AI power settling still alive

alja

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 17, 2001
Messages
71
I hate that all these senseless placed citiy blocking my supply roads and there is nothing smart to avoid this.

Also, how can a founded city by your neighbours CHANGE YOUR STATE TERRITORY? Is this realistic? NO! If he places a city close to the border he has to live with less space!!! At least until he conquers some territory. If there is 1 field free he takes 9, what a mess.

Please ADD some areas to the surounding state territory
- small areas
- smaller shore areas
EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT DIRECTLY COTROLLED BY A CITY

I mean, if the Taliban are founding a city in the desert of Nevada, this will not became part of Afghanistan, right?

If you can't/will not change the power settling of the AI for some reasons, please give us a better chance to keep our territory together.

I don't want to place senseless citiy everywhere to avoid my civilization looking like suisse cheese.

I appreciate any suggestions to ease this problem, thanks.
 
I heard they were taking a look at this and going to try to tone it down a bit in this patch -- did that fall by the wayside? I hope not, but i can't remember hearing about that in the changelog...

I wish they'd tone down hte aggressiveness of the computer when settling. its absurd where it puts cities sometimes.
 
I started 2 games today. I coult not recognize any differences. AI is still eager to reach each stupid area to found a city.

Also, in the second game I used 2-3 'block city to control their movements and refused to let them pass my land. As a result I am in permanent war against all AI's which want to settle (they have declared war after I asked their units to leave a few times).

I could really understand to fight a war to gain resources or land. But to place senseless cities...:-(

I like really the AI being on my land with some units permanently and if my 'goto' command directs one of my units to their land they immediately complain - hardcoded.
 
2 possible reasons
1. future resources- you never know what area is going to produce a resource so there are no "stupid areas"
2. Domination- "if the vast majority of the world's land and population are inside your borders, your dominance is assured" this is a winning condition from the civlopedia. So if the A.I. is trying to win, then by founding cities in "stupid areas" it isjust trying to win.
How to avoid? this let them come in and settle if they are deep in your territory they will get assimilated eventually so don't worry about it. If they are on the fringes, prepare a plan to take the cities that you want and then sue for peace. War is cool but make sure you have objectives when you start one. You don't want to start a war for a reason that doesn't benefit you, because tit sucks when war weariness hits and you Need to keep fighting but find it difficult.
 
actually i dont mind the computer putting cities in crap locations which are located next to my cities, these cities usually grow very slowly and eventualy i take over these cites culturaly so it saves my alot of time making those cities myself (though it is annoying when they go after and get the good spots)
 
ok, I let them come in, they found citiy...somewhen they are assimilated...but sometimes it is taking a while. I get them, buy some workers and abandon it - and they come again. Fine.

What, when I have to go to war? In some cases these stupid citiy are blocking my roads and I can't move units fast enough or can't move at all. THIS IS WHAT MAKES ME MAD.

These stupid cities don't offer anything of value. Not to me and not to the other nation. But sometimes they are just a pain in the ass (well, this is some sort of value).

I could agree that is some sort of tactic. However, I don't like it and I don't find it logic. If I am so dominant in on region, there should not be empty squares to found cities.

The second point I have mentioned (did I? hmm) I got no comments so far. Why are my borders (I call it borders, even if it is cultural) affected when a city is founded? I simply can't found a city near a border and say, 'hey, thats now my territory'. This is not realistic.

Leave 1 square emtpy and they take 9 fields! Why? (this reminds me: I am not going to lose the Enterprise. Not to the Borg, not while I'm in command :) )

Change this and I won't complain any more.
 
Think of it as immigration. Eventually they'll get assimilated into your empire, if your culture is strong enough. If they don't, you can just take them, with relative ease. As you say, they are a good source of workers. Your borders aren't fixed at any point during the game. They are ever changing, over the course of 6000 years. Why isn't it reasonable, that sudden massive immigration is pushing your borders, when your own immigration & culture is pushing theirs?

Perhaps it stems from the "border" concept in this game, which is fairly abstract in itself. Personally I think it works OK. In the old days with Civ1 and Civ2 you had to wage war to get rid of these kind of "in between" cities. Now you can at least assimilate them peacefully, which I think is pretty cool. It requires minimum effort and doesn't spoil your reputation. :)

One thing that bugs me, though, is that by the time you reach the industrial age, pretty much every inch of the map is settled. There's nothing left to explore in the "age of exploration" ! And colonies are not as useful as they ought to be.
 
