AI City Spamming

[docbud]

I thought that the AI was spamming cities less. But I've seen several threads where the AI apparently is spamming even worse.

I am not even at turn 100 and China has THREE cities. Ethiopia just settled near me and you can see how far away his capital via the screenshot.

I realize I'm playing as Venice and can only do one city, but this spamming of cities is worse than it was in G&K (at least in my opinion).

And Great Library was gone by turn 46 (Prince level).

What are your experiences with AI city spamming and the AI settling a new city 20 tiles away from their capital? Are they just begging for me to build an army and take them out?

 

[GWashington]

I wouldn't really call it spamming yet, most civs have 3 cities around turn 100 (on Prince). One time I was Venice and Hiawatha, USA, and Shoshone were around me. So many cities.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I know, I'm not sure if OP was sarcastic, 3 cities is nothing, on QUICK, WARLORD, I see 3 cities by turn 30-60.

 

[NukeAJS]

Three cities by turn 100 is not strange at all. That's three policies and liberty and a built settler. If I'm going liberty and I don't have at least three cities by turn 100, I'm doing something very wrong.

Anyways, some civs like spamming cities a lot more than others. Greece, America, and Iroquois come to mind. You just have to plan accordingly. If I see Greece next to me, I pretty much kill him ASAP, he's by far the most aggressive AI in the game between wanting every CS, getting good/great early game units, and city-spamming. He's a real pain in the butt.

 

[Blitz Spearman]

Oh my, I think I was secretly an AI all this time. I always have 5~7 cities at turn 100 when I open with Liberty.

But the thing about AI settling 20 or more tiles away from their is true though, I had never seen it early game in G&K, but now almost every game there is at least one idiotic AI that is like 40 or 50 tiles away and settle one city right beside my capital just to get a copy of the luxuries that are in my lands. And when I DoW and take that city, I am locked in perma-war because I can't cross half of the world with an army to try and take down some enemy units. With their full army, the AI thinks that they are winning the war and so never agree to peace.

 

[evilcat]

Nothing here sound odd. 3 cities at T100 sounds like balanced start (tradicion?). With liberty player can pull have 4 cities by T50, and more is only question of place(pangea?). Antic wonders are generally gone by T50. And GL is one of AI favorites.

What bugs me more is poor script for placing cities by AI. Even if a perfect spot is free and avaiable just 3 tiles away, still nope, AI pops city in unoptimal place. Even most horrible like middle of glacial plains, or lone island in the middle of the ocean.

 

[docbud]

Thanks for answering. I've seen the AI building a lot of cities as well, but I thought it had been slowed down with BNW. I know in G&K they built a lot more than that.

It just seemed very quick to me in this game. I think China had her second city around turn 30 or something, and I was still struggling to build infrastructure.

And I thought I had read several threads here that the AI had decreased the number of cities due to happiness and gold problems.

Looks like I'll have to gather an army and take Shanghai and the new one that Ethiopia built.

Thanks for the answers.

 

[Socratatus]

I was shocked to see that Bluetooth has something like 20 cities varying from 1 to 20+. I think Polynesia is the same as well. I have been concentrating on around 5.

Bluetooth is really ruling everything this game, I doubt I can stop him now.

 

[Council 13]

I think people should really calm down about this subject. It's so variable depending on the civ's your playing, map, resources, and other factors. Every game is different... just enjoy it. I haven't seen any indication of the AI favoring one tactic to another when it comes to expansion. I usually play on Emperor and King and always use random AI's.

 

[docbud]

^^Everyone is calm...

 

[VisageTDI]

I think people should really calm down about this subject. It's so variable depending on the civ's your playing, map, resources, and other factors. Every game is different... just enjoy it. I haven't seen any indication of the AI favoring one tactic to another when it comes to expansion. I usually play on Emperor and King and always use random AI's.

Was there a heated discussion? Guess I missed it.

