Are AI civs programmed to expand directly AT you?

[Smokeybear]

I seriously believe this is true. If I am on a continent (or pangaea) with other civs, it seems that they will almost always settle new cities in a virtual beeline for me. No matter that they may have millions of acres of empty lands lush with resources on three other sides, they will invariably spew a primary tentacle of settlements directly for me, even if it means settling on sub-par locations... just so long as they can get at me as quickly as possible, steal my available lands and resources, and plop annoying little crap-cities right on my borders.

And that is not just one or two 'agressive' civs, but ALL of them- in every game. I'd have to think real hard to remember a game where one civ played sensibly and went in a different direction in order to build a superior resource base for growth- unless they simply had no available avenue in which to build towards me. That is the only case in which any of them fail to pursue aggressive 'CHARGE! city construction', in my experience.

I guess this fits into the original game formula, of getting the player into as many wars as possible, as fast as possible- but it is rather annoying in its invariable sameness (and illogical stupidity). I think the game would be a lot more interesting if civs had more to their expansion-progamming code than all of them simply building in a beeline towards the human player as fast as their little feets can go.

 

[SirSaab]

Along the same lines, I have been experimenting with starting locations. I started a game last night with *NO* city states on a large map and 10 Civs. I had 2 civs (Polynesia and Germany) within 10 hexes and Mongolia 6 hexes away. On a LARGE map! With no city states, there should have been a much more extensive spread, but still, there are other civs right up my backside to start out. I don't like being isolated, but a little room to breathe at the start would be nice. There is son much open space it's ridiulous, and to boot, as I explored, I found there is a medium-sized continent *COMPLETELY* uninhabited. Like, it could have housed 2 civs. Just infuriating!

To your point, Gengis plopped down a city on EITHER SIDE of me within the first 40 turns, and Kamhameha also beelined toward me, even though he had Gems, Furs and Silk to the north, and nothing (Gengis or myself had taken it up) in my direction. And Gengis had Gems and Spices to the southwest, but tried to box me in instead. It sure started a war alright.

 

[chazzycat]

I hope so...I expand directly at THEM, so why not?

 

[headcase]

On Prince and Higher, the AIHandicap xml file has an attitude of "-1" which I can only assume means the CPUs automatically don't like you as much (it is 2, 1, and 0 respectively on the first three difficulties). Not sure if they're programmed to expand toward civs they don't like (in a bid to take away their land) but that might help explain this.

 

[Smokeybear]

I hope so...I expand directly at THEM, so why not?

Well, it appears to be all of them directly at you, as opposed to each of them deciding on which civ is the closest to them and has the best resources for them to take, and is the easiest for them to defeat- which would be the logical approach. Instead, you get a pure gamey feel of all of them building new cities in a manner artificially intended to encounter and take on the player as soon as possible, from the very start. It should be 10 vs. all (or however many the game has), not 10 vs. 1 (me). Sure, they inevitably get into their seperate side-wars as things progress, but the base pattern of expansion (where they choose to plop down their settlers) always favors heading my way, even if it's the least sensible path for acquiring easy resources/land.

 

[chazzycat]

Aha...I get what you are saying. I don't think I have seen a sufficiently convincing pattern in my games though. There have been a few times I noticed they grabbed cities very close to me quickly, but they were always good city sites. I mean, I didn't think they were built JUST to box me in.

 

[Smokeybear]

Aha...I get what you are saying. I don't think I have seen a sufficiently convincing pattern in my games though. There have been a few times I noticed they grabbed cities very close to me quickly, but they were always good city sites. I mean, I didn't think they were built JUST to box me in.

Let me describe more accurately what I mean, and what I observe in game after game:

You start the game, and send out your scouts. You encounter their scout units, you discover their base cities, they discover yours. Before long, you have the continent pretty well exposed... as do they. You have a few civs more or less close to you- you see them start planting settlers on *your* side of their home city. There will likely be good starting spots with at least as good resources on all four sides of their starting city, but it does not matter... their 'tentacle of advancement' has started your way, and that is the way it will continue... 2 cities... 3 cities... 4 cities... into your very front yard.

What of all the great resources in the other 3 directions from their base city? Ignored. Utterly. And I only play on huge maps, so they really have to take deliberate aim and focus on settling in a straight line, to only build right up to me, with all the huge open areas of unsettled land all around them. Only after they can't go any farther in your direction, will they start settling out in other directions. And only after they've accused YOU of settling in their personal territory (HAH!) and forced you to kick their arses.

The farther you go out, the more civs you find, the more you observe the exact same general pattern, even *much* farther away. The only thing that will blunt these tentacles of single-minded advancement, is when they run into natural barriers or other civs they have to fight. Or if they go turtle and choose not to advance at all, which happens sometimes.

This pattern or rush-building towards the human player, is less obvious on maps that don't lend themselves to it, like archepelago, small continents, and long, snakey continents... that sort of obvious hardship against that behavior. But, given a large continent to settle and the human player on that continent- better put up a machine gun nest on the porch and a "GIT OFF'N MAH LAWN!" sign out front, cuz they're headed your way, at lightspeed.

