AI builds too many cities, and in horrible locations too.

[Ktulu]

To me the biggest mistake they made was changing the expansion barrier from number of cities/distance from capital maintenance, to the global happiness model.

The old model accomplished two things: 1) it required you to maintain a solid economy before you could expand; 2) it forced you to strategically place your cities to minimize distance from your capital and to best take advantage of the terrain available to your limited # of cities. In CIV IV this was a great balancing mechanic, so why change it?

With the new happiness model, nerfed terrain features, magic food, and science based on population the best strategy is to have as much population as your happiness can support. Terrain and city placement is pretty much irrelevant. A city on the other side of the world is the same as a city right next to your capital. Since the AI gets a huge happiness bonus their is no consequence for adding more cities, so every city they plop down makes their empire stronger.

The happiness bonus is one of the stupidest design choices I've ever seen in a game. Not only does it relate to the problem above, but it also screws up the entire trading model. The only thing worth trading in this game is happiness resources, yet the AI does not need them! WTH? Who's idea was that?

 

[builer680]

See.... that's what i mean... I haven't seen perfectly spaced stacked cities yet... and I played my first game thru to the modern era....

But we'll see how the current game goes and I'll let ya know....

<--- STILL love the hats

Nice emote

I'm sure it's not EVERY game. It's just been very common, and I've seen myself it in every game I personally have played since the patch. It's possible you just didn't notice it in your other game as well.

 

[MadRat]

Terrain and city placement is pretty much irrelevant. A city on the other side of the world is the same as a city right next to your capital. Since the AI gets a huge happiness bonus their is no consequence for adding more cities, so every city they plop down makes their empire stronger.

Exactly!! I've seen the AI place cities in ridiculous locations, right next to enemy capitals, in deserts, 1 hex islands with no fish. They pump out culture, cash, units., block trades, are harder to kill AND they grow to size 5-6 EASY (for the AI). To solve the problem you have to conquer them (yayy unhappiness i dont need from killing all these dinky cities) or raze them (temp happiness hit - AIs spam the area again). There are NO NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES for the AI using ICS!! happiness doesnt stop ICS - it only slows down the HUMAN players, not the AI.

The happiness bonus is one of the stupidest design choices I've ever seen in a game. Not only does it relate to the problem above, but it also screws up the entire trading model. The only thing worth trading in this game is happiness resources, yet the AI does not need them! WTH? Who's idea was that?

Exactly - even if I have 90% of the world's silver I cant get more than 10 GPT from ANYONE??? Supply and demand mean *squeek*.

Rat

 

[Lightzy]

It's just ugly and a messed up design.

Civ4 worked. civ5 is for retards. I've had enough

 

[Hornet07]

So I just started a new game and set a archipelago map which I saw the AI colonize every single island, even the totally useless 1tile islands with no fish. I have only seven cities and I can barely keep the happiness at around +4 while one AI has about twelve or so cities.

 

[JohnnyW]

On a side note, there should be a "shaded" area extending a few tiles beyond your borders that indicate a sphere of influence, inside of which the AI (or you in the case of their sphere of influence) can not build cities. I don't see Indonesia colonizing Wyoming just because nobody lives there.

Maybe it's me, but isn't that exactly what your cultural borders do and indicate?

 

[builer680]

Maybe it's me, but isn't that exactly what your cultural borders do and indicate?

Yes, I just think they should be bigger I guess. More to the point, it flat out irritates me to see the AI infect me with cities in the heart of my empire. So I murder them.

The spaces between your own cities at least should be off limits to foreign colonization.

 

[Bibor]

Yes. Because border towns do not exist?

 

[Marshall Thomas]

I increased the minimum distance between cities by 1 (from 2 to 3).

This has completely solved the AI ICS problem and, so far, hasn't had any negative effects on my game. I'm really surprised that the designers didn't have it set this way by default.

 

[ArgonV]

I increased the minimum distance between cities by 1 (from 2 to 3).

This has completely solved the AI ICS problem and, so far, hasn't had any negative effects on my game. I'm really surprised that the designers didn't have it set this way by default.

Where'd you change it?

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Where'd you change it?

It's in the global defines XML near the top. It's called "MIN_CITY_RANGE" and it's set to 2. Change it to 3. I started a new game with this change and it's been great.

You might also want to either slightly reduce the number of civs your playing with, or go up a map size and slightly increase the number of civs (which is what I did), as the AI will have less cities-per-territory. but not too much, since you're only incresing the MCD by 1 hex.

edit: the only other change I made was reducing the AI happiness bonus; that's in the handiapps XML file, under each difficulty setting. It's called AI unhappiness bonus. I switched it from 85 (on emperor) to 130. and most AIs are still happier than me, even when I'm not unhappy.

 

[Lightzy]

The change should be to revert back to civ4 systems.

Economic and sci penalties instead of happiness.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

The happiness bonus is one of the stupidest design choices I've ever seen in a game. Not only does it relate to the problem above, but it also screws up the entire trading model. The only thing worth trading in this game is happiness resources, yet the AI does not need them! WTH? Who's idea was that?

Key insight, thanks. I wish that had occurred to me before now. Because a lot of the discussions on this board have been about war vs diplomacy, both of which, in my opinion, are badly broken. But, as you say, *trade*, which is just as important and should be a driving factor behind both war and peace, doesn't really even exist to any real purpose.

