AI city founding

Hi all,

I gave the newest patch a go on my favorite TSL Earth (which I overloaded with European civs). There is not much room to expand in Europe, but each of the civs can found at least two other cities within their correct historical borders - or at least very close to them. The city placement is the standard "3 tile" rule by the way.

It was working out in the previous version, but with the newest patch the civs opt for sending settlers into more distant lands - For example I had a 3rd Greek settler venture all the way into the Caucasus, skipping prime real estate in Crimea. Germany got bordered up, but had a chance to found two cities on the Oder river, yet the settler kept loitering around trying to find a hole into obviously other lands - it is still there, bouncing around the Polish border while sitting on prime real estate.

What is the logic here? Does the AI go for resources mainly these days? Is it mainly luxury resources? I noticed that (referring to my two examples above) despite Crimea having a lot of horses/wheat, Greece went for a more distant city in the Caucasus near a source of salt, and the resources which city borders could cover in Germany's case were those Germany already possessed. Can anyone confirm this?

I'm asking because I'm thinking of starting a new game, and modifying the map's resource placement to encourage AI civs to first expand around their own historical block before venturing out.

Thanks in advance!

From the newest patch:

Changed MINIMUM_SETTLE_FERTILITY to 20000, up from 5000 to keep AI civs from settling worthless plots. Added some logging code to track plot values.

BTW, hello world!

It doesn't appear to be fixed, though. Anyone got that pic of the size 14 AI city on a single ice tile in the middle of the ocean with a single fish tile?

It's better than it was; I'm not seeing the AI was nearly as much happiness problems as it was.

What's the difficulty level? If on Immortal+, the AI handicap bonuses from being at that level stack sufficently with the AI default handicap bonus for a size 14 city to be useful to the AI just for the science (provided that the AI cash built a Library & University)

Arbooz said:

From the newest patch: Changed MINIMUM_SETTLE_FERTILITY to 20000, up from 5000 to keep AI civs from settling worthless plots. Added some logging code to track plot values. BTW, hello world!

Click to expand...

Welcome to CivFanatics!!

In my current game I'm alone on my small continent(with 2 CSs). I usually run a 3 city campaign. To the north is oil, a natural wonder, and antiquity site, and plenty of Forrest. I couldn't settle there early on as I would have been in the red for happiness so I let it be. Civ being Civ things got in the way(World Fair, Shaka etc...) of settling up there so I left it be expecting the AI to settle there quick smart. It was only until the modern era(for me) when America and the Inca settled 3 cities up there.

Even prime site may not be taken quickly.

The opposite to that is my second post patch Order game(and most satisfying). Again on a continent on my jack jones I settle 3 cities to the north, opting not to settle south(so all can have sea-based food caravans). Very early on France sticks 3 cities on my continent. It was only when I took all 3(industrial age for me) and researched electricity and refrigeration did I see why he settled where he did.....