Couple of Questions Regarding AI

[RcktMan77]

I'm curious why the AI is able use it's workers to claim resources and surrounding land providing them with the resource on the tile as well as claiming several surrounding tiles around this resource for their cultural borders without needing a settler to build a city.

My other question is regarding diplomacy. It seems as if I choose to want to protect my borders by disagreeing to open borders in order to prevent other civs from crossing my borders to get to land on the other side, then the AI tends to become annoyed and with aggressive civs will usually begin wars a few turns later. What's the consensus here on accepting or declining invitations for open borders if you wish to protect other civs from settling in open land that requires they go through your borders?

Thanks.

 

[miller4242]

If a resource is in your cultural borders or the AI's cultural borders, then all you have to do is hook it up and it is yours.

In regards to open borders, you have to play a delicate diplomatic game with them, i.e trade favorable trades, to keep them. It can be a challenge to keep the AI "boxed" out from settling unclaimed lands.


By the way, WELCOME TO CFC.

 

[RcktMan77]

No, I'm speaking that this resource is out of their cultural borders. For example in a game last night I saw workers placing a camp on a tile with Ivory. The ivory was clearly out of China's borders, yet by placing a camp on the tile it gave them the resource and the surrounding land was claimed for them as well. I sort of think this is an unfair tactic, as I tried doing that and couldn't.

 

[automator]

They can't.

You may have been looking at a camp within another civ's borders, or a camp that was built while it was inside some borders but the city had been razed or sacked in a way that it's cultural, and cultural borders, were reduced.

The AI follows the same basic rules as the humans.

 

[JackOfClubs]

My other question is regarding diplomacy. It seems as if I choose to want to protect my borders by disagreeing to open borders in order to prevent other civs from crossing my borders to get to land on the other side, then the AI tends to become annoyed and with aggressive civs will usually begin wars a few turns later. What's the consensus here on accepting or declining invitations for open borders if you wish to protect other civs from settling in open land that requires they go through your borders?

Technically they don't get annoyed with you for refusing Open Borders. That is always a parity trade (ie they give you exactly what you give them) so refusing will be diplomatically neutral.

However, you do get a diplomatic bonus for having "fair and forthright" trade relations with a rival civ so refusing to trade may have an indirect negative effect (in the sense of a lost opportunity for a positive one). Some civs will value your trade more highly than others and the longer you maintain trade the better the bonus will be, but it will never result in a negative unless you cancel all trade deals due to a demand from a third party. I have heard that a civ you have been trading with will also get annoyed if you cancel all trade with them, but I have never seen this happen.

 

[automator]

Since there's a positive modifier for having open borders, having closed borders sort of is a negative. Sometimes those open borders are the only thing keeping a civ from declaring on you. Once I had a pretty shaking relationship with India. I kept open borders because his territory divided mine. Once I'd built enough culture up to split a "river" and divide this territory with mine, I closed borders.

Next turn he declared on me. Bloody, bloody war.

 

[cabert]

Since there's a positive modifier for having open borders, having closed borders sort of is a negative. Sometimes those open borders are the only thing keeping a civ from declaring on you. Once I had a pretty shaking relationship with India. I kept open borders because his territory divided mine. Once I'd built enough culture up to split a "river" and divide this territory with mine, I closed borders.

Next turn he declared on me. Bloody, bloody war.

India declared on you ?
Never happened to me.
Must have been Asoka then?

 

[eric_]

I'm very stingy about open borders until my expansion-by-settler plans are complete or close to it. The only exception is if a civ is far away with a neighbor between me and that far away civ. In that situation, there are strategic reasons for becoming friendly with the far away civ, yet the risk of them settling near me are slim.

As for preventing a civ from declaring, beefing up your army is always a good way.

[edit]Oh yeah, as for improving a resource outside of cultural borders, it's possible that the AI has settled near that resource since you last explored that area.[/edit]

 

[Quagga]

I've just about convinced myself that having open borders with Mansa and the other tech-happy, peace-loving types is a big negative. I don't need happy relations with these guys. I certainly don't want them getting any cash for having trade routes with me.

On the other hand, open borders with the warlike folk mean they are more likely to be pleased with me. I might be able to bribe them into a war, which one can almost never do with the peace lovers.