Incredible AI city placement

[ChocolateShake]

Like @Thormodr mentioned, sadly the AI seems to know where resources are and settles there early. I think another part of it is that the AI has been told to forward-settle, as a way to generate friction between them and the player. I can't really think of any other reason why they would settle so close.

Did Gandhi have a source of diamonds in his territory? Hopefully he doesn't.

 

[KayAU]

No, he didn't have access to diamonds elsewhere, although there were many better sources of pearls, as well as some other luxuries which were available up in the fertile lands around his capital. I'd still say the placement is quite silly.

 

[Josephias]

I can't blame the AI for forward settling as it was something I got used to do as well in Civ V (claim the contested good spots, then fill the gaps).

However, AI behaviour in Civ IV is specially irritating because of two things:
- " In your face" settling, directly competing for 2-nd / 3-rd ring Hexes.
- "In your back" settling, which means he is placing a city behind the ones you have placed (or even your capitol), without possibility of giving continuity to his empire.
- Plus the non-knowledge of what resources will appear, make some placement decisions really weird (bad land).

Imho, these are things to be addressed: AI should not compute -at least not with the same priority- resources they have no have access to or have no immediate use, AI should take into account the annoyance factor of border fighting (it's not the same spacing your cities 4-hex than spacing 4-hex with a neighbour), and AI should consider the posibility of connecting to his empire (connecting is posible if the land next to nearest border is empty. It is not possible if you have already an enemy city in the middle - unless you plan to declare war, that is, but then you are granting your neighbour an easy target as well).

Tangentially, taking into account loyalty will have the effect of considering these two points (near enemy cities provide more negative loyalty pressure, as well as being surronded will do). However, they should take into account the resource thing to make the AI appear more sane.

 

[ChocolateShake]

No, he didn't have access to diamonds elsewhere, although there were many better sources of pearls, as well as some other luxuries which were available up in the fertile lands around his capital. I'd still say the placement is quite silly.

I definitely agree, hopefully they fix this in the expansion. It's really the worst thing for immersion, like you said we expect the AI to expand within their lands first, and that gives you a sensation of them building real civilizations. This kind of "in your back" settling like @Josephias mentioned is annoying, and it gets a lot more annoying when you see AI settlers walking around aimlessly around fertile lands that are close to them and never settling.

I can't blame the AI for forward settling as it was something I got used to do as well in Civ V (claim the contested good spots, then fill the gaps).

However, AI behaviour in Civ IV is specially irritating because of two things:
- " In your face" settling, directly competing for 2-nd / 3-rd ring Hexes.
- "In your back" settling, which means he is placing a city behind the ones you have placed (or even your capitol), without possibility of giving continuity to his empire.
- Plus the non-knowledge of what resources will appear, make some placement decisions really weird (bad land).

Imho, these are things to be addressed: AI should not compute -at least not with the same priority- resources they have no have access to or have no immediate use, AI should take into account the annoyance factor of border fighting (it's not the same spacing your cities 4-hex than spacing 4-hex with a neighbour), and AI should consider the posibility of connecting to his empire (connecting is posible if the land next to nearest border is empty. It is not possible if you have already an enemy city in the middle - unless you plan to declare war, that is, but then you are granting your neighbour an easy target as well).

Tangentially, taking into account loyalty will have the effect of considering these two points (near enemy cities provide more negative loyalty pressure, as well as being surronded will do). However, they should take into account the resource thing to make the AI appear more sane.

Yup, if this isn't fixed in the expansion I at least hope they open up modding possibilities to have unofficial patches setup. It's a great game, they just need to fix a few of these minor issues to make it easier to get immersed.