So I've decided to dust off my Civilization 4 game and try my hand at ruling the world. Sadly it has not gone well. I am playing on Noble on a standard continents map. I am trying to avoid early wars since it seems like if I get involved that early all my resources go into fighting the war and by the time I'm done I am a good deal behind on expansion and technology. Most recently I was Toku (Japan). I quickly grabbed Hinduism and started spreading the word. The Chinese and Incas were on my continent. Mao became Hindu, and while most of their cities were Hindu, the Incas founded Judaism and stuck with that. The Chinese and I became the major players on the map, since Inca got screwed by poor starting location. I got to the point where I had a "pleased" relationship with China. We had open borders, trade, and we shared technology regularly. However one turn after agreeing to a trade of furs and corn, China inexplicably declared war on me. I was at like a +8 with him before he declared war (only negative modifier was close borders, had positives from peace, same religion, and trading). Even after he declared war on me our relations were only at cautious. We are pretty much equal score wise. He doesn't even have that much of a military built up. Does the AI just randomly declare war sometimes? I can understand it a little more if it was an aggressive leader but I thought Mao wasn't much of a war guy.
Why do I keep getting attacked?
- Thread starter MrMitra
- Start date
Murky
Deity
In Vanilla, early wars (Axes/Chariot rushes) are generally to your benefit unless you decide to play a peaceful game. I would focus on developing a better early game strategy.
I started another game and I used the the HA rush strat I read somewhere else on here. I'm still amazed though. Even after wiping out a 5 city civilization and still had a good number of horse archers running around plus my city defenses, I still had the second smallest military. I pumped out military units until I had to deal with unhappiness issues yet my military was still considered small. What size of military am I expected to have?
Also is there any feasible strategy for a peaceful early game or is the AI pretty much guaranteed to declare war on me some point in the early game?
Also is there any feasible strategy for a peaceful early game or is the AI pretty much guaranteed to declare war on me some point in the early game?
I think it can be said that you will get into war with someone at some point. This isn't catastrophical as long as you are adequately prepared.
Early DoWs (declaration of war) are a possibility escpecially if you have aggressive neighbours nearby, such as montezuma or alexander or shaka, those are the kind of nutjubs that you would do well to rush before they get too strong.
I'm sure that others who know more of the diplomacy side of civ4 could give you better tips, but the main deal with diplomacy is that you cannot REALLY please everyone.
When you bow towards a certain civ, you're showing your backside to the other
To some extent that's true, A.I. civs have a "worst enemy" and should you interact too much with them (the worst enemy), you will get minus points to your relations with the first civ.
Also it might be good not to be very prudish about religion in the game, oftentimes if you're a "heretic" lets say that the entire civ4 world is either buddhist or hindu, then it's probably not a good idea to be taoist.
As to the size of your military, there are the demographics somewhere around the upper right corner of the screen and there you'll find you're power slider. Its relative to the strength of other know civs I think. If you are not the most "powerful" then it's not catastrophical either, but you should definitely try to keep somewhere near the top3 at least. If you are like the worst in the power rating out of all the civs then you're definitely gonna run into some problems.
Once the warmongers: Alex Shaka Monty see weakness, they go for the kill usually. Also you shouldn't for that reason leave you're border cities weakly defended I think. After early game and astronomy the threat of naval invasions also materializes so coastal cities should get some protection also. It gets trickier if you're right in the middle of the continent of course, but generally you should strongly defend your borders and have a reserve attack force ready to deploy if you get DoWed. Counter-attack and crush the enemy armies, retake possibly lost land's and perhaps even take a few enemy cities for revenge, and try to sue for peace.
War doesn't always have to be a "war of annihilation" as it were, total war to the unconditional surrender. Especially if you feel that waging a big war for a long time against a certain civ might cause other civs to join in while you're still at it.
You should be very careful however before you give strong military techs away as bribes (such as rifling/steel/assembly line etc...)
Also bribing A.I.s into attacking each other is excellent diplomacy, with money and/or techs. If you can do it only with money, then you can be satisfied since the both war waging A.I.s will slow down their tech in favour of waging war and producing units. You might also consider dogpiling a war-waging A.I. yourself, it sometimes yields excellent results, oftentimes the A.I.s cities are very poorly defended, except maybe for the capital, as most of their units would be fighting and enemy elsewhere.
Early DoWs (declaration of war) are a possibility escpecially if you have aggressive neighbours nearby, such as montezuma or alexander or shaka, those are the kind of nutjubs that you would do well to rush before they get too strong.
I'm sure that others who know more of the diplomacy side of civ4 could give you better tips, but the main deal with diplomacy is that you cannot REALLY please everyone.
When you bow towards a certain civ, you're showing your backside to the other
To some extent that's true, A.I. civs have a "worst enemy" and should you interact too much with them (the worst enemy), you will get minus points to your relations with the first civ.
