caravans.

Similar technique is also useful for conquering cities. Fortify a defensive unit on good defensive ground (mountaions and hills are best) adjacent to a city and watch the AI throw its military at your unit turn after turn.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Maybe oversimplifying but, get an alliance earlier in the game while you are still weaker, then maintain it with gifts. Sometimes I'll even give into their demands if I have pending trade that is dependent on good relations. This makes movement easier without having to worry about ZOC. Also, a cancelled alliance won't send the freight back to your territory (although it will send back ships).

Take advantage of railnets to deliver to inland cities on one turn. (Sometimes you may even find it useful to send your own engineers to rail part of a civ with a target-rich trade environment while you have an alliance.)

 

[ElephantU]

The unhappy emissary is my biggest problem, although I use Tim's "keep 'em happy" approach primarily when I play OCC games. Still, when I am building spaceship parts and want to withhold the techs till I am launched I often withold freight deliveries as well. Dropping them off ships directly into an AI city seems to cut down but not eliminate the diplomatic wrangling. I wonder if the no-talk nature of Partisans might be useful in accompanying the freights? I rarely have any, but it would be worth testing.

 

[Jacen_Fel]

IF your reputation is still intact and you have the number one military they won't be demanding things from you. If there close they might try to make alliances against you and backstab you though. Anyhow, I'd just say keep your rep in-tact always, usually I end games iwith mine on excellent at worst(playing against diety comps) and even they don't go around stabbing me .

 

[sethos]

Since I'm always superior, I don't care about my reputation. If someone backstabs me, he'll pay that with some cities ...
I obey "Sethos's Law": a sneak attacks costs them 2 cities. And they will sneak attack me again and again ...

 

[Lazarus Plus]

If they betray me, I generally take a city and then let them come back to me for peace. Then I "betray" them, having strategically moved my forces to the next city. And so on, until they learn their "lesson" which is that I always pay back my enemies in their own coin.

>insert evil laughter<