AI during early game makes a city far away from its capital for no reason

Raider

Raider

Warlord
Joined
Sep 3, 2002
Messages
169
I just recently started playing a new game for the first time since the Oct 2014 patch and I noticed that in several of the games I played, the AI whose capital is really far away (I mean like 2/3 of a continent away) and who has plenty of space to expand in his own vicinity, takes a settler across half the map and plops a city near me, within maybe 6 to 10 tiles of my capital. The city is downright stupid and indefensible. It makes no sense.

Anyone else experienced this and know what's going on? Prior to the October patch, I have not seen anything like this happen. Really weirds me out and also is pretty annoying since one AI is basically trolling me by planting a dumb city near me and forcing me to go war for a dumb reason.
 
Settling for a strategic resource that you can't see yet could be the reason, or just city spamming. But a DoW is coming for sure.
 
baranysos said:
Settling for a strategic resource that you can't see yet could be the reason, or just city spamming. But a DoW is coming for sure.
Click to expand...

Not really. I could actually understand that. There is actually nothing there and there is no DOW. Last game Ottomans treked their settler right past 2 luxury resources by their borders, through the roman cities, past my cities and planted it all the way across the continent from their own capital.
 
It's just spam then. Or maybe AI has a simple showoff logic 'i can therefore i do' :)
 
Strategic resources, probably. But also - consider that if the AI's first and second cities are far apart, it'll discourage other players from settling in the gaps so they have a lot more potential territory to work with when placing other cities. The logic works if the human player does the same.
 
From a machine's logic, it might make sense to build a city near your Civ, load it up with purchased military and then attack, rather then transport those units across the continent. This would be too transparent for a human player, but maybe not for a microchip.
 
Raider said:
Not really. I could actually understand that. There is actually nothing there and there is no DOW. Last game Ottomans treked their settler right past 2 luxury resources by their borders, through the roman cities, past my cities and planted it all the way across the continent from their own capital.
Click to expand...

Are you sure there`s nothing there? why would the AI make a placement miles away from its city to nothing? There must be some kind of resource- look again. Providing a picture would also help.

p.s. perhaps it is a random element added to spice things up: add a `human` quality to it.
 
Another obvious reason for the AI to settle a city close to yours but far from the rest of theirs, especially in the early game, is to establish Trade Routes with you. Early on, Trade Route lengths are much shorter so their Caravans and Cargo Ships might not otherwise be able to reach you.
 
AI has it's logic. Yesterday Egypt put second city where? The best spot I can imagine :) Between two cities of Atylla and capital city of Assyria. What is more interesting, Atylla went for me, Assyria went for Egypt - for capital on the other part of continent. Egypt attacked Atylla... And I was warmonger because I cleaned this mess ;)
 
Parts of what is going on:

As above, the fertility formula counts the hidden resources.

The formula only decreases value of hexes already within another cities cultural boundary (and even then only by 50%).

When you combine how good capital areas are with some of these hexes not yet taken in by the capital, it jumps pretty high on the list if the AI knows about it.

The main thing you can do is delay sharing embassies until you finish your first ring (or alternatively place a fast unit out there so you can DOW the AI if it sends a settler your way and enslave to a worker)

Also note that the built in help for planting a city uses the same formula, so you can see for yourself some of the hexes the AI would prioritize whenever you have an active settler by turning that on.
 
joncnunn said:
Parts of what is going on:

As above, the fertility formula counts the hidden resources.

The formula only decreases value of hexes already within another cities cultural boundary (and even then only by 50%).

When you combine how good capital areas are with some of these hexes not yet taken in by the capital, it jumps pretty high on the list if the AI knows about it.

The main thing you can do is delay sharing embassies until you finish your first ring (or alternatively place a fast unit out there so you can DOW the AI if it sends a settler your way and enslave to a worker)

Also note that the built in help for planting a city uses the same formula, so you can see for yourself some of the hexes the AI would prioritize whenever you have an active settler by turning that on.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that the in game advice of where to place you settler takes into account hidden resources?
 
I really do not get that in game advice. When I build the settler and give the move command I see a spot or two suggested in the area where I wish to settle, but when the settler is already there and ready to settle a city, the original suggestions have changed, or sometimes there are more suggestions or less suggestions. I believed it was because in the meantime I revealed more of the map, but sometimes this happens in areas that are completely scouted. One thing that clearly influences it is the barbarian activity, if there is a barb camp nearby it won't make any suggestions in that area.
 
lockandload said:
Are you saying that the in game advice of where to place you settler takes into account hidden resources?
Click to expand...

Yup since it calls the same function. It's done this for previous versions as well.

claudiupb said:
I really do not get that in game advice. When I build the settler and give the move command I see a spot or two suggested in the area where I wish to settle, but when the settler is already there and ready to settle a city, the original suggestions have changed, or sometimes there are more suggestions or less suggestions. I believed it was because in the meantime I revealed more of the map, but sometimes this happens in areas that are completely scouted. One thing that clearly influences it is the barbarian activity, if there is a barb camp nearby it won't make any suggestions in that area.
Click to expand...

Yes, the function zeros out when there are barb camps nearby and in addition, there is a limit on number of hexes it searches at all is based on the settlers current position.
 
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