Also it might be good not to be very prudish about religion in the game, oftentimes if you're a "heretic" lets say that the entire civ4 world is either buddhist or hindu, then it's probably not a good idea to be taoist.
As to the size of your military, there are the demographics somewhere around the upper right corner of the screen and there you'll find you're power slider. Its relative to the strength of other know civs I think. If you are not the most "powerful" then it's not catastrophical either, but you should definitely try to keep somewhere near the top3 at least. If you are like the worst in the power rating out of all the civs then you're definitely gonna run into some problems.
Once the warmongers: Alex Shaka Monty see weakness, they go for the kill usually. Also you shouldn't for that reason leave you're border cities weakly defended I think. After early game and astronomy the threat of naval invasions also materializes so coastal cities should get some protection also. It gets trickier if you're right in the middle of the continent of course, but generally you should strongly defend your borders and have a reserve attack force ready to deploy if you get DoWed. Counter-attack and crush the enemy armies, retake possibly lost land's and perhaps even take a few enemy cities for revenge, and try to sue for peace.
War doesn't always have to be a "war of annihilation" as it were, total war to the unconditional surrender. Especially if you feel that waging a big war for a long time against a certain civ might cause other civs to join in while you're still at it.
You should be very careful however before you give strong military techs away as bribes (such as rifling/steel/assembly line etc...)
Also bribing A.I.s into attacking each other is excellent diplomacy, with money and/or techs. If you can do it only with money, then you can be satisfied since the both war waging A.I.s will slow down their tech in favour of waging war and producing units. You might also consider dogpiling a war-waging A.I. yourself, it sometimes yields excellent results, oftentimes the A.I.s cities are very poorly defended, except maybe for the capital, as most of their units would be fighting and enemy elsewhere.
Sincro
Thou hast no Cu, again...
Another possibility is Mao could have been bribed to go to war with you.
I just finished a game where myself (as Zara) Saladin and Ragnar (ugh) were on the same continent, with Pacal, Boudica, Qin and Darius on the other. Boudica and Pacal got the 3 early religions between the two of them, leaving me free to trade confucianism (which I go for in virtually every game via oracle slingshot since it also provides early courthouses) to the both of them. To make a long story short we became one big happy confucianist family, and my relations with both hovered between pleased and friendly the entire game. With the only exception being the 20 turn war I had with Ragnar after he, while already at war with Darius, suddenly declared on me (who was the tech leader, pop leader, and power leader) out of the blue, with Pacal and Darius joining in as well. Bribery is the only possible explanation for why he would suddenly attack me when his invasion force is staring at half a dozen battleships plus 4 fully loaded carriers on the seaward side, and his target land city has a dozen marines and artillery each plus a squadron of bombers.
When it comes to diplomacy, I've come to realize that the best thing to do is, find a couple civs who like each other, make friends with them both, and basically tell all the other civs to kiss off. Obviously try to pick civs that tech well on their own so you keep a good trade partner if you can arrange it. Trying to be good friends with everyone usually ends up being mediocre friends with everyone due to AI 'you traded with our worst enemy' hate, and that can easily end up as the AI dogpile on the human.
I just finished a game where myself (as Zara) Saladin and Ragnar (ugh) were on the same continent, with Pacal, Boudica, Qin and Darius on the other. Boudica and Pacal got the 3 early religions between the two of them, leaving me free to trade confucianism (which I go for in virtually every game via oracle slingshot since it also provides early courthouses) to the both of them. To make a long story short we became one big happy confucianist family, and my relations with both hovered between pleased and friendly the entire game. With the only exception being the 20 turn war I had with Ragnar after he, while already at war with Darius, suddenly declared on me (who was the tech leader, pop leader, and power leader) out of the blue, with Pacal and Darius joining in as well. Bribery is the only possible explanation for why he would suddenly attack me when his invasion force is staring at half a dozen battleships plus 4 fully loaded carriers on the seaward side, and his target land city has a dozen marines and artillery each plus a squadron of bombers.
When it comes to diplomacy, I've come to realize that the best thing to do is, find a couple civs who like each other, make friends with them both, and basically tell all the other civs to kiss off. Obviously try to pick civs that tech well on their own so you keep a good trade partner if you can arrange it. Trying to be good friends with everyone usually ends up being mediocre friends with everyone due to AI 'you traded with our worst enemy' hate, and that can easily end up as the AI dogpile on the human.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
Learn the AI personalities. Both Chinese leaders can attack at pleased, although their unitprob is low so they are generally not too impressive. Annoying to attack due to traits though.
r_rolo1
King of myself
Sorry Dave , but that is a almost worthless piece of advice, atleast in terms of deterring a AI of attacking you. Having 0.99 of a AI power is exactly the same as having 0.01 in terms of AI DoW mechanics and obviously there are some leaders that will attack you even with less power than you, like Monty or S.Bull. It will surely help you if you are attacked though
This is more like it
Diplomacy based in knowing what AI are more trigger happy makes wonders in terms of avoiding attacks.
