Small Island Maps - AI can't cope

[aviator99_uk]

Monarch / Emperor SP

I suspect that small islands map is something many people avoid but there is a property we all get hit by which the AI just seemed to walk into.....

City distance penalty

Example:

If we REX its very easy now to put the economy down the toilet by placing citys too far away from palace / FP / V especially before CoL, so we avoid it. However the AI does not, if its given the oportunity.

I have now seen the AI act in the following manner:

Ice world small islands with lots of small islands (possible to circum nav with a workboat)

start 2 or 3 citys on first island:
then it'll build a galley+settler+archer and send it off, however if the AI finds a valued resource (any resource) it ignores the distance to palace and plonks a city down which must be maintenance -10 or more almost straightaway.

With such a small economy to begin with it is economic suicide for the AI, so much so that I spent a long time convinced that the AI had a distance cheat until I entered worldbuilder and gave myself a spy to go looksee. and lo! maintainance costs were similar to mine

Even Mansa has the inbuilt tendency to spread far and wide and cripple himself!

Easy to get first on tech by mid game without even building a cottage!!!

Obviously on large continent maps the AI relies upon boarders and such to hem itself in and prevent over reaching itself, but on a map where it can it, it seems it does.

I have managed to pop a goody hut on this kind of map mid game and get galleons as a free tech ! Now I'm going to see if I can do it again and give it away before CoL is commonly available just to see quite how overwhelming the AI's REX drive actually is. Can it be possible to get the AI into a situation where its science slider is 0% and its cashflow has gone into the red?

Anyone else seen this ?