A Huge, Empty Continent

[Maccabeus]

All I can guess is that they're afraid of becoming overextended.

Germany traded me a world map (among other things) for Physics, revealing that there's a huge continent out there with many resources and luxuries. And no one's there but barbarians...

I intend to go get some saltpeter, but what's the deal?

 

[Zouave]

An empty continent??

You must be playing with 2 or 3 civs on a really large map.

 

[Maccabeus]

Nope. The map is huge, but there are eight civs about (or were--I wiped the Persian scum from the face of the earth). We're on an large-archipelago world, but that doesn't seem to explain it, because as I look closer it turns out that only half the continent is empty--the other half is occupied by no less than four civilizations. The French have the best access, but they seem to be moving very slowly. It looks as if part of the problem is a band of mountains and jungle that makes settling awkward, and the other part is that the civilizations there are already quite large--adding more territory will cost them in corruption. I'm going to have a time getting there--it's quite far away--but I need the saltpeter.

 

[Maccabeus]

To clarify--the uninhabited part of the continent is huge. The whole continent is even larger, and about half of it is occupied by the French, English, Germans, and Russians.

(I, the Zulu, and the Persians and Babylonians were on a much smaller continent or large island in the west. North of me, the Japanese have a chain of large islands. They've evidently made very poor use of their territory--they're primitive as can be. If the Babylonians didn't hold the northern half of my continent, I'd be attacking them right now.)

 

[JuicyCivNewbie]

If you want that land you'd best settle it ASAP, the AIs will get settlers over there as soon as is possible.

 

[rdomarat]

My guess is that the civs on that continent have declared war on each other and are spending their resources on military units and walking them across the vast distances to the other civ so they can wage war. When the AI decides to go to war, it goes to war. Settler production becomes secondary to producing military units (and Galleons of course, we all know how much the AI values Galleons).

 

[CivHobo]

This can also happen if u reached the 'too many cities' limit. Other civs cant build more cities and neither can u, u would need to dismantle some.

 

[Loopy]

What difficulty level are you playing on? And do those civs on that continent predisposed to landgrab (per the checkboxes visible in the editor)?

 

[Maccabeus]

Loopy, I have just begun playing on warlord level. The Russians and English are expansionistic. However, based on the map the French appear to have them blocked in--they could start settling only by taking a long and dangerous journey through French territory or by sailing a considerable distance along the coastline.

 

[TheDS]

I don't know that the AI "can't" exceed the city limit, just that I haven't noticed them to.

YOU, on the other hand, can go right ahead, but be warned that you will have obscene levels of corruption, and even your established cities could suffer, unless you make a few minor changes to the game, like give a couple other buildings corruption-fighting ability or increase the percentage of optimal cities, a newly available setting.

 

[Maccabeus]

At the moment it's not a problem, but thank you for the advice. Right now my Civ game is being balky, crashing at odd times. I haven't managed to get much past my last save (I haven't been trying hard for a little while).