Played my first post-patch game yesterday. Russia, Monguls, and others had plenty of nice, lush territory for settling, but instead stayed at a pitiful two or three cities. Do we have any idea what causes them to do this? Do they lock into a cultural victory? Do they get stuck "coveting" occupied territory more than the easy pickin's right in their backyards? Does something force them to push settlers to the bottom of their queues? Are they waiting for a certain level of happiness that never comes?
I like a lot fo the patch changes, just wish the underdevelopment got addressed.
That's apparently a Prince and below phenomenon, mostly. Other people (and myself) can report full and near full maps on King and above, and somewhat more efficient wide civs as they choose their early cities' locations better, and they also tech better by not neglecting their science buildings anymore.
On Prince the AI doesn't have any happiness bonus and this must slow it down. Less Civs apparently pick Liberty (as a result? I suspect it as I've seen a few of the same Civs go liberty on higher levels if they have the room and good land), and they tend to play Tall, thus with fewer happiness buildings, and grabbing fewer luxuries. There's some expansion around the Renaissance, but not major in many games. From other threads on the topic recently this seems to be the worst on huge maps with standard and below standard # of civs.
The AI is also more picky about it's early settling spots, which works on the higher levels, as the AI that wish to still expand will eventually get less choosy after all the best spots are taken, once it can also sustain its happiness by other means. On Prince it seems they often get stuck and play Tall with 2-3-4 cities for the whole game. I highly suspect this is in part due to the Prince players commonly grabbing all the Wonders and allying all the mercantile city-states, further stalling the AI from getting enough extra happiness to spark mid-game expansions at least. The very expansive Civs still expand, but they stop eventually.
My current game for comparison (huge, small continents, 14 civs/22 CS, Emperor):
I'm in the mid-Renaissance, turn 625 on Marathon
All that remain of our fairly large continent is boring tiles with no luxuries or strat. resources, mostly jungle/plains without fresh water. All the rest is settled.
7 Civs/14 have opened Liberty or gone wider.
Poland went full Liberty, got surrounded early by Shoshone and Bisckmark and failed. It has 3 cities, lost a fourth.
Bismarck is full Liberty plus Honor and has founded 8 cities, conquered 2.
Hiawatha mixed Tradition and full Liberty and currently has 16 cities on the continent, settled in three main waves, but I've seen at least five embarked settlers of his, so he's getting ready for another wave elsewhere. Not a single war from him with anyone so far even though he's immensely powerful.
Rome has 15 cities and started with 3xTradition then went full Liberty. Based on their sizes he went Tall with 4 cities at first (all 15-20 pop by now) then much later finally went wide, very fast if his all 5 pop cities are any indication.
Shoshone has full Tradition full Liberty. He has 9 founded cities.
Austria has 9 cities.
Spain has founded 12 cities.
The rest went Tradition and Tall, each with 3 to 5 cities for now. I haven't scouted the second and third continents in full, but they look pretty much as fully settled as mine is.
