"No settlers" option: gameplay and AI weirdness

[pchem]

Lately I've been playing with the barbarian world and 'no settlers' options. It makes for a fun game. You want a city? You have to go take it. No freebies. It makes hooking up certain resources more challenging too, since cities may be in less than ideal spots.

However, I've noticed some strangeness. Late game, there may be barb cities popping up in uncultured areas after city razes. However, when the nearby AI civs spot these cities, they don't 'play smart' and take these cities over. Instead, the barb cities are often razed. Ouch! Cities are valuable!

Playing on monarch, I think the AI still starts with 2 settlers. Correct but weird.

There is a game event which lets the player gain a settler by paying a small amount of gold. This is extremely powerful.

Barbarians do not seem to settle all fog areas -- I've noticed some snow/ice/tundra covered areas that could support a small coastal city on the far side of some islands, are in fog, but are never settled by barbs. Not sure why.

Lastly, the AI tech priorities do not necessarily reflect the fact that peaceful expansion is impossible. Some AI are quite late to city-busting techs like whatever you need for catapults, and bronze/iron working. Others (this is on an islands map) neglect pushing for optics or astronomy, which are critical for moving their armies from island A to island B.

I know the game was not designed/balanced for this option, but it's pretty cool to play, and I thought I'd give some feedback and encourage others to try it. Next up: raging barbs, barb world, no settlers.

 

[DVS]

This is how I have started playing too, but I haven't had the same issues (yet). Maybe I haven't played a game long enough.

 

[Sarisin]

Lately I've been playing with the barbarian world and 'no settlers' options. It makes for a fun game. You want a city? You have to go take it. No freebies. It makes hooking up certain resources more challenging too, since cities may be in less than ideal spots.

However, I've noticed some strangeness. Late game, there may be barb cities popping up in uncultured areas after city razes. However, when the nearby AI civs spot these cities, they don't 'play smart' and take these cities over. Instead, the barb cities are often razed. Ouch! Cities are valuable!

Playing on monarch, I think the AI still starts with 2 settlers. Correct but weird.

There is a game event which lets the player gain a settler by paying a small amount of gold. This is extremely powerful.

Barbarians do not seem to settle all fog areas -- I've noticed some snow/ice/tundra covered areas that could support a small coastal city on the far side of some islands, are in fog, but are never settled by barbs. Not sure why.

Lastly, the AI tech priorities do not necessarily reflect the fact that peaceful expansion is impossible. Some AI are quite late to city-busting techs like whatever you need for catapults, and bronze/iron working. Others (this is on an islands map) neglect pushing for optics or astronomy, which are critical for moving their armies from island A to island B.

I know the game was not designed/balanced for this option, but it's pretty cool to play, and I thought I'd give some feedback and encourage others to try it. Next up: raging barbs, barb world, no settlers.

Some comments on what you wrote:

1. I've never seen the AI raze a city (pop. of 1 excluded, of course), since several versions ago. Whether it is a barb city or another AI civ's city, it is always captured. The exception is the Horsemen who seem to raze cities.

2. I always play at Monarch and I didn't notice the AI gets 2 free settlers. I thought you were playing with the No Settlers option?

3. I thought I have seen every event, but I never saw one that allowed me to buy a Settler. That is a new one on me.

4. Maybe there is a limit to the number of barb cities, I dunno. It seems like in my game every open area gets a barb city. If you raze one, another is back in a few turns!

5. Don't expect your raging barb game with the No Settlers options to be much. The main barb force will not come until you have a good number of cities (not counting barb cities) and with the No Settlers option, that will likely never happen.

 

[pchem]

2. I always play at Monarch and I didn't notice the AI gets 2 free settlers. I thought you were playing with the No Settlers option?

5. Don't expect your raging barb game with the No Settlers options to be much. The main barb force will not come until you have a good number of cities (not counting barb cities) and with the No Settlers option, that will likely never happen.

The starting settler(s) are still given to each civ, of course. It's just that you can't produce them via normal means.

The main barb force actually shows up kinda quickly because you and the AI go and seek out barb cities, take them over to add to your empire, and then that will trigger the raging barbs (while there are still plenty of barb cities via the barb world option).

 

[Ogden Reeve]

The event pchem is talking about is the "Imigrants have arrived at _city_". You can choose what to do with these immigrants and one choice is outfitting them as settlers.
The event is relatively new and was only introduced a few patches ago.
Its a great event! unless it catches you when your broke... that can be frustrating

 

[Bitwise]

Can you still turn on 'no razing'? I haven't looked for that option, but it seems that the AI might play better with it on that kind of map.

 

[pchem]

Can you still turn on 'no razing'? I haven't looked for that option, but it seems that the AI might play better with it on that kind of map.

I don't recall, but the problem with the AI and barb cities is probably only with level 1 barb cities. The AI doesn't know to "farm" them up to level 2 or 3 before taking them over, so they aren't auto-razed.

 

[Sarisin]

The starting settler(s) are still given to each civ, of course. It's just that you can't produce them via normal means.

The main barb force actually shows up kinda quickly because you and the AI go and seek out barb cities, take them over to add to your empire, and then that will trigger the raging barbs (while there are still plenty of barb cities via the barb world option).

I have to pay better attention - I didn't notice the AI getting two bonus Settlers at Monarch difficulty.

I'm sorry, but I still don't get how you can get the raging barbs quickly in a No Settlers game. It takes time to build up a decent army and you still need defenders for spawned Skeletons, Lizardmen as well as units built in barb cities. I think there has to be at least two cities times the total number of civs before the main barb force comes.

Also, if you play on a huge map, like I do, you may not have barb cities close to you. I can't imagine your maintenance costs by taking one or more barb cities such a distance from your capital, not to mention connecting them.

Let us know how it works out for you. I tried No Settler games with Barbarian World and it was boring for a long, long time - although the animals stayed around awhile.

 

[Imuratep]

Unless it was changed in one of the recent patches the AI does not get additional settlers till God level (I looked it up in the XML not much time ago). They usually just build very many very early, but that's a result of the free worker and the free techs they start with. Perhaps they get additional settlers in this game mode, because they AI would be absolutely without any chance to compete with only one settler, but for certain not in the main game.

 

[Sarisin]

Unless it was changed in one of the recent patches the AI does not get additional settlers till God level (I looked it up in the XML not much time ago). They usually just build very many very early, but that's a result of the free worker and the free techs they start with. Perhaps they get additional settlers in this game mode, because they AI would be absolutely without any chance to compete with only one settler, but for certain not in the main game.

While they expand like crazy, I agree and don't think they get free Settlers in Monarch. As you said, they don't really need them as they certainly pump them out faster than you.