Solution to landgrabbing?

[Luca Brasi]

Other than corruption, which can be more-or-less fixed by changing the optimal number of cities with the editor, the insane landgrabbing by the AI is the one thing that ticks me off. In the early game, I really don't want to waste my settlers to build cities in crap land, but if I don't, the AI will do it for me. Other then wasting your units by placing them in empty squares, does anyone have any other solutions?

 

[Special_O]

This really sucks. You either have to spam the map with settlers constantly... or get the lowest score. Bah.

 

[Blakis Maximus]

I have been trying to figure out a way to edit tundra and desert tiles so that they are impossible to build cities on, like mountains. Unfortunately, it seems that behavior is hard-coded. The best you can do is edit them so that they produce 0 food, 0 mines, 0 commerce, and can't be improved by roads, mines, and irrigation. I haven't tried it, but I suspect the AI will still build cities there even though the terrain is essentially useless.

In other words, I don't know of any way to stop the landgrabbing except by posting units there. You could try lowering the expansion desire of all the civs but I doubt that would help much. It would probably just slow their expansion...

 

[Zouave]

Yet another glitch in this game.

Either you have to pack your new cities so close together there will be no room for later expansion, or, you have to waste workers, scouts, or warrriors occupying the land in between the borders so that some idiot settler unit from another civilization doesn't start a city there.

WORSE YET, if this encroachment and land-grabbing results in a war the games blames YOU for it even though they created a city right next to yours and usurped already developed land - an act of war by any logic. Logic the game does not possess.

Hey Sid, are your reading this forum?? There are a lot of complaints about a lot of things with this game.

 

[cutiestar]

Zouave

the complaints seem to be all based around people who aren't able to counter the AI's strategy, this is a strategy game, if you can't handle it and the AI and it's tactics are just too good for you, then maybe you should play a slightly less strategic game, maybe Grand Tourismo or something.

the AI choses to expand early, good for it, so you try to win with your strategy, i am sure the AI might complain that you take too long to expand, and what should it do, sit and twidle it's microchip waiting for you to finally decide to make use of all the available land?

 

[Bugg]

Either you have to pack your new cities so close together there will be no room for later expansion, or, you have to waste workers, scouts, or warrriors occupying the land in between the borders so that some idiot settler unit from another civilization doesn't start a city there
Let the A.I. Build in your territory, don't worry about keeping the A.I. out by building your cities close together. This will hurt you late in the game. Space out your cities and if the A.I comes in between your cities build a library and temple. Eventually the city will come over if your building improvements. If it doesnt come quick enough wage limited war. If the A.I wants to spare you the expense of building a city let him.

 

[BigBirdZ28]

I think this is a very realsitic thing, no problem with it.

Since Fraxis has designed the civs to be friendly & nonagressive(militarily) this makes it practical. The only thing you need to worry about is the barbarian "civilization".

 

[Zouave]

Cutiestar, you can go STICK your smug sarcasm, and you know where.

Bugg, interesting point. Maybe I will try that. It can be a problem for a while if that enemy city is blocking a crucial road needed for military movement.


It is inane to have rival settler units wandering around desperately looking for one open tile somewhere, aanywhere.

I have to leave room for expansion and therefore cannot have contiguous borders early on. There will be open spaces for a while.

NEVER give Right of Passage agreements which will let settlers even of "friendly" states into your territory.

When a settler builds a city right next to a border, or on a coast tile, it usurps my developed land, including mines and connecting roads. This is a HOSTILE act. But if I attack that unit I get the blame! I also lose a colony if a city is built nearby.

So I have to throw workers and warriors all over just to occupy these empty tiles. You may think that slick; I do not.

Border encroachment and land-grabbing (including of developed tiles) should be considered an act of war as permitted by the AI. It is not.

So you waste time making loads of warriors, workers, scouts, et al, and throw them out on those open tiles. Or, worse. go chasing a wandering settler unit around the board trying to block it.

I think it stinks.

 

[-proletarian-]

What I have been trying to do as of late is have all my cities at least 4 squares apart, so that each city has an un-encumbered cultural radius........this makes them much better cities in the industrial and modern ages, as it allows them to grow larger than when you have them all packed together and being forced to share resources. However, it does create a problem in the ancient era, as you have to watch that dastardly AI.......

 

[-proletarian-]

:vampire:

Oh, and Grand Tourismo sucks........

 

[Zouave]

Let me add something to Bugg's point about allowing the AI to build those cities in expectation they will eventually flip back to you.

First, THERE IS TOO MUCH FLIPPING - with "vanishing" garrisons.

Second, those added cities will crowd mine and inhibit later growth.

Third, if the AI is building cities that will eventually flip anyway, then the AI is stupid and wasting the resources of that rival civ. This is a glitch.

Patch needed. Another one.

Sorry, Bugg, but I have to pass on your idea. Land-grabbing settler units remain A BIG PAIN.

 

[Endureth]

I'm all for the way the computer grabs land. I do it to. Only difference is I'm better at keeping mine from flipping then the computer.

