How to Stop the AI From Trying to Fill Up Holes in My Culture

[Apollo XI]

Playing a game as China in Regent in Civ3 Complete. Only got in the Middle Ages a few turns ago. I'm about to knock the Incas out of the game by taking their final city; they were much weaker than me, so I decided to seize the opportunity by taking over them. Helped me hugely in catching up in Science, but, because I've been focusing so much on making units, I haven't been building Temples or Settlers, so a lot of my cities (both founded and captured) have been producing no culture. And, of course, I have the occasional stranger country coming in from overseas to try and fill up holes--which annoys me immensely.

The Mayans have done it once, but, out of frustration, I just declared war on them, since I knew they couldn't touch me (they were on another continent, and I obviously wasn't planning on pursuing them, since I was busy with the Incans, who I was already reaping many rewards from), and killed their warrior and settler, and took over one city. I made peace with them a few turns later and got a tech out of them. But, now the Americans have just landed with another stupid Warrior/Settler combo, and are about to do the same thing.

Btw, I turned City Overturning off, since I thought that was the most ******** and unrealistic feature ever. (Sad thing is, I could use it right now. )

Should I just wait until I establish myself more with my captured Incan cities (after all, it's most likely the only city America will ever have on my continent, and it's so far away from them, so it will most likely not develop much), or should I just say "Screw it" again and kill them? I'm worried about my reputation if I were to just keep declaring war on people, even if I know they can't harm me. Out of all the five civs I know (soon to be four, when I take out the Incans), only one is "Polite" to me, and that's the Japanese. Everyone else is either annoyed (Aztecs and Americans) or furious (Incans and Mayans). Granted, I'm strong, so I'm not worried about fighting anyone, but I wanna chill after I kill the Incans and expand my culture, fill in holes, and build up infrastructure.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Well I don't think that taking that one irritating town is enough to warrant a war. But if you need to beat a tech out of them, or if you need to dow them so that you can get their neighbour to attack them too... that kind of stuff is worth a war. A war started for several different reasons is probably better than a war started for just one reason?
Anyway, to prevent the AI sending these settlers in the first place, it helps to understand how the AI plans new towns. First up, as far as I know (but I'm open to persuasive evidence to the contrary) the AI needs to have seen the land in question, either by first-hand exploration or by map trading. Second up, the AI will not settle in foreign territory. Third up and most relevant to your situation, the AI will not settle a town immediately adjacent to existing foreign borders (except in desperate circumstances, which afaik is limited to the AI having only one settler left and being unable to reach a spot which satisfies this rule).
So you can calculate which spots are eligible for AI settling. If you have captured towns rather than razed them there shouldn't be too much free space. And then you make sure to leave the "eligible" spots occupied by your own units - enslaved workers are often handy for this job. The AI doesn't have "no line of sight" fog, so it can see that the settlable tiles are occupied, and it won't send out the settlers.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

war, in itself, won't hurt your long-term rep or the AI attitude. They'll be furious with you while at war, of course.

If you are going to declare war, do so BEFORE the AI founds the city and whack the warrior/settler. Razing a city, even autorazing, is a serious hit to AI attitude.

If you want them to be polite, give them gifts and have trades going. that gets the AI happier.

 

[ecuwins]

It took me awhile to learn this lesson. My answer will do you no good now but should help in future games. I have found it very important to have at least a few settlers on standby. Usually I will have a settler or two in my arty stack as they have the same movement. I will also have a few in one of my border cities. Of course I do not do this until all available land is gone so an early war would be an exception to this rule. Just let your settler pump/s keep going for several turns after REX is over and you will have the settlers in no time. If you have to fortify them while you build more units, so be it, it is worth the upkeep. At some point in time I heard someone refer to these as "Battle Settlers" -- I kind of like that term.

 

[grognard]

One of the uses for captured workers is to set up a picket line on your border to keep the AI from even crossing into your territory. If your border is too long, just place3-5 slave workers in front of the AI (with 5 workers you create a "U" around the settler so the AI's choice is to go backwards. If you can spare 8 workers, just encircle the settler and trap it in your territory - comes in handy when you want to get the AI to start a war by asking him to leave your territory (the AI has to be Furious with you), or a handy source of 2 extra slave workers if war does break out.

 

[MAS]

You could build cities closer together...

 

[ThinkTank]

You could build cities closer together...

Agreed. If you settle CxC or CxxC you won't have holes. If you settle CxxxC the middle tile will be grabbed automatically, since 1 tile gaps are automatically grabbed. If you settle CxxxxC then at least one city must have a culture expansion for the 2 tile hole to disappear (the expansion will trigger the 1 tile auto-grab mechanism). But anyway, by Paperbeetle's observation that the AI normally does not settle right beside a foreign border, the AI would not settle the initial 2 tile gap in a CxxxxC pattern anyway. So you must have been settling CxxxxxC or wider, or left open a coastal spot of at least 2 tiles deep. This can happen in the start of the game when your priorities are to grab the good spots first, for food, or resources or a strategic position (blocking a choke). After the good spots have been settled, fill in the holes a.s.a.p.

 

[bambam190]

I had a sumular issue in a game that I'm playing. I had conquored the Aztecs in order to get to there monopoly on the silk trade (the only 6 tiles that I found in the game) as I took over their cities the culture shrunk down so that 4 of these tiles were available and see adjacent. To the South were the Americians and the Iroquois both who allied with me and had ROP. they both sent Settlers to the area as soon as the war was over. To counter act this I sent my warriors to fortify over the 4 tiles and pumped money into culture in the surrounding cities to expand the culture. so far it has worked, my culture should expand when I play tonight and all should be well.

 

[iambenben]

if you have one or two holes then you can use units to stand there until the culture fills the holes

 

[Nergal]

I use Horsemen or Ancient Cav ... just build a moving wall.