Getting conquered instantly
I've been getting into civ 4 recently, but having trouble getting past the early game. I've been trying to balance my cities production, science, and military, however, all of my games have resulted in a conquest focused civ, like genghis khan, or ragnar, declaring a surprise war around turn 130 (standard pace) and sending in more troops than I could ever handle. I even had like 5-6 axemen in each of my cities before the war, but they sill conquer my cities, resulting in a defeat. Is there something I'm missing? am I really just not building a strong enough military. I feel like if I focused production any more on my military, I might as well just be going for a conquest victory. I even tried to strengthen our relationship as much as possible, but it was so early that all I could offer was open borders. Any help would really be appreciated. btw im also on noble difficulty because I heard that was the most even difficulty between the ai and player.