Settler spam

[Goombaz]

Do you guys think that settler diarrhea/spam will STILL be in Civ 4 despite them trying to make it less necessary?

 

[warpstorm]

They said that they can't cross your land without permission. That's what most people feel was bad before, not that the AI actually wanted to expand (unless it was a desire to make the game easier).

 

[remconius]

It'll probably still be key to get out a few settlers to make your first x settlers (optimum x will have to be determined) But soon cities will be more and more expensive to maintain and hence unmaintainable. You'll have to increase income before expanding further...

The trick will be to figure out how to achieve a max rate of expansion given the maintenance costs.

 

[Melendwyr]

If what they've said about research costs is true, then a small empire will be just as competitive -- or more so -- as a larger one. The only real advantage to expansion will be a greater ability to build units, and greater access to resources.

This will come at a great relief to me, at least. Finally, explorer units will have some purpose -- there will actually be some wilderness for them to explore.

 

[Goombaz]

That's cool, I am no great Civ 3 player anyhow. I just wanted to see what people thought as I had heard this mentioned. The AI sending settlers all over your land is pretty annoying, but I was talking about the player having to devote almost everything they had to rapid expansion and having to balance it with tech trading etc. Then again I am a bad player (still trying to improve at this late hour for Civ 3) so my perspective might be majorly I just remember groaning as I cranked out settler/escort warrior number 10.

 

[Yusaku Jon III]

Being a casual player of Civilization III since "vanilla", I wasn't too keen on a neighboring AI civ expanding faster than my expansionist civ was able to do, given that many times saw me spawned on a spot where I would have no immediate access to productive squares. Having the potential enemy literally pop into view just as you were about to reach that one source of iron or saltpeter on your continent -- the one which was some 20 tiles outside your borders -- was not fun if you were going to just play the game for an hour or two. Especially when said civ was already at Medieval tech and having been able to tech-trade and wonder-spam you into obsolescence. By then, you had to hope that the extra ivory and gems that you managed to get access to would satisfy them enough to make them friendly towards you.

As for Civ4, I'd wait and see. There's a chance that you'd still get spurts of expansive growth, especially on larger maps which would allow civs to build up a bit of income between settler-producing stages. But nothing like the constant swarm of settlers, followed by an invasion of SODs bent on sweeping your modest civ out of the way with no provokation whatsoever.

 

[Roland Johansen]

[sarcasm on]Yes, it's very bad if an AI player expands faster than me. They should somehow improve this feature in Civ 4. Oh and I also don't want the AI cities to become more productive than mine or the AI researching faster than me. And I definitely don't want an AI that is richer than me or has more resources than me. Actually, I want a bad AI [sarcasm off]


A lot of people complain about the bad AI in Civ 3. But when the AI somehow performs better than them in a certain area, be it expansion or unit production or research, then they also complain. I think people want an AI that always challenges them but never beats them.

But after you've played some games, you will notice that if the AI really never ever is able to beat you, then it also doesn't challenge you anymore.

Whatever the optimal strategy is in Civ 4, I want the AI to know it and exploit it to its fullest and try to beat the player and other AI's. And if it is optimal to expand fast, then the AI should expand fast.

 

[Commander Bello]

Based on the given information, settler diarrhoe is not to work anymore.
Sure, it will make sense to build the very first cities very fast, but later on this strategy should just be ruining you, as the few initial cities will not be able to support you. In turn this means that any additional city will get lost in the one way or the other.

It seems to be vital to determine the right places for your cities, thus making strategies as the OCP (optimal city placement) obsolete.

If this works as intended, it will be a good thing.

How easy it will be to build up a big empire, is yet unknown to us, although I am pretty sure that big empires still are possible. If they aren't this will be one of the first things (after unit size) which I will try to mod.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well Domination Is a victory condition, so I'd assume multi-continental empires are possible by the modern/Industrial period at least

 

[TerraHero]

I recon no one cna really tell by now, lets juz wait and see. Altough i find it a poor strategy undermining the fun out of the game if its juz "Remember kids, the bigger u're settler train the bigger your labido"