Help in civilization4

[abhijit_reddevil]

I am playing in the 'noble' difficulty level. Everything's OK until when some of my opponents start crbbing about my trade deals with some other party, demanding that I cancel my deals. It is a trend I have noticed that they always demand me to stop trading with someone with whom I have very good relation, mainly because we have exchanged resources and have the same relation. I think that is a strategy of the computer components to start war, surely when I refuse, they declare war on me after I refuse them 2-3 times.

How to deal with such situations? And what is the best way to respond when a civilization with whom I have a neutral stand, demand to stop trading with my best friend in the game or demand secrets of a new technology. I have also seen that when they offer to exchange technologies, they always offer lower techs, specially Manse Musa (malinese) and Montezuma (Aztec). If I refuse, then they always declare war.

I have also seen that when I go for early expansion, economy gets stifled, as a result science research percentage takes a beating and takes many turns more, so I am not leading my opponents. If I slow down in expansion, then my opponents always seem to occupy valuable resources like horse, iron, copper, ivory, stone, marble, etc. Early I always use the civics like slavery, organised religion and the like, which have medium upkeep.

I know very few people here play this game, but I am looking forward to some tips from those who have played it.

I have checked out the www.civfanatics.com forums, but there is nothing satisfactory regarding these diplomatic strategies.

Thanks in advance, people and please reply soon.

 

[siriusb]

I've just started to play with Noble but am yet to win in this difficulty. I basically only like the early game where the settlling and adventure goes on, so I don't always finish the game (or get finished in the game). Anyways, these strategies may not make you win but this is how I go about:


- When any low ranked civ asks me to stop trading with a high scoring one, I choose to continue trading with the high scoring one.

It also depends on my current situation. If I am yet to have a good size military and the civ asking me is in close proximity to me with a bulging military, then I accede, for now.

I think the AI assesses your military might from the number of military units in your border city that it close to the AI. If it feels that it can take you, then it will start preparing to go to war with you. So, pile the military on the frontier cities and avoid building anything important (wonders, etc) in them. I have a constant arms race with the AI to keep it at bay.

I also give one tech away to a potentially large civ so that he will stay his military fingers off of me. Religion is a very major factor in friendliness (+/-5), so I get as many early religions as possible. I then use one city to crank out missionaries to keep the other civs pleased. But, of course, there will always be one or two morons predisposed to killing me.

-Don't expand too far in the early game as you know the distance from your capital increases maintenance costs. But how do I reach those resources? I basically build 3 scouts as soon as possible and send them to collect gold from tribal villages. After some 50 or so turns I wil have enough gold to go in the red for sometime and still manage to bag one of the early religions.Also, as sson as possible, I build courthouses in the far cities.