It wouldn't bother me as much if, just *once*, I saw an expansionist civ anywhere in my area start their advancement path AWAY from my civ... but that would be a long, fruitless wait, I'm betting.

 

[pazmacats]

It's dota AI. Civ5 is not a strategy game. It's made to sell (DLC).

 

[KaiserKevin]

I believe this to be true, my main beef with this strategy for the AI is they will do it regardless of the situation, even if it is not beneficial to them. For instance if you can imagine a map with a fairly straight continent going.

User------AI 1-------AI 2


AI 1 will build straight at you, along with AI 2, but AI 2 will end up getting more land than AI 1. If all 3 expand evenly, User and AI 1 get 1/4 of the continent each, and AI 2 gets 1/2. AI 2 will eventually use that advantage to destroy AI 1

So really AI 1's only point of existing in the game was to screw over the user before being destroyed by AI 2

 

[chazzycat]

Maybe it's luck or something, I really haven't noticed this pattern in my games. They might throw the first city my way if we start close together, but generally the next ones will be in a circle around their capital, not a beeline towards me.

 

[cccv]

Based on my last game, no. Germany was closest to me and could have easily grabbed a nice site toward me with wine, but chose to expand away from me instead, allowing me to grab that spot. So no, they don't move toward you 100% of the time.

 

[pspboy7]

I all honesty, I think Firaxis tried to make the AI as close to an actual player in terms of unpredictably as they could, which is why they seem to tend to hate on you more than anything. Beelining towards you seems to be another factor in this trend. Close borders spark wars and the AI is good at starting them, although not fighting in them hehe.

 

[Smokeybear]

I all honesty, I think Firaxis tried to make the AI as close to an actual player in terms of unpredictably as they could, which is why they seem to tend to hate on you more than anything. Beelining towards you seems to be another factor in this trend. Close borders spark wars and the AI is good at starting them, although not fighting in them hehe.

It isn't a 100% thing, there are always games and civs in games that buck the trend, in my experience too. But overall, I do see this trend, personally. I can deal with it, I've had to since it's just been standard AI behavior since day one... it just seems so senseless and is usually an outright fail-strat for the civs that do it. It's not like I don't see them coming, and hence prepare to blunt or annihilate their tentacles.

And since they were focusing on spamming crappy little tentacle cities and as many low end military units as they can muster as they go along, they don't work their land much or intelligently build and grow into the best nearby resource areas... they just shoot their wads in lame rush-the-player buildout strat.

The civs that cause me real trouble or even beat me, are those that take their time and build up tech and resources and gold and military/science lead in a sensible way by properly growing and managing the lands around them, and then go for the Super Bowl win.

 

[PasturedCow]

I have noticed this too and I swear it is true. I remember one deity game that I was going for an early 1 city NC as Babylon by the time it was done (around year 2300 or so) I ended up completely surrounded by Washington. He started far to the left of me but had settled cities towards me, above me, and to the right of me. Below was ocean. So I was basically stuck with 1 city till I decided to go all bowmen rush on him.

 

[Callonia]

In last game of mine, Polynesia was guilty of this. he planted so many tentacle cities towards me, and not only me, but towards japan.

Me and Japan got peeved and teamed up on him. Well I did the heavy lifting cuz he mostly settled towards me and took my luxuries with some towards japan.

There was 5 wars that broke out between polynesia and me. Whole world sees me as warmonger but I dont care, they can break themselves on my soldiers if they dont like it.

ETIQUETTE DAMN IT! ETIQUETTE! AKA FRENCH FOR GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN!

What's more, his military's garbage and got killed by barbs. Even was in two pronged siege. Barbs on east side attacking his cities with me on the west side.

 

[BranjoHello]

Smokeybear, I agree completly with you. Noticed this "AI boxing" in all my games (Prince and above ) so far.

 

[TommyVern]

Be grateful they're placing cities so close that they will be easily captured!

 

[bcaiko]

Be grateful they're placing cities so close that they will be easily captured!

UGH. But then you have to waste time and happiness burning the useless cities down...

 

[HappyBuilder]

I'm not seeing it at much on levels 4-6 other than from ridiculously expansive civs like the Mongols, but they flood in all directions. Or maybe I'm just getting out of the blocks quicker and getting to the spaces in between faster. In my most recent game (level 6), there was an obvious resource treasure trove about equi-distant between me and Elizabeth, and she chose to keep in a tight radius around London rather than reach out for the goodies.

Most games, I think the AI is too slow to expand in the early game. Then a switch will flip and they'll start settling on every bit of inhabitable land, regardless of the sense of it. The Ottoman and Aztec civs are good examples of senseless late expansion. No barren island is to be ignored!

HB

 

[Smokeybear]

Most games, I think the AI is too slow to expand in the early game. Then a switch will flip and they'll start settling on every bit of inhabitable land, regardless of the sense of it. The Ottoman and Aztec civs are good examples of senseless late expansion. No barren island is to be ignored!

Yeah, and Hiawatha, for sure. Dunno how many times I've finally cleared the last little bit of fog of war from around some remote 1-hex barren island near one of the frozen poles, 1,000 miles from the nearest land mass and surrounded by maybe one workable fish resource- only to find a little brown mohawk village nestled on it already!