How does the AI decide where to build cities?

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Apr 2, 2025
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I am wondering whether there's any prior research into how AI chooses city locations.

Is it dynamic - is AI smart enough to be aware of changes to terrain yields in RULES.TXT? Or is it hard-coded to require a certain number of grassland/plains (or special resources)?

Are rivers important?

How much does the AI need to explore before it will settle for a suboptimal spot?

I am working on a scenario with very different terrain characteristics than a normal game. I've had some trouble getting the AI to settle in spots that I expect; it takes a long time to build new cities and chooses bad spots sometimes!

I am mostly interested in MGE but observations about ToT would be helpful too! If this isn't a previously explored area I can do some experiments and share what I find.
 
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