Settling away from other civilizations
- Thread starter Mr.Saturn
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ThorHammerz
zzz
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This is dependent on:
- The AI's expansion flavour
- Map size (which affects the expansion flavour to a degree)
- Do they have vision of the tile your city is founded in? They won't go "We covet your lands" unless they actually know you're there (and in particular, that the city/owned land is there).
- The AI's expansion flavour is also adjusted by whatever "Grand Strategy" it is pursuing at any point in the game, so if it's trying to expand really quickly (and thus end up with a larger expansion flavour for that period of the game), then they will hate you more then as well.
- The AI's expansion flavour
- Map size (which affects the expansion flavour to a degree)
- Do they have vision of the tile your city is founded in? They won't go "We covet your lands" unless they actually know you're there (and in particular, that the city/owned land is there).
- The AI's expansion flavour is also adjusted by whatever "Grand Strategy" it is pursuing at any point in the game, so if it's trying to expand really quickly (and thus end up with a larger expansion flavour for that period of the game), then they will hate you more then as well.
90% of the time, the "stop settling cities near us" request is triggered by settling a city that is closer to their capitol than yours. Assuming the map is standard sized and that the two of you are neighbours of course. So i usually count tiles before settling a city, in a largely futile attempt to avoid aggression. Obviously, if you are separated by more than a certain number of tiles, it won't matter, but i'd be very rare to enounter that on standard pangea with default conditions.
Eg. you settle a city 11 tiles from their capitol and 13 tiles from your own, i guess that's not going to trigger them even though your new city is closer to them than it is to you. However i don't know what the exact number of tiles this is before it stops mattering.
The previous post may be talking about the "Covet lands you already own" diplo modifier. This one's truly a bind, because you often get this through no fault of your own. You can settle in the opposite direction from your neighbour, but he plonks a city down right next to you. This coveting modifier kicks once fewer than 7 tiles separate one of your cities from one of their cities, but doesn't differentiate who forward settled whom. Of course, it can also, as the last poster pointed out, occur even if you don't (yet) share any kind of border if you're dealing with an aggressive civ, as soon as he sees your Cap, he thinks "now that's a fine place to put a city, if only i could raze the one that's already there and build my own".
Watch out when you see the "covet lands" modifier, or if the AI starts settling his cities towards your capitol. Unless you're dealing with one of the less aggressive civs, you WILL BE attacked at some point in the next 50 turns. Or the next 5 turns. Especially watch out if the civ you are worried about has his unique unit. For example, Rome gets their UU in the Classical era, so are much more aggressive then, though TBH they're backstabby and aggressive period. Even Ethiopia, normally quite peaceful, can turn when they get their unique unit (mehal sefari, industrial era?) . As i discovered once, my peaceful friend and neighbour since 4000bc actually wanted all my cities
Eg. you settle a city 11 tiles from their capitol and 13 tiles from your own, i guess that's not going to trigger them even though your new city is closer to them than it is to you. However i don't know what the exact number of tiles this is before it stops mattering.
The previous post may be talking about the "Covet lands you already own" diplo modifier. This one's truly a bind, because you often get this through no fault of your own. You can settle in the opposite direction from your neighbour, but he plonks a city down right next to you. This coveting modifier kicks once fewer than 7 tiles separate one of your cities from one of their cities, but doesn't differentiate who forward settled whom. Of course, it can also, as the last poster pointed out, occur even if you don't (yet) share any kind of border if you're dealing with an aggressive civ, as soon as he sees your Cap, he thinks "now that's a fine place to put a city, if only i could raze the one that's already there and build my own".
Watch out when you see the "covet lands" modifier, or if the AI starts settling his cities towards your capitol. Unless you're dealing with one of the less aggressive civs, you WILL BE attacked at some point in the next 50 turns. Or the next 5 turns. Especially watch out if the civ you are worried about has his unique unit. For example, Rome gets their UU in the Classical era, so are much more aggressive then, though TBH they're backstabby and aggressive period. Even Ethiopia, normally quite peaceful, can turn when they get their unique unit (mehal sefari, industrial era?) . As i discovered once, my peaceful friend and neighbour since 4000bc actually wanted all my cities
I concur with the advise in the above posts, but as a general rule of thumb, “how close” for me means six hexes between their nearest city and where I am putting down an expo. In my experience, closer than that guarantees hostilities. Six hex distance is enough for the possibility of good relations. Of course, no distance is enough to guarantee peace -- so why give them more than six hexes?
