AI up in your grill?

[StoneColdNuts]

Has anyone else had an AI settle a second or third city right next to one of your cities when their other cities were very far away?

This has happened to me a few times.

Is this a bug or a strategy? Do I have to tell every civ not to settle next to me?

 

[Brota]

It happens quite alot when there're lux / strat resources on those tiles. Either tell the AI not to settle near you or muster up 3 Archers and take the city. That usually set the AI back alot progression wise.

 

[Vandraad]

They do seem to make a beeline right to you and plop a never-to-be-developed city within a few hexes of you then backfill with more barely developed cities.

 

[Auncien]

Siam did this to me. I took it as a gift of an easy, free city. He was not pleased. No one else did it after that.

 

[Col Kurtz]

The worst thing is they will settle right in you territory. And then there'll be an iron resource just between both of your borders. Scared that they'll get it, you'll purchase the tile right away (I did this even more than normal, I'm America). Then they get mad at you for encroaching on their territory! That's when they just settled their city on the tiny patch of land surrounded by three of your cities, after you told them not to settle cities by you.

 

[Gath]

There really isn't any reason they shouldn't do this, it makes good sense now.

No distance costs.
Don't have to hook up resources to your capital via the trade network.

Other than mutual defense, it doesn't matter where you put your cities.

 

[Syiss_]

Had this happen in my 3rd game. I was aiming for a cultural victory and Aztec came from across the ENTIRE continent to settle right where I needed to put a city. I took it with 2 warriors since he left it undefended, but it ended up costing me later on. He was never willing to sue for peace without asking for tons of gold and a bunch of my resources I only had 1 of, so I kept declining. Since we were perpetually at war, he was also at war with my allied city states and eventually killed 2 of them, costing me a lot of gold I had spent bribing them. As I was off trying to defend another one, my neighbor who had been pretty friendly with me most of the game declared on me and I couldn't get my troops back in time to fend him off.

I guess I understand why they do it since there's no longer a distance cost, but I have a really hard time believing that he didn't have any better options closer to his capital to grab resources (all he got was 1 happy resources with the placement he chose). His settler must have traveled 20+ turns just to get there, and it based on when it was settled, it had to be only his 2nd or 3rd city.

 

[chongli]

There really isn't any reason they shouldn't do this, it makes good sense now.

No distance costs.
Don't have to hook up resources to your capital via the trade network.

Other than mutual defense, it doesn't matter where you put your cities.

This right here. Everyone has been clamoring for a tougher AI and now when they have it (or at least an aspect of it), they complain!

It's simply good strategy to be as greedy as possible with unclaimed territory unless you're at war and can't defend the new cities. AIs that sit back and let you bully them around are what we've had for years. No more.

 

[yanner39]

There really isn't any reason they shouldn't do this, it makes good sense now.

No distance costs.
Don't have to hook up resources to your capital via the trade network.

Other than mutual defense, it doesn't matter where you put your cities.

Actually, the distance cost could be seen as the cost of more roads to link the 2nd or 3rd city to the capital. In a game where gold is everything, you can't neglect the value of trade routes and the cost of roads.

In my current game, Alexander settled a 2nd city some 10 or 11 tiles away. It will take quite some time before the TR become profitable if ever. Plus at this time , gold should be #1.

 

[Tomice]

You can have harbors for trade routes, so phoenician style empires are viable now. That is a good thing in my books.

And didn't every beginner guide for civ4 say: "settle aggressively towards your enemies, fill the gaps later"?

But I can see this might get annoying. To understand the motivation behind it, try to find the speech of civ4's AI programmer talking about "good vs fun AI". Basically: In many games you don't want to have too good AI because it makes the game less fun.

 

[yanner39]

You can have harbors for trade routes, so phoenician style empires are viable now. That is a good thing in my books.

And didn't every beginner guide for civ4 say: "settle aggressively towards your enemies, fill the gaps later"?

But I can see this might get annoying. To understand the motivation behind it, try to find the speech of civ4's AI programmer talking about "good vs fun AI". Basically: In many games you don't want to have too good AI because it makes the game less fun.

Agreed. Except in my game, both Greek cities were in-land.

 

[Gath]

You can have harbors for trade routes, so phoenician style empires are viable now. That is a good thing in my books.

And didn't every beginner guide for civ4 say: "settle aggressively towards your enemies, fill the gaps later"?

But I can see this might get annoying. To understand the motivation behind it, try to find the speech of civ4's AI programmer talking about "good vs fun AI". Basically: In many games you don't want to have too good AI because it makes the game less fun.

Yeah, but you couldn't send your settlers too far away without massive expenses. distance to capital and all that. <sigh> one step forward, two steps back. Welcome our returning polka dot empires.

Harbors are crucial. 3 gold for a trade route is almost always the best choice, not to mention that there's a number of very nice coastal city only buildings. I tend to have most if not all my cities on the coast now.

 

[Tomice]

Also harbours don't cost maintainance when they are half-finished like roads. I'm not sure what my verdict will be. At least conquest won't be limited to your neighbours border towns!