Hero
NPC
No one likes you.
troytheface
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2002
- Messages
- 3,262
that was alot of talk about adopting this and them having that
much simpler is
"All attacks have one thing in common. they try to exploit a weakness. In Civ terms that means you when you have not built enough units. One of the best pieces of advice ever written on the forums was by an unknown who suggested to a new player when asked about how to play this game,
"build a bunch of axe"
from "Attacko's the Art of Defense in Civ4"- 2008
the evidence is clear
much simpler is
"All attacks have one thing in common. they try to exploit a weakness. In Civ terms that means you when you have not built enough units. One of the best pieces of advice ever written on the forums was by an unknown who suggested to a new player when asked about how to play this game,
"build a bunch of axe"
from "Attacko's the Art of Defense in Civ4"- 2008
the evidence is clear
r_rolo1
King of myself
...so clear that no one can see it
I'm proud of our warmonger Great leader.but the game puts PRO on him, don't know why, the slogan "The best defence is offence" came from China.
but the game puts PRO on him, don't know why, the slogan "The best defence is offence" came from China.
Well, I'm sure it was hard to decide what leaders had to get what traits based on their historical personalities. I can guess, china leaders got protective because of the chinese wall
Well, I'm sure it was hard to decide what leaders had to get what traits based on their historical personalities. I can guess, china leaders got protective because of the chinese wall
thank you for reminding, I already forgot the wall is in China.
actually it's not ONE continuous wall, but many short lengths, owned by different nations on this land 400BC.
later we renew it just for tourism.
history of China is written by blood, like others, but more in quantity.
Continental Op
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2008
- Messages
- 242
Peaceful early game is possible when you know all the leaders and how to deal with them. Just recently I started a game playing as Toku (just because I wanted to challenge myself a bit, Noble is getting too easy but I don't feel confident enough to try Prince just yet) and send him to space, preferably in a permanent alliance with some other civ (it's a huge map and I'm not in the mood for domination tediousness, also I've never tried PA before and want to see just how that hybrid nation works).
As Tokugawa early rush is not a good strategy if you don't want to bankrupt your empire, so my basic strategy was to go for pottery immediately to get those cottages up and play nice until Samurais. So I wasn't happy to find out my closest neigbour was Montezuma. For a while I was afraid that he was the only other guy in the continent with me, luckily that was not the case. There were also Napoleon, Wang Kon (who was the most hated enemy of both Monty and Nappy!) and Frederick, Wang's buddy.
So as soon as I could I opened borders with everybody except Wang Kon, traded, gave in to demands and so on. Of course this is not enough to be safe from the likes of Monty, so I started to bribe Monty to attack Wang Kon. Right after that I sold construction to Wang - I'm going to rush Monty at some point, and I don't want for him to grow too strong. When Freddy joined the war, I sold construction to Monty (he belongs to me). When the war was over, I bribed Monty to attack Freddy again right away and capitalized on them to get the money to upgrade my swords to samurais when the time comes. Napoleon is not going to be a problem any time soon - he's isolated by mountains.
And now I have a great tech lead and loads of cash, but the bad part is that I'm not very high on the power scale. Hopefully that will change after I've promoted my swords and axes to samurais and archers to crossbows and longbows, because soon it will become the time for Montezuma to bite the bullet. But so far I have been safe from my enemies. Of course different leaders require different methods.
azzaman333
meh
I didn't read the OP, but aiming to not annoy anyone will inevitably annoy everyone and make you hated by all. You have to pick a side and make sure you have a handful of allies so that when your enemies come knocking you won't get ganged.
Having a large military does not negatively affect happiness. Even with the pacifism civic it only results in a loss of gold. You should build a military that is capable of taking out enemy stacks and ignore the power graph. On the higher difficulty levels you aren't going to be able to keep up with the AI in production anyway. You have to beat the computer through intelligence rather than raw power.
There are a number of ways you can affect the situation diplomatically, but unfortunately there's nothing you can do to guarantee you won't be attacked. I was once Cyrus' only ally on the globe and had a larger military, yet he still betrayed me and invaded.
azzaman333
meh
That's just wrong. There are plenty of things you can do to avoid being attacked, however you need to know the attack thresholds of the specific leaders that you're trying to avoid being attacked by.
take it as an opportunity to eliminate your rivals without having to suffer some diplo penalty of you, yourself declaring war on someone
don't be afraid of early DoWs, though they are really annoying, those attacks do not involve SoDs, 3-4 city garrison archers will do per city. be ready for running slavery and the farms, though. After defending, it's your turn to destroy them, if you can't or you don't want to, at least ask for tech/s or gold for peace payment
don't be afraid of early DoWs, though they are really annoying, those attacks do not involve SoDs, 3-4 city garrison archers will do per city. be ready for running slavery and the farms, though. After defending, it's your turn to destroy them, if you can't or you don't want to, at least ask for tech/s or gold for peace payment
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