Question About Ai Settlers

[WickedWombat]

I have a small dilemna. I am currently playing on a large map on monarch level as the Aztecs. I currently share the continent with the Babylonians, Germans, and the Greeks.

I currently control the bottom half of the continent with cities covering the entire area. The Babylonians are to the north of me and the Germans and Greeks are north of them.

I have a situation where the Babylonians continue to move settlers into my territory and say they will leave but they still continue to move south.

I know in the past when I have performed this same type of action against another civ, they warned me once. During the next turn if I continued to move into their territory, they would warn me and the menu would basically say something like declare war or leave (your units will move automatically).

The problem is in the case of them moving into my territory, they don't have the option of moving their units automatically after I warn them.

It sucks because I had to declare war on them to get them to go away.

What gives?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[chrome_gnome]

I have experienced similar occurances and I think the AI is very aware of your military power relative to theirs and their decision to call your bluff is directly related. When my military was similar or less than theirs in size I noticed the AI would often ingore my demands that they leave. When my military was obviously superior their troops did leave post haste. I guess it comes down toa judgement call. If your cultural boundaries are solid and have no holes then there is no hope of them founding a city in your midst. If they manage to find a small holes to plant one it will flip to you more often than not. If the enemy is walking troops around then those can be nothing but trouble. If you leave them alone becasue they won't leave then it means the AI feels its stronger than you in which case those soldiers will attack sooner rather than later. If you attack them you run the risk of getting into a war with an equal opponent but at least you can be fighting from defensive positions and with short supply lines within your realm. You will crush an equal or lesser foe who insists on sending his army against your fortified efenses. The problem lies when the enemy is larger than you economically and militarily. He has the troops to throw at your and disrupt your economy while he continues to grow stronger at home. The only way I have found to quickly placate such an enemy is to snatch one of his border towns and then sue for peace with that on the table. The AI loves getting cities and you end up hopefully reducing his army size a little, having little to no interuption in your core cities production and having peace with no loss of territory.

That one of the toughest things to happen when you happen to be placed next door to any militaristic civ from the start. You know they are going to get aggressive fast and that they will have a better military. I guess thats a good reason to not make the civs start next to their historical neighbors.

 

[Grey Knight]

Let me get this straight - the territory goes:


Germans & Greeks
Babylonians
You
(empty space)

Right? Your worried about them settling the open space below you? Fuhgetaboutit! Those cities are basically yours - they are closer to your capitol than the Babs, which means you can either aquire them culturally (harder to do against Babs than others though) or easy pickings militarily. My advice would be to mobilize, then enter into an alliance against the Babs with their northern neighbor. Cherry pick the southern towns, and send your main forces north. Once you clear out the babs, and have some time to consolidate, repeat with your new neighbor, using their north neighbor to squeeze them. After that, you're on your own

Cheers,
Shawn
Me? Warmonger? Nooooo...

 

[WickedWombat]

Thank you very much chrome_gnome and grey knight!

I am ahead of the Babylonians militarily (military advisor considers me strong compared to them), but I am falling behind culturally.

Looks like a civ has a coming their way. Thanks again.

 

[Zouave]

This is the same old Settler Diarrhea problem that vexes us all to no end.

You can either go to war, HOPE that at some future point their new towns will flip, or simply block all tiles with warriors or workers.

Either way it's a crock. Any civ that invades your territory SHOULD be considered to be committing an act of war if they do not leave for good in one turn. But the dopey AI doesn't see it that way.


BTW, having rival civs' cities within your borders is not only a pain for many reasons it is dangerous - they could serve as bases for an invading army to heal in.

 

[Jason Fox]

I'm having a similar problem now too. I"m at war with the Greeks and the Persians and Aztecs continually walk around inside my borders. I can't ask them to leave because the only option is move or declare war and I don't want them to declare war because the bulk of my units are fighting in the southern most part of my territory (large map) and that's some distance from my annoying northern neighbors.

So I'm letting them for now since it's just a couple pikemen, plus settlers but there are gaps in my growing country due to captured cities from India and Greece. Part of me almost wants them to settle in those gaps, saving me the hassle of making settlers since I'll take the city by culture flipping or force eventually.

But so far they are just walking around.