A HUGE issue I've run into: The AI starting right next to you on large maps..

Recently, I've run into an issue with this game. It's not at the end of the game; it's not even midway through the game. It's at the very beginning of the game.

I'll start a game on a large map. But 5 to 10 turns I'll see another civilization. Isn't this a large map? Why is everybody getting spawned right next to me on a large map?

But the AI spawning right next to me isn't an issue. The real issue is how the AI plays. While you're building wonders and stuff, the AI will try to pop a city right next to you. If you get spawned right next to someone; say goodbye to rushing any early wonders.

This has become a huge issue for me. I like to rush early wonders and expand a little later. But I can't do that when the AI is right next to me and popping cities right next to my capital.

And this is on a large map; not a standard or small map, on a large map.

Worse is when you get started by a super aggressive Civ like Montezuma or Genghis Khan. You just cannot build early wonders. You just can't build early wonders and fight off their large swarms on units.

Rarely do I get spawned somewhere where I have space to expand.

Should I just start playing huge maps? Because everytime I play large maps, every civ seems to get spawned right next to me.

By default, the number of AI will increase if you pick a larger world. Remove one or two civs and you should be okay most of the time, though peaceful games will get boring fast. I'm a big fan of low sea level on occasion, myself. That'll give a bit more room to breathe, without turn times taking up the majority of play time.

The game is meant for you to explore and expand, stabilize, and then build. That's reflective of history, too, due to practical concerns, and means that you do not try to build wonders until you do these fundamental activities. It also means that you understand that you give up early wonders as you go higher in difficulty due to the AIs handicaps/cheats (and you may plan to take over AIs to get the wonders they build that you cannot).

Normally, AIs will be maybe 10 tiles or so away from you and each other in order to allow expansion. Cities should be about 3-6 tiles apart, assuming you want to use roads in a cost-effective way. You should (usually) be able found 3-4 cities in a 10 tile radius of your capital quite easily. The AI needs to be able to do the same, of course. You said 5-10 turns, and 2 tiles per turn movement means 10-20 tiles, so the spacing you experience seems fine and certainly not "right next" to you.

The map size changes the number of civs and city-states in order to maintain this spacing.

If it bothers you, decrease the civs and/or city-states, but understand that this will increase barb spawns and get rid of counters to barbs, meaning that you will have to deal with them more directly and more often.

Yeah, the Barbs definitely get a bit more annoying, but I understand his frustration if you're really in the mood for a peaceful game and you end up hugging another civ's capital.

It also depends on the AI civs and the city-state placement near you.

Pure peaceful play is not too common. I'd suggest Archipelago if that is desired because that map avoids a lot of early game encounters.

Sorry, by peaceful game I meant not initiating violence and cutting the holy city that will invariably be founded right on your doorstep down in size. Certainly, entirely peaceful games are not rare enough.

I don't know if it's a HUGE issue. Maybe it's just an issue?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=520161

Is it just like this issue that you posted 2 weeks ago and ignored the replies to?

Yeah not a huge issue , but , an issue , i suppose. You can get spawned close to other civ's on huge maps as well. There are mods that can do things like : let you choose between a few start positions , and , see the whole map in the beginning. I don't like revealing the map on turn 1 though. Its shows a whole bunch of places you can't get to without astronomy, and , you get spammed with all the , goody hut, barb camp , natural wonder notices at the same time.

If ais start right next to you, the AI will most likely make a dow, so its recommend ed that you get defenses up asap. Make a new city or teo on the other side of the capital to prevent ais from building a city next to your capital which can give them an advantage in taking your capital.

The game is meant for you to explore and expand, stabilize, and then build. That's reflective of history, too, due to practical concerns, and means that you do not try to build wonders until you do these fundamental activities. It also means that you understand that you give up early wonders as you go higher in difficulty due to the AIs handicaps/cheats (and you may plan to take over AIs to get the wonders they build that you cannot).

Normally, AIs will be maybe 10 tiles or so away from you and each other in order to allow expansion. Cities should be about 3-6 tiles apart, assuming you want to use roads in a cost-effective way. You should (usually) be able found 3-4 cities in a 10 tile radius of your capital quite easily. The AI needs to be able to do the same, of course. You said 5-10 turns, and 2 tiles per turn movement means 10-20 tiles, so the spacing you experience seems fine and certainly not "right next" to you.

The map size changes the number of civs and city-states in order to maintain this spacing.

If it bothers you, decrease the civs and/or city-states, but understand that this will increase barb spawns and get rid of counters to barbs, meaning that you will have to deal with them more directly and more often.

Click to expand...

So on higher difficulties, should I just not bother with early wonders and just focus on settling? I might do that. Nine times out of ten, I'll get settled close to an AI. The main issue isn't that you get settled right next to them, it's that they love to grab land next to you.

For instance, I had one game where Gajah Muda is 10 tiles away; but he decides to settle right next to me.

So I might just give up on getting any early wonders like the Great Library.

Honestly speaking - Ive had this happen before and I usually just rage quit and reroll.

Once I played it through and having a nearby CIV on diety is sweet because of the science and gold on as early as Turn 15-30.

So Ive gotten used to it. My big thing is availability of DIVERSE luxuries in GOOD city spots. If its all tundra with one deer and a fish and oh look furs - I hate that.

