Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
This isn't so much a glitch as just a coding issue. I've noticed a severe problem with AI workers, they have a disturbing tendency to plow under their Villages and Towns to farmland if one of the following occurs:
1) Enemy units coming within ~10 tiles of their towns.
2) Many unrest/poisoning espionage missions in cities across their nation, causing a temporary drop in population.
#1 I noticed when warring with the Khmer, I merely had armies advancing on them and they destroyed all their own cottages for me, in a wide area. This used to happen to a lesser degree near cultural borders in Vanillia and Warlords... the AI seems remarkably willing to plow under it's own cottages and take an assured, immediate loss, rather than an unsure risk of having the enemy possibly pillage them sometime in the future or capture the nearby cities. There should likely be some check to see if the enemy is actually pillaging for several turns, before starting to destroy their own economy.
#2 I noticed more recently as I was testing the new espionage missions on my neighbor Hammurabi. If you conduct a major, focused spy campaign for several turns on all their cities through unrest and poison-water missions, the AI will annihilate their economic tiles to counter the temporary drop in population, replacing them with farms and bringing their tech advancement to a standstill. It's even worse if they have a decently large standing army, his research rate dropped to 10%.
1) Enemy units coming within ~10 tiles of their towns.
2) Many unrest/poisoning espionage missions in cities across their nation, causing a temporary drop in population.
#1 I noticed when warring with the Khmer, I merely had armies advancing on them and they destroyed all their own cottages for me, in a wide area. This used to happen to a lesser degree near cultural borders in Vanillia and Warlords... the AI seems remarkably willing to plow under it's own cottages and take an assured, immediate loss, rather than an unsure risk of having the enemy possibly pillage them sometime in the future or capture the nearby cities. There should likely be some check to see if the enemy is actually pillaging for several turns, before starting to destroy their own economy.
#2 I noticed more recently as I was testing the new espionage missions on my neighbor Hammurabi. If you conduct a major, focused spy campaign for several turns on all their cities through unrest and poison-water missions, the AI will annihilate their economic tiles to counter the temporary drop in population, replacing them with farms and bringing their tech advancement to a standstill. It's even worse if they have a decently large standing army, his research rate dropped to 10%.