Anyway, AI settles cities on weird locations based on its knowledge of other nations cities at the time and possible trade routes. If it only scouted in your direction and their normal 2nd city location would still be out of reach of trade route, it will settle it much closer to you then needed/wanted.

As for AI city spamming, lol at only 3 cities by turn 100. Even if you go tradition you should have that many by then, if liberty even more.

 

[docbud]

^^I guess I need to change my playing style.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have not seen issues with AI city spamming. Particularly in light of the fact that after G&K came out I had a succession of 5 to 10 games where the AI's would plant 2 cities each and leave half the map empty the entire game.

 

[Stiflex]

hahahahahahhah, I've played on Emperor, and the Iroques/Romans/Mongolians each have 15 cities, on turn 120...

And I'm dead serious. 99% of games are like that.

 

[njmfff]

I was shocked to see that Bluetooth has something like 20 cities varying from 1 to 20+. I think Polynesia is the same as well. I have been concentrating on around 5.

Bluetooth is really ruling everything this game, I doubt I can stop him now.

Polynesia is city spammer. He'll drop them whenever he can.

and Hiawatha. He should be renamed "Oh, there's a empty tile there? You won't mind?" I've seen him drop a city in the middle of snow tiles, just because it has one fish and tile was unoccupied.

 

[lampuiho]

lol on a different forum I only see people discussing the game on diety like it's the normal difficulty. I guess I'm not used to that on here

 

[Aldor]

Oh my, I think I was secretly an AI all this time. I always have 5~7 cities at turn 100 when I open with Liberty.

But the thing about AI settling 20 or more tiles away from their is true though, I had never seen it early game in G&K, but now almost every game there is at least one idiotic AI that is like 40 or 50 tiles away and settle one city right beside my capital just to get a copy of the luxuries that are in my lands. And when I DoW and take that city, I am locked in perma-war because I can't cross half of the world with an army to try and take down some enemy units. With their full army, the AI thinks that they are winning the war and so never agree to peace.

There's an easy solution to this...don't take the city, take the settler

 

[ray111]

Every single game I play, by the time I can discover map (aka caravels), every AI opponent has 5-20 cities.. I was playing on true Caribbean, starting somewhere in northern Honduras, with England and Aztecs starting on Cuba - by the time I could cross "ocean" to discover Cuba, Elizabeth had about 15 cities around whole western half of Cuba (seriously every 4 blocks another city!), with Montezuma doing the same with Eastern half of the island..

Not to mention Spain having even more cities over half of venezuela and the chain of islands to the north of it..

I had only Amsterdam as William, yet I still had 3x their score, because they've obviously spent every single turn spamming settlers (my city had 36 population, biggest cities on cuba had 15), therefore locking all national buildings from ever being constructed with that tempo.

Seriously, the guys who programmed AI were total noodles..

[sorry for rezzing old topic]

 

[dashwinner]

Every single game I play, by the time I can discover map (aka caravels), every AI opponent has 5-20 cities.. I was playing on true Caribbean, starting somewhere in northern Honduras, with England and Aztecs starting on Cuba - by the time I could cross "ocean" to discover Cuba, Elizabeth had about 15 cities around whole western half of Cuba (seriously every 4 blocks another city!), with Montezuma doing the same with Eastern half of the island..

Not to mention Spain having even more cities over half of venezuela and the chain of islands to the north of it..

I had only Amsterdam as William, yet I still had 3x their score, because they've obviously spent every single turn spamming settlers (my city had 36 population, biggest cities on cuba had 15), therefore locking all national buildings from ever being constructed with that tempo.

Seriously, the guys who programmed AI were total noodles..

[sorry for rezzing old topic]

You said it yourself. You had a bigger/better capital, they had more cities. They made a decision as to their prority, so did you. I don't really see the problem.

 

[danaphanous]

lol. Turn 100? Try as soon as you meet them. Korea had 3 on contact as my CLOSEST neighbor on my first Deity game. I almost cried...