BTW, getting the demand not to settle near them is not so bad. If you give into the demand, and then get the message many turns later about fulfilling the promise, then the civ will not be angry at you for the expo. They might still covet your lands later, of course. If you get the demand prompt, agree, and then they DoW anyway -- well, odds are pretty good that they would have DoWed even if that expo was 2-3 hexes further away from them. So it is a balance, how much are you willing to gimp your early game when so much is up to the RNG?
BTW, getting the demand not to settle near them is not so bad. If you give into the demand, and then get the message many turns later about fulfilling the promise, then the civ will not be angry at you for the expo. They might still covet your lands later, of course. If you get the demand prompt, agree, and then they DoW anyway -- well, odds are pretty good that they would have DoWed even if that expo was 2-3 hexes further away from them. So it is a balance, how much are you willing to gimp your early game when so much is up to the RNG?
phillipwyllie
Wannabe Deity
Depends on the civ in question I'm forward settling. If it's Attila or Shaka then I settle away from them, any other civs they can be damned. If I get the "don't settle near me" request then I know war is imminent and archers are built and a beeline to Construction is made.
Although the OP is asking how close you need to be I think it's 6 hexes. In saying that I once settled a city 4 hexes from Deli and Gandhi didn't seem to mind.
Although the OP is asking how close you need to be I think it's 6 hexes. In saying that I once settled a city 4 hexes from Deli and Gandhi didn't seem to mind.
Agreed, the civ in question is more of a factor. I should have written that settling closer than six hexes usually leads to hostilities. There are few guarantees!
While certainly a warning, I would not characterize the “don’t settle near me” demand (it is not really a request) to mean that war is imminent. When I get it from civs other than those like Atilla or Skaka, a follow-up DoW seems like 50/50 to me (and less than that if I immediately gear up).
While certainly a warning, I would not characterize the “don’t settle near me” demand (it is not really a request) to mean that war is imminent. When I get it from civs other than those like Atilla or Skaka, a follow-up DoW seems like 50/50 to me (and less than that if I immediately gear up).
compwiz1202
King
I think it could be cool if Civs were be like, "You'd better get that settler out of here" if they saw one within their assumed "My Lands" range, instead of addressing it once the city was built.
The problem is, they might be cool with your extra city at first. But then they settle another one and suddenly your borders are in conflict. Or the two of you both settled cities towards each other, the closest pair now 5 tiles apart. When just founded, with culture borders only going out to one tile around the city, no problem. But then the borders start growing, and as the AI wonders which tile to buy next it suddenly reaslises the tile it wants most is already in your borders. Time for some land envy sulking.
compwiz1202
King
Yea I love that one too. I can see them coveting when they build close, but not saying you shouldn't settle so close if you didn't settle since they built that city.
I also loved the one where after a while I met Egypt, and I still only had my capital like 50 or so hexes away, and Ramesses coveted
I think the value of your city site has a bearing too, i've been trying out as Spain recently and AI seems to covet more when i found my second city with a natural wonder within its borders. The AI must be running calculations where to drop its second city, and when one of your sites is better than anything else you can see - covet! Which is going to be most of the time because the game biases and balances to make sure starting locations have good tiles... most of the time , your capitol will have a better "tilescore"
ThorHammerz
zzz
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Yep, even if you're an entire map away, the moment you give him your own embassy, you get a nice red "They covet your lands" modifier for your troubles 
. This is especially funny on huge non-pangea! maps, when it's only obvious to the human that the AI has no chance whatsoever of expanding that far.
Regardless, just take it as a "the AI is programmed to hate me" type of thing. As I noted in the first reply, the covet modifier will drastically decrease after a certain point in the game, when the AI has finished expanding its core cities (i.e. when it switches grand strategy from "expand like crazy" to something else).
Often times it's best to wait until then before you start your mating dances for the AI's gold and luxes
.
. This is especially funny on huge non-pangea! maps, when it's only obvious to the human that the AI has no chance whatsoever of expanding that far.Regardless, just take it as a "the AI is programmed to hate me" type of thing. As I noted in the first reply, the covet modifier will drastically decrease after a certain point in the game, when the AI has finished expanding its core cities (i.e. when it switches grand strategy from "expand like crazy" to something else).
Often times it's best to wait until then before you start your mating dances for the AI's gold and luxes
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