The fear factor thingy on the diplomacy screen.

[Rabble]

How accurate is it?
No other civs fear me they are mostly 4/9, 2/9 and even 1/9.
Which is wierd because i don't think i suck that much.
I have 4 cities, decent infrastructure and so on.
Hell, I'm on one of the easiest setting.

Do i suck THAT bad?

[admiral awesome]

How big and advanced is your army compared to the ai?

[Rabble]

I dunno, i didn't fight them yet.
I'm only judging using that fear factor thingy.

I'm actually not sure of fighting them since this factor thingy saying i might get my ass handed to me.

[Saathiya]

I don't think it's an indication of how likely you are to win, so much as how likely it is that they will all declare war on you at the same time. Which is weird because you can ally by fear..

Highly recommended: save before going to war, if you're planning to fight. Be careful about the Slavics because they can complete heal their units between turns.

[Michael]

Originally posted by Majestic 12 (Rabble):

How accurate is it?
No other civs fear me they are mostly 4/9, 2/9 and even 1/9.
Which is wierd because i don't think i suck that much.
I have 4 cities, decent infrastructure and so on.
Hell, I'm on one of the easiest setting.

Do i suck THAT bad?

As far as I can tell, it is just an indication of the size of their army vs yours. I would not take that to mean you are likely to lose in reality, though, because the AI isn't all that good at war. But it depends on the situation.

I tend to disregard it when assessing the AI as a threat. Instead I look at their proximity to me, the terrain between us, and our relative tech levels. If they are in a position where they could easily get a large number of units to you in a short amount of time with no choke points, then it is time to start taking that 1/9 seriously.

[admiral awesome]

As far as i know:
Fear is only an indicator of the compared military power of both factions. Calculated by the strength of your units, it can be improved through amount and/or tech level of them.

Respect is calculated by your playstyle combined with the extra(!) traits of the other faction. This means that your infrastructure counts towards the respect indicator. More precisely: leaders with perks like
- developer like you if your infrastructure is superior,
- expansionist like you if you have more territory.

However you can also passively improve your respect indicator through military potential if the other faction picked traits like
- defensive or imperial (like or dislike based on average combat strength of all mil. units),
- disciplined (veterancy of your units),
- efficient (number of mil. units) or
- practical (strength of your most powerful unit)

Respect and fear are both important for a declaration of war. If respect is high and fear is 1, they wont start a war.

[Ryika]

Army-size is a factor, but fear is mainly driven by your military actions. You can have the most modern units in the game, as long as you're a pacifist nobody will really care to get their fear up to max. But go and conquer some neighbors and you'll quickly find yourself on 9/9 with everyone who's left.

So as a peaceful player, fear is generally not your "currency".

[SpiderKhan]

yeah if you walk units up to their borders or destroy their neighbors, their fear tends to go up, at least some. If you have a much larger military than them it seems to exacerbate the issue. If you've destroyed some of their cities and then come to a peace where you have the big war score advantage then they'll also spike in fear. Just having the army doesn't seem to raise it very much.

[leandrombraz]

Basically Fear is the new warmonger penalty system but with different rules and consequences. The same things that would make other civs see you as a warmonger in Civ V / BE vanilla now make their fear increase, which is a less reliable way to do diplomacy (Fear drop really fast if you start to lose units and cities). So now conquering cities actually help your diplomacy instead if giving you a diplomatic penalty.

[BuffHamster]

Good advice from fudge and Ryika, thanks guys.

I was a bit curious about the fear and how it can work for you. Truth be told, I have not seen anything higher than 8/9 in both Respect and Fear in my games and wondered what was lacking. Was 9/9 even possible?

I didn't consider quality as part of the fear formula and would just build more units. "Once you build 'em, ya gotta train 'em too."