To be fair, the "age of exploration" consisted of the europeans founding cities on the fringe of Native American borders, or outright conquering. ;)


I don't think Civ colonies are that less useful than colonies IRL. The resources of a RL colony are fed to itself to maintain it (corruption). The only way the mother country gets anything from the colony is through trade (strategic / luxury resources + harbor) and through taxation (taxmen / scientists).


Oh!

What, when I have to go to war? In some cases these stupid citiy are blocking my roads and I can't move units fast enough or can't move at all. THIS IS WHAT MAKES ME MAD.

I think your above observation proves your next statement wrong. :)

These stupid cities don't offer anything of value

Hurkyl
 
What if a settler took three citizens to create instead of 2. Do you think this would slow the computer and the rate of colonization down across the board?

Think this would be a good idea or a bad idea.

I agree with you though, I think the world gets colonized way to fast in this game but really what else is there to do in the beginning of the game except pump out settlers and grab all that land.

Personally, I don't even think about war until I have a decent force or swordsmen and horsemen.

Endureth
 
This is defintly the worst patch I;'ve ever seen in my life for any game :(.
 
OMG, daggerfall patches...christ....took everything I had in me not to blow all of them up with large nuclear weapons for even attempting to call those pathetic peices of code patches
 
alja I TOTALY agree with you, I think its Crazy how on even Warlord level on continent, the AI still populatet very nearly the whold damn map by 1200AD or earlier, not just that as alja says, in the dumbest of places the build there cities, in ur territory, all around ur territory...... in every single space on the map even if it is Tundra or desert they populate it as if it where fertile plains...

Another thing i have noticed, is that the AI NEVER! build Colonies, if there is a resource they just build another city, (I have never witnessed them build a Colony, a friend of mine has ONCE on Chieftain)

Unlike Civ2 where the AI used to build at nearly the same rate as you, whilst having really good (high) level cities and loads of irragated mined and roaded territory. CIV3 has the AI building absolutley tons and tons of cities (in the place of colonies too) all at levels 1,2 and 3 except in some cases there capital which every Civilization seem to Default to a Wonder at a certain amount of turns...

Its riduculous that FIRAXIS have released CIV3 with such a BORING PREDICTABLE AI (Yes the Diplomacy is good)
and then not fix it in a patch

I am glad someone has finally addressed this issue :scan:
 
in my game they use colonies all the day..but maybe thats cuz im playing on diety
 
I've had civ3 from the first day in UK and still haven't finished my first (proper) game! (I do have a day job).

I got whupped on the harder levels so started on the easiest. The AI uses colonies all the time in my game. The AI is very impressive. Now that i've played into the game I think CIV3 is brill. You are really incentivised to build cit7y improvements cos of culture and to trade for luxuries to keep the lads happy. War is now "meaningful" and you don't go into it just cos you're bored, it's now about something and also there are real consequences e.g. you lose trade could end up fighting everyone else cos of pacts.

btw if anyone got the first patch, you need to reinstall the whole game (don't worry about saved games they don't get deleted) and then insta;ll the second patch.

Firaxis have delivered.
 
Another thing i have noticed, is that the AI NEVER! build Colonies, if there is a resource they just build another city, (I have never witnessed them build a Colony, a friend of mine has ONCE on Chieftain)

I've seen it do it on regent. So it does happen.
 
Originally posted by Hurkyl
To be fair, the "age of exploration" consisted of the europeans founding cities on the fringe of Native American borders, or outright conquering. ;)

I don't think the europeans would have been able to conquer SA in case they would have build their cities peacefully in stupid places. They were placed near gold, water or tribes to have slaves. Also they murdered the natives, burned down existing cities to control the land.

The AI is looking for non of those objectives, just for stupid places.

Anyway, I understand that there are different opinions about this subject and I am interested in yours - thats why I asking/complaining. So thanks for the discussion.
 
Ya know, the AI might be selling those little cities to other civs. The comp usually seems to have pretty drawn out borders after a while yet before he goes to war (except for the minor skirmishes in the beginning). He could be trading them for a lot of techs to other civs. This might be one of the (many) reasons tech gets around so fast between the AI players.

Maybe? Certainly not to be ruled out.

On a side note, I settle like mad just like the computer. Sometimes when I have a city deep in his lands and I think it's gonna be assimilated I'll just trade it to the computer. I've even paid the high prices he wants for a city once.

Endureth
 
alja: True. The AI settling in obscure parts of your empire is pretty annoying; I for one can't stand it. But they'll, trust me, they WILL get assimilated sooner or later that is if your culture is high enough. The computer players are just trying your patience to go to war with them don't fall for that trap, I've made a few mistakes myself :)

Endureth: Are you sure you're able to get their cities from trading???? I've tried many many times but they just won't barter even a pop 1 settlement.
 
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