AI Cottage spam?

[ShimonSays]

Question: Is it normal for the AI to spam cottages no matter the situation or it's choice of civics? I've seen the AI neglect all other improvements in place of cottages. Some mods make the problem even worse somehow where the AI literally builds nothing but cottages.
Where does one edit the AI's preferences for building improvements anyway?

 

[AcaMetis]

Which type of improvement a given AI prefers is normally based on the AI leader's defined preference, but there are situations that can overwrite that (I.E. AIs that think their economy is close to dying will spam cottages like no tomorrow no matter what their given preference is).

I'm not sure exactly where you'd edit a given leader's preferred improvement type, and I'm not sure if the panic building of specific improvement in specific situations even can be changed.

 

[sampsa]

And what is the problem exactly? I'd love it if the AI in my games didn't farm over towns...

 

[ShimonSays]

Which type of improvement a given AI prefers is normally based on the AI leader's defined preference, but there are situations that can overwrite that (I.E. AIs that think their economy is close to dying will spam cottages like no tomorrow no matter what their given preference is).

I'm not sure exactly where you'd edit a given leader's preferred improvement type, and I'm not sure if the panic building of specific improvement in specific situations even can be changed.

Hmm, unfortunate. I guess LeaderHeadInfos may be the place to start, but if the preferences themselves are hard-coded I'll be out of luck for easy editing.

 

[Gumbolt]

Agreed, capturing cities with cottages would be a dream. Sadly I mostly capture cities surrounded by forest, Mansa and a few others do like their cottages. Hardly matters for the AI on higher levels as they get huge bonuses to compensate for their poor worker choices. AI may start with a worker on immortal but sometimes if they lack the techs they will be farming poor tiles or building mines. On a good start they will be able to farm corn. Otherwise cows and other resources can be farmed or lots of road. Where a good human player will know what is a waste of time and which techs to beeline.