Ya know, real world England was a land-grabber in history. They claimed everything they could get there hands on and eventually, everything flipped on them. They use to be in control of a lot more of the world then they are now.

England - the greatest landgrabbers in history.

Endureth

 

[Rhandom]

Endureth, they did not "flip". The declared independance. Furthermore, most of those reverted to rule of the indigenous people who had been essentially enslaved. The english colonies did not switch to french or portugese or spanish culture, which is the Civ equivalent.

France did not sneak a colony between New York and Philadelphia. England did not sneak a colony into mexico. To put it into even more real "Civ3" terms, Germany never built a new town in between Lyon and Marseille during a rare instance of European peace.

It is not realistic, it makes for idiotic nuscience game play, and represents dumb AI.

Cutiestar, I see your quest to crawl up the collective Firaxis rectum continues. Think anyone is impressed?

 

[cutiestar]

Rhandom

the way you write, i get the impression you struggle with strategy, i must say i got this other game of strategy called Chessmaster 8000, awesome game, but it has one huge bug in it, and such a nuisance in the game play, whenever I leave my queen open, the computer always takes it, no matter what, even if they will lose their pawn , they still take my queen, i realy hope they put out a patch to fix that, because it really ruins my ability to play the game well.

As for sucking up to Firaxis, I couldn't give a toss about firaxis, i do get a little irritated at people that can't do something, so they automatically complain it is the other person or things fault, in this case Firaxis and their AI.

If the AI wants to waste it's settlers building inbetween your territory on this civilisation simulation, oh so unreal, then i think we should all write a letter to firaxis and complain that they didn't design the game to play exactly as we wanted, afterall it was us that invested all the money into developing it, and us who spent all those years building a company to produce it, so we should get to say exactly how we want the game to be.

please, give me a break

 

[Endureth]

Rhandom, Englands colonys did flip. They flipped back to their natives "civs" or to a friendly one. You just need to remember that there are a lot more than 16 "civs" in the real world. Independence, flip . . . same things. The still revolted and changed their culture to a more preferable one.

Endureth

 

[Moulton]

I think Quebec is still pretty French at heart, and would flip back if given half a chance...

 

[Rhandom]

Endureth, the "culture flips" you want to use as examples where never those of the Bristish people deciding they wanted to join the indigenous population. It was the British government deciding that the economics of maintaining repression was not worthwhile, or a whole new civilization coming into existance through military and diplomatic means. Again, it is not the same as what happens in civ. Your military is no defense against flips here, and in fact are destroyed more completely than even nuclear weapons. You don't get to make the decision that maintaining the city is worthwhile/costing too much, and putting units into the city only assures you will lose more stuff when the random culture flip occurs. I would welcome that aspect of the game, because I like the gameplay concept of the culture flips, just dislike the implementation/bugginess, as do most of the people asking for changes/clarification.

That isn't the point here though. This thread is about civs colonizing every free tile, even inside of your countries borders, even when it will have 1 gold corruption levels. It is not a matter of being able to counter it - everyone here already knows the stupid things you can do to counter it. Its not brain surgery. The point is that it ruins enjoyment of the game when the AI does something so blatantly stupid and you have to waste you gametime to keep your empire in the shape you have built it in, or commit genocide, or wait for the game mechanics to finally decide to flip the city (and like many, I've seen cities surrounded and overwhelmed by a surrounding culture last the entire game without flipping).

Again, this is the equivalent of germany sneaking a colony a few dozen klicks outside paris during peace time.

 

[Zachriel]

I was playing a game as the Canaanites. I was doing pretty good, too. Lots of culture and stuff. Then I see this settler moving in from the top of the map. Well, they plopped their settler right down in the middle of my Civ!

The rest of the game has been constant conflict. Wars, hot and cold, throughout the next 4000 years.

FIRAXIS, can't you do anything about this?

 

[dozenlong]

1) Develop strategies to counter the AI expansionism. It is not terribly hard to expand rapidly yourself--you will sacrifice the early wonders on the harder levels due to their increased production capacity, but everything has a risk/reward ratio. It's almost as if you are asking Firaxis to make it easier to play...I agree that I don't like to see rampant expansionism all the time, but I just finished a game that ended up with a terribly expansionist Bablyon, a militaristic Zulu, a wonder-building and science expanding Indian, and "whorish" Aztec (they kept siding with everyone for trade embargos and minor wars in an attempt not to get taken over). I had to use different strategies to overcome each civ...I find it hard to believe that you guys are playing 12 or 16 civ games where every single civ is doing the ultra-expansion thing. Sure some civs will do it, and you know what? It's an effective strategy. I would love to see Firaxis develop AI patches to continue to increase the AIs effectiveness with more diverse strategies, especially based on discussions that occur on boards like these, but I don't fault them for having their AI use effective strategies.

Expansionism is a viable option, and it works. Why would you want the AI crippled by having it use less effective means? Different but equally effective is fine, but I don't want the game artifically any easier than it is.

 

[cutiestar]

Horaaaa Horaaaa Dozenlong