[I have to say that I'm one of those mental people who would have gone in the opposite direction and beefed up the trade/economic model to the point where you found yourself dealing in, for example, banana futures (requires building a stock exchange in a city with the appropriate resource, of course). And that's just commodities. This, of course, would not be to everyone's taste.]

 

[Leeira]

It's in the global defines XML near the top. It's called "MIN_CITY_RANGE" and it's set to 2. Change it to 3. I started a new game with this change and it's been great.

You might also want to either slightly reduce the number of civs your playing with, or go up a map size and slightly increase the number of civs (which is what I did), as the AI will have less cities-per-territory. but not too much, since you're only incresing the MCD by 1 hex.

edit: the only other change I made was reducing the AI happiness bonus; that's in the handiapps XML file, under each difficulty setting. It's called AI unhappiness bonus. I switched it from 85 (on emperor) to 130. and most AIs are still happier than me, even when I'm not unhappy.

In the handicap XML under Prince there are the lines like
"<UnitCostPercent>100</UnitCostPercent>
<AIUnitCostPercent>85</AIUnitCostPercent>
and
<BarbarianBonus>33</BarbarianBonus>
<AIBarbarianBonus>60</AIBarbarianBonus>"
Sounds like a cheating AI with cheaper units and some other things, doesen't it? -.-

 

[nokmirt]

Ok, I started a huge earth map on Prince level as the Russians. I end up in Africa, but north of me is Rome. The Romans are building this wall of cities across North-West Africa they are about 3 hexes apart, maybe two for some. Why is this happening and what did they do when they patched this? I know pre patch the AI spread their cities out better.I will keep my eye on this as the game progresses. The AI has 5 cities (ROME) and I have three spread apart because of desert in southern Africa.

 

[nokmirt]

It's in the global defines XML near the top. It's called "MIN_CITY_RANGE" and it's set to 2. Change it to 3. I started a new game with this change and it's been great.

You might also want to either slightly reduce the number of civs your playing with, or go up a map size and slightly increase the number of civs (which is what I did), as the AI will have less cities-per-territory. but not too much, since you're only incresing the MCD by 1 hex.

edit: the only other change I made was reducing the AI happiness bonus; that's in the handiapps XML file, under each difficulty setting. It's called AI unhappiness bonus. I switched it from 85 (on emperor) to 130. and most AIs are still happier than me, even when I'm not unhappy.

I changed the global defines MCR to 3. I am only playing on Prince level so I will keep everything else the same. The XML files are very similar to Civ 4 so I may look into changing some other things. First I will playtest and jot down some notes and see what else may need to be addressed.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

I changed the global defines MCR to 3. I am only playing on Prince level so I will keep everything else the same. The XML files are very similar to Civ 4 so I may look into changing some other things. First I will playtest and jot down some notes and see what else may need to be addressed.

So far, I'm extremely pleased with this change. I didn't expect one simple change by just one point to have such a positive effect.

by the way, I'm playing on a huge, continents map with 22 civs and 28 city states. emperor difficulty

 

[nokmirt]

So far, I'm extremely pleased with this change. I didn't expect one simple change by just one point to have such a positive effect.

by the way, I'm playing on a huge, continents map with 22 civs and 28 city states. emperor difficulty

I am playing with a huge map with 14 civs and 21 city states. I will note AI expansion, among other things as I go along. This thread may be very important to game developers (I suppose they all are at one point or another).

Right now I am in 395bc and the Mongols my very close neighbor have declared war. I don't have a huge army just 2 warriors and one archer. The Mongols came in to view with one archer and only one warrior. Their one warrior was almost decimated by my nearby warrior. I will keep track of the AI and see what his strategy is like. I saved after that point and I will play some more later. I do believe the Mongols got upset at me over time because I refused open borders with them twice, maybe three times. I did not want them bringing any settlers across my territory. After awhile I relented and said sure I agree to OB, then they decided to invade me shortly after.

 

[neilkaz]

LOL in my Immortal Pangaea game I just got the Satellite tech and I now see that Rammy, who has spread all actually colonized two arctic islands, each with 1 hex and no resources and each half way around the map from him !!

Again, I wonder who makes these developmental programming issues. The AI's can expand all over and try to colonize ANYWHERE they can jam a city in that has 6 free hexes around the center city, while humans are constrained by overnerfed global happiness. Unnerf meritocracy and FP and at least let the player compete for bad sites with the AI's.

I also find that if I raze a city and an AI can easily get a settler there, they often do so within a dozen turns.


.. neilkaz ..

 

[nokmirt]

LOL in my Immortal Pangaea game I just got the Satellite tech and I now see that Rammy, who has spread all actually colonized two arctic islands, each with 1 hex and no resources and each half way around the map from him !!

Again, I wonder who makes these developmental programming issues. The AI's can expand all over and try to colonize ANYWHERE they can jam a city in that has 6 free hexes around the center city, while humans are constrained by overnerfed global happiness. Unnerf meritocracy and FP and at least let the player compete for bad sites with the AI's.

I also find that if I raze a city and an AI can easily get a settler there, they often do so within a dozen turns.


.. neilkaz ..

Ok there must be an easy way to slow the AI down a bit. We also need to find a way to bring their happiness down a bit. No wonder they settle so much happiness is no thing to them.