CivAddict2013 said:

So on higher difficulties, should I just not bother with early wonders and just focus on settling? I might do that. Nine times out of ten, I'll get settled close to an AI. The main issue isn't that you get settled right next to them, it's that they love to grab land next to you.

For instance, I had one game where Gajah Muda is 10 tiles away; but he decides to settle right next to me.

So I might just give up on getting any early wonders like the Great Library.

Click to expand...

Um, I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to be able to get all the early wonders unless you're playing on Chieftain or lower. There's your problem.

Perhaps you can monopolize all the wonders later, once you have a tech and production lead. But in the earlier eras, you have to choose which ones you want. And the penalty for wonderspamming has always been falling behind in other matters.

EDIT: Oh, and I'll just point out that when you use a larger map size, the number of civs increases too. I don't know why you'd assume that you should have more space just because the map is larger, unless you specifically lowered the number of civs below the norm for that map size.

Chum said:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=520161

Is it just like this issue that you posted 2 weeks ago and ignored the replies to?

Click to expand...

I think the distance between AI and players is quite random but map types seem to have the biggest effect on it.

The more land available, it tends to spread civs out fairly evenly, contintents/small continents are almost guaranteed to have a few close to mid-range neighbours depending on map size.

Unfortunately most land-based map scripts have static edges and no wrap, which tends to matter a lot especially on wars.

Map size does not only scale civs/city states/hexes, but also the science/policy costs, and warmonger penalties are lower per-city.

Another problem related to this, is that the game seems to LOVE to spawn you next to aggressive Civilizations like Shaka, Germany, Montezuma, Genghis Khan or Asshurbanipal. In my experience, you rarely get spawned next to a Civ who's peaceful. My last game Shaka's capital was less than 10 tiles away from me. This is on a large map.

I hate when I get a good start; only to realize that I'm forced to quit because I'm started next to an aggressive Civ who's right next to me.

There's a minimum tile number between major civs; but it doesn't scale up for huge maps.
This is because if you play with standard number of major AIs & city states for the map size, it really is just as dense on average on huge compared to standard.

CivAddict2013 said:

Another problem related to this, is that the game seems to LOVE to spawn you next to aggressive Civilizations like Shaka, Germany, Montezuma, Genghis Khan or Asshurbanipal. In my experience, you rarely get spawned next to a Civ who's peaceful. My last game Shaka's capital was less than 10 tiles away from me. This is on a large map.

I hate when I get a good start; only to realize that I'm forced to quit because I'm started next to an aggressive Civ who's right next to me.

Click to expand...

Who do your trade routes go to in your magical world where you have no city states and no civs anywhere close to your starting position?

CivAddict2013 said:

Another problem related to this, is that the game seems to LOVE to spawn you next to aggressive Civilizations like Shaka, Germany, Montezuma, Genghis Khan or Asshurbanipal. In my experience, you rarely get spawned next to a Civ who's peaceful. My last game Shaka's capital was less than 10 tiles away from me. This is on a large map.

I hate when I get a good start; only to realize that I'm forced to quit because I'm started next to an aggressive Civ who's right next to me.

Click to expand...

And just who are these peaceful civs? Gandhi? But everyone loves to complain about him, so maybe he isn't that peaceful. Haile Selassie and his missionary-spamming? Ramesses and his wonder-spamming? Hmm...who else?

AiTenshi1 said:

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The map size changes the number of civs and city-states in order to maintain this spacing.

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Click to expand...

LoneRebel said:

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EDIT: Oh, and I'll just point out that when you use a larger map size, the number of civs increases too. I don't know why you'd assume that you should have more space just because the map is larger, unless you specifically lowered the number of civs below the norm for that map size.

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Click to expand...

joncnunn said:

There's a minimum tile number between major civs; but it doesn't scale up for huge maps.
This is because if you play with standard number of major AIs & city states for the map size, it really is just as dense on average on huge compared to standard.

Click to expand...

I just want to point out that there's some misinformation in this thread.

The density of civ placements on the map is NOT maintained. At the default settings, it decreases as you increase the map size. Huge really is huuuuuge. To maintain a density similar to Standard, you would need to place more civs than the default game is hardcoded to handle (22... and then you would also need to add more luxury types!).

Though, as joncunn said, there's a minimum spacing (ripples from the impact site) between civ capitals that's the same on all sizes and does not scale up. Though, even that isn't a hard one, and can be penetrated if the map is overpopulated and space is really needed. Because of this, spacing can seem much more random on larger maps, like Huge, since some civs can be in the middle of nowhere far from others while others are at the minimum spacing (8 tiles between capitals, if anybody is curious... and 6 tiles between city-states and capitals -- that's a hard one and can't be penetrated).

Also, this is why on the larger maps, the penalties for expanding (like policy costs and tech costs) are decreased, along with the unhappiness per city, because there's tons of room (on average) to expand to, and it needs to support more possible cities per civ.

I Usually play on Large Map, Immortal, standard sea level, and with the standard number of civs, and I always found the map "empty". So I always increase the number of civs up to 13-14 unstead of 10.
Don't know if it's a good thing, but I think it's more realistic.