Removing Despot Penalty

[vmxa]

I always figured the AI did not clear marshes as it does not have the workers for it and in late gams they have lost, sold or added to towns and further reduced the labor pool.
Maybe that is due to being pressed most of the game. I always wonder why they are so bad at improving their lands, but looking at the ratio of workers to towns and it
becomes clear.

They still have many tiles with forest and jungle went I show with troops. Tiles without a road is not uncommon. At sid I see some civs without a single worker, all scrapped
for lack of maint gold. Even with the massive free unit support, they crank out units and have to scrap some. This is why I started not DoW on them, if I could not reach them.
Being at war just gets them to the cap sooner. If they declare I let them have peace, when they ask, if I cannot get to them, often in early game I do not even know where they are.
They just drop off some units and I kill them and off we go, dropping units for me to leader fish.

 

[Ozymandias]

I always figured the AI did not clear marshes as it does not have the workers for it and in late gams they have lost, sold or added to towns and further reduced the labor pool.
Maybe that is due to being pressed most of the game. I always wonder why they are so bad at improving their lands, but looking at the ratio of workers to towns and it
becomes clear.

You have indirectly raised a very good point here: the AI never builds enough Workers: I use Auto-Production for these.