Blue Circles

[G Julius Caesar]

Does anyone follow the AI's suggestion of blue circles to settle in?

Its probably my poor strategy decisions, but I find in 2/3 of the cases I dont follow cos I think I know better.

 

[drkodos]

I make my own decisions based on specific goals at the time, but quite often it is a tile that has been blue circled.

 

[Bradlius]

I generally take the blue circle as a pretty good suggestion, about like the "what to build next" suggestion in the city menu, but the computer has no idea of my strategic goals.
A lot of times I place a city for strategic reasons, like blocking off access to my empire from a neighbor or capturing a particular strategic resource that I think will be vital to my victory.
The computer just doesn't think about these things. Also, the computer seems to have a particular bias against building on the coasts, it seems to me. I wonder why that is? I love coastal cities. With the lighthouse and harbor bonuses, they can really be valuable.

 

[MrCynical]

The computer just doesn't think about these things. Also, the computer seems to have a particular bias against building on the coasts, it seems to me. I wonder why that is? I love coastal cities. With the lighthouse and harbor bonuses, they can really be valuable.

The snag is that the computer doesn't allow for the effects of city improvements on the terrain. It therefore sees sea tiles as 1 food and some commerce, unimprovable; hence not a very desirable thing to have in the city radius. This leads to the classic one tile from the coast AI cities, despite this being a very obvious bad move.

 

[Shillen]

I generally take the blue circle as a pretty good suggestion, about like the "what to build next" suggestion in the city menu, but the computer has no idea of my strategic goals.

The blue circles are a lot more likely to be accurate than the "what to build next" suggestions. If you followed the what to build next strategies you'd have about 800 settlers fortified in your capital because there's nowhere to settle.

 

[Wlauzon]

The blue circles are a lot more likely to be accurate than the "what to build next" suggestions. If you followed the what to build next strategies you'd have about 800 settlers fortified in your capital because there's nowhere to settle.

Agreed. Aside from the "one square from coast" issue, I take the blue circles about 98% of the time.

The AI's suggestions about what to build next are often pretty poor. Sometimes downright stupid. I probably use those about 20% of the time.

A while back I put some mature cities on Auto, and the stupid AI kept making workers and settlers, even though I was maxed out for land and had workers drawing welfare.

 

[Andorim]

Usually, my very first settler immediately settles on the square where he was created. After that, I usually don't pay much attention to the blue circles, except to double-check that I didn't miss anything important. What the AI considers to be important, and what I consider to be important, are frequently different.

 

[Rabbit_Alex]

I think the blue circles are determined by taking into account food, producation and commerce. The top 5 cities list is determined the same way.

Maybe somebody who knows could look into one of the Python files and find the code that calculates it.

 

[Zophos]

I think the blue circles are determined by taking into account food, producation and commerce. The top 5 cities list is determined the same way.

Maybe somebody who knows could look into one of the Python files and find the code that calculates it.

It's in the C code (in the SDK), and I've posted the results of my inspection in this thread. Note that this is for vanilla cIV - I haven't looked in the Warlords SDK yet.

To address the original question, the code does not evaluate any future tile improvements or the effects of city buildings - just the raw outputs of the tiles, bonuses, etc. And it places a fairly low weight on having coast access, to boot.

 

[Pantastic]

I use it as a double-check to be sure I haven't missed something, but it's often not in the spot I want. It's good for seeing 'oh, I missed getting that cow in my radius' or 'hmm, 1 space east fits better', but like other people have pointed out it ignores a lot of useful things, especially coast access. It doesn't seem to pay attention to overlap either, so it will often recommend a 'good' site that would poach resources from another city if I used it.

 

[podraza]

Um, could somebody tell me why building 1 square from the coast is an obviously bad move? I've always read that and never known why.

 

[podraza]

Also, it seems like the map generates city spots on purpose, everything is not random. If you see an iron resource out in the middle of nowhere, with no rivers for farms, there WILL be a corn/cow/deer within reach. And a blue circle in the spot that can reach them both. They don't seem to make resources in spots where a growing city cannot work them.

 

[jimbob27]

Um, could somebody tell me why building 1 square from the coast is an obviously bad move? I've always read that and never known why.

You can't build lighthouses unless the city is on the coast, so you end up with water tiles in the fat x, but no way of improving them. They'll only produce 1 food and 2 commerce, so its uneconomical to work them without a lighthouse in the city.

Regarding the OP, i generally don't build in the circles. They show you sites that are average on all aspects, but great at none. Half the skill in civ is specialising your cities properly, and they almost never point to optimal specialised spots.

 

[luniz]

They don't seem to consider the benefit of building on hills or in particular on plains hills either.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Even with lighthouse a coastal city will obviously produce less hammers, and unless there are seafood resources won't give you any net gains of food versus the growth which has happiness costs. I absolutely LOVE to find a coastal area that can be productive at the same time so I can build battleships there later, but if all it is is grassland next to the sea, I'll pick a higher priority area to settle, and if the AI grabs that land, it'll be that much easier to take later on seeing as he's got no hammers there.

 

[Bierp]

It seems to me that the blue circle suggestions place an unusually high priority to 'fresh water' locations. Fresh water is nice, but in terms of criteria for great city locations it's rather low on my list.

B

 

[ffifield]

With settlers I check the blue circle to see if I missed an opportunity to hook up resources. I sometimes do, particularly on jungle squares. As for worker blue circles, I ignore them with impunity.

 

[Pantastic]

Um, could somebody tell me why building 1 square from the coast is an obviously bad move? I've always read that and never known why.

The problem with building near the coast but not on it is that you end up with crappy (1f 2c) tiles in your city radius and lose the benefits of being a coastal city (port for ships, better trade routes, ability to build harbor). It's not uncommon for the AI to recommend a spot with 4-6 water tiles that's not a coast, you're just crippling a city by doing that while a coastal city can be pretty good in the same area.

I do build 1 off the coast when I'm only going to have a couple of water tiles in the city radius or if I don't care about the extra spaces (like a GP farm where I'm going to work some juicy food spaces and put the rest to specialists).

 

[uncarved block]

Zophos, I suspect you'll find in Warlords that defense became a priority. No other way to explain why 80% of the AI cities I run across that aren't capitols are built on them. They're blue circled more often now too. If your neighbor is a Protective civ, don't even think about invading them once they have Longbows, at least not until you have Grenadiers at minimum. You may take the capitol, but chances are you won't get anything else . . .

 

[Zophos]

Zophos, I suspect you'll find in Warlords that defense became a priority. No other way to explain why 80% of the AI cities I run across that aren't capitols are built on them. They're blue circled more often now too. If your neighbor is a Protective civ, don't even think about invading them once they have Longbows, at least not until you have Grenadiers at minimum. You may take the capitol, but chances are you won't get anything else . . .

I presume that you're talking about hills, here, though you don't mention it specifically. And, yes, I suspect that you are right.