AI won't build cities! Names missing!

Hi all,
after modifying rules.txt in order to give military units performance (and cost) closer to reality, I noticed that most AI civs will refuse to build cities.
The AI civs will have their Capital, but once that is done, its military units will run all over the place, there will be trade routes, and diplomats to steal techs... but no further city building.
Maybe the Capital city will quickly reach 12-16 in pupolation, but it will still be a City-state.
OR
At most, there may be 2, 3 further cities, all with huge populations (and next to impossible to corrupt and buy out with diplomats) while I may have as many as 20 cities, all around 4-6 population in size.

ALSO

Depending on civilization, city names may go missing (mostly the Zulu/other green AI civs) so that I will see an enemy unit belonging to [...] I know it belongs to "green" but that's all there's to it.

Where did I go wrong ?

Very interesting. Do not know how to undo this but this is worth a close study. AI cities do not often go above 8 and cities above 12 are quite rare.

I suggest you post the exact changes you made.

Here's the Rules.txt file I run. I think it's a lot more fun.

I have also modified units.gif a little. I created a "fortress" unit (i.e. a coastal fortress I could use as a military unit, not as a city improvement, in order to shoot first)
Unfortunately, these units MUST have a movement factor of 1 or else they cannot "fire" (i.e. attempt to move into an adjacent square) and this means the AI sends them sailing into high seas...

The only mod to game.txt is the "X and Y civs sign Pact to contain Roman Aggression => Expansion"

Try it, see what you think...

I imagine that the AI's decisions on whether to build settlers or warriors, etc, are based mainly on the data in rules.txt, such as the cost of the unit, its attack factor, etc. So, if you make the warrior unit strong and/or cheap, the AI will not produce as many settlers. Does that seem to be what's happening?

I have a suspicion. I notice you have changed the terrain rules, so that the AI will not irrigate anything except tundras untill it reaches Republic. Now, the AI generally seems to regard settlers/engineers as being primarily there to work the land - the founding of new cities is kind of an accidental byproduct. So if it is programmed not to see any projects till Republic, it won't have any reason to build engineers and so will not found new cities either - instead the population of the opening city will keep growing, as no inhabitants are turned into settlers.
I cannot guarantee this is the reason - but there may be a way to check. You say there have been some games, where the AI did build more cities. Were these games where there were tundras or hills (which are still mined from the beginning) in the territory of the opening city - or where the AI had reached Republic?

As to the missing city names on units, I have no suggestions.

PS: I see you've added a possibility of converting ocean into plain - any luck with that?

X the Magnifice said:

I have a suspicion. I notice you have changed the terrain rules, so that the AI will not irrigate anything except tundras untill it reaches Republic. Now, the AI generally seems to regard settlers/engineers as being primarily there to work the land - the founding of new cities is kind of an accidental byproduct. So if it is programmed not to see any projects till Republic, it won't have any reason to build engineers and so will not found new cities either - instead the population of the opening city will keep growing, as no inhabitants are turned into settlers.
I cannot guarantee this is the reason - but there may be a way to check. You say there have been some games, where the AI did build more cities. Were these games where there were tundras or hills (which are still mined from the beginning) in the territory of the opening city - or where the AI had reached Republic?

As to the missing city names on units, I have no suggestions.

PS: I see you've added a possibility of converting ocean into plain - any luck with that?

Click to expand...

Hi, yes, I know I changed the terrain rules, just like I changed a lot (but in sincerely small amount) throughout the entire "rules.txt" file.

OK, I just realized where I may have made the mistake, I'll try to restore the terraforming to "despotism".

Now... Why should Zulus and other "green" AI Civs not name their cities?
It's awfully confusing when I investigate the Green AI
only to discover it has... 3 cities, named "me, myself and I"

Wait a moment, I had understood that it was just the units from green civs, that didn't show their hometown. But if the cities as such are shown as nameless, it might be the city.txt file that has some errors (though why these should be in all the green civs beats me). Try taking a look at that file.

You changed the names of the civilization in Rules.txt to their Italian counterparts. Is there an Italian City.txt? If not, have you changed the names of the civilization in city.txt to match? If the answer is no to both, then that is probably the cause of cities with no names.

OK, I have both the original (US / UK) and the "original OEM but translated into Italian" game CDs.
The English Language CD I bought in the UKm the Italian I bought in Italy, and had to "retranslate" all the bogus expressions which appeared to have been translated with "Google Embarrass me" instead of hiring a profesiosnal for the job.

Any time I play and fool around with "rules.txt" or any other txt or gif file, I Always keep the original aside as "rulesoriginal" or "unitsoriginal" etc.

The problem arises only in the Italian CD, after I changed a few unit details (but never ever touched the CIV part)

I'm still befuddled...

> AI cities do not often go above 8 and cities above 12 are quite rare.

Are you serious? In every game I have played, the CPs make their cities as big as possible. CP cities above 12 are a common occurrence.

I am very serious. Do you play regular Civ2? What difficulty level? Around which game year does your typical game end?

> Do you play regular Civ2?

I currently play the Civ II which is sold online as part of the "Civilization Collection". Before that, I played what I assumed to be the only release of Civ II in existence. In other words, my Civ II has always been pretty much as regular as I can imagine. Neither have I made any significant modifications to the rules files.


> What difficulty level?

I have played many games on difficulty levels 1 to 5.


> Around which game year does your typical game end?

I have records of 14 games, 2 of which I lost before 150 rounds, 10 lasted between 300 and 500 rounds, and 2 lasted beyond 500 rounds. I don't think the earlier games of which I haven't kept any records were much different.