Blocking the AI from settling

[Zanteogo]

I find though the AI will avoid taking land too close to you if your powerful, once all the other spots are taken they will do so anyways.

The worse is when they find that one little spot in the middle of your empire after you do the open borders with them. A human player will generally never do this as it is pointless and actually harmful to the civ doing the settling. The AI doesn’t seem to care much.

 

[Grego_cact]

I find though the AI will avoid taking land too close to you if your powerful, once all the other spots are taken they will do so anyways.

The worse is when they find that one little spot in the middle of your empire after you do the open borders with them. A human player will generally never do this as it is pointless and actually harmful to the civ doing the settling. The AI doesn’t seem to care much.

I once did that. I turtled hard with that city and the IA just acted dazed. Was a nice tactical asset.

 

[Zanteogo]

I once did that. I turtled hard with that city and the IA just acted dazed. Was a nice tactical asset.

Well, generally it’s a crappy tactic. Cities without workable land tend to take way more away than they produce. Plus if that open boarders ends you have no way to move units in and out until airports or war.

 

[Grego_cact]

Well, generally it’s a crappy tactic. Cities without workable land tend to take way more away than they produce. Plus if that open boarders ends you have no way to move units in and out until airports or war.

Not like that you need a lot of units in order to protect a city. You should be able to have some few cities sub optimal from yield point of view, but that have some tactical or strategic value. Overoptimization of simple metrics can produce underperforming of more complex properties.

I am not suggesting that you should always do that or that most times that IA do that they are playing 5D chess. But it is not as simple as yields are the only metric that players (human or IA) should value. Those cities tend to underperform in IA hands because the computer is crappy in turtling actions.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I try to treat the AI as human, and also dont do things I wouldnt do vs humans . Settling a city in the midst of AI territory may work against an AI, but if you would do that vs a same skilled human, those cities would be doomed from the beginning. Either your enemy would buy all accessable tiles immidiatly, letting you behind with a useless 6 tile mini city, or strike this city from all sides and burning it down.
The most annoying is, every human would see a fresh settled city in midst of your own territory as a theoretical war declaration, and attacking such a city and burning it down absolutly understandable. But doing so gives the attacker of the city a diplomatic penalty to everyone, even worse, if you burn it down, while the aggressiv settling of a city has no influence diplomatically to other civs than to the bordering one. This makes it such a pain to see a stupidly settled city 3 tiles away from your cities.

 

[Minh Le]

This makes it such a pain to see a stupidly settled city 3 tiles away from your cities.

You can prevent that by buying tiles. Cities cannot be settled next to other nations border.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

You can prevent that by buying tiles. Cities cannot be settled next to other nations border.

I know, but thats not often possible all time. Especially in the beginning of the game when you use most of your gold to buy units or rush buildings in your secondary cities. While a tile in second ring costs most 50-60 gold, a tile in the third ring can cost 100+ gold. Buying 2 tiles have the same value as a early military unit, and often you have to buy more than those 2 tiles cause there are still other options for their settlers to found.

 

[Grego_cact]

I try to treat the AI as human, and also dont do things I wouldnt do vs humans . Settling a city in the midst of AI territory may work against an AI, but if you would do that vs a same skilled human, those cities would be doomed from the beginning. Either your enemy would buy all accessable tiles immidiatly, letting you behind with a useless 6 tile mini city, or strike this city from all sides and burning it down.
The most annoying is, every human would see a fresh settled city in midst of your own territory as a theoretical war declaration, and attacking such a city and burning it down absolutly understandable. But doing so gives the attacker of the city a diplomatic penalty to everyone, even worse, if you burn it down, while the aggressiv settling of a city has no influence diplomatically to other civs than to the bordering one. This makes it such a pain to see a stupidly settled city 3 tiles away from your cities.

In the grand scheme of things, forward settling between your cities is detrimental to IA but also is for you. So can be take as a sunken cost for the IA.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

What I don't understand is what exactly are the parameters of what a civ considers its territory? Like I'll have civs automatically assume my capital is their territory as soon as I meet them on turn 10, so how far from their capital does their hypothetical "empire" expand out to?

As Napoleon, I find myself frequently wondering why Egypt bothered to settle Thebes in the glorious soil of France. I find this realistic enough.