[Suggestion] Better AI colonies positioning

[MorphineCol]

Hey guys,

I've done a lot of quick plays recently (Tiny, Governor+) for fun, trying to win asap.

*Something I've noticed quite often, AIs are setting up their colonies in non optimal places regarding natural ressources (sugar, silver and so on).
Like many times I see a colony 1 tile too far from major ressources like gold & gems. It looks weird everytimes. Something a player would oc never do.
*Also sometimes it chooses to settle on a location very non-optimized for transportation, like first colony on the wrong side of the continent (Idk if AIs really need to sell things or if this is simulated).

Just some observations for further dev, game is already awesome atm. gg !

 

[raystuttgart]

Sure, AI logic may still be improved including logic for City placement.
We have come a long way to improve AI, but it is not yet playing like a human of course.

Like many times I see a colony 1 tile too far from major ressources like gold & gems.

Currently AI does not check "Gold value" of Yields from Bonus Resources when chosing a location to found a settlement.
So basically it would consider a Bonus Resource of Tobacco just as good as a Bonus Resource of Gold at the moment.

*Also sometimes it chooses to settle on a location very non-optimized for transportation

Currently AI settlement logic simply calculates which location has the "best value" considering a lot of factors.
(More or less all the surrounding Plots and the potential Settlement Plot itself are getting a "value" that is then added to a sum.)

Ocean access is just one factore of many and e.g. a location with more Food or more Resources may simply end up having a higher value than a coastal city.
Something like "distance to Europe Travel Plots" is not considered at all because it would impact performance to check.

However, AI does not really have a big issue with that.
Their "Overflow" is more or less directly sold to Europe.

Also AI actually does pretty well using Wagon Trains to transport its stuff.
So it also does not need to settle ony on the coast all the time.

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There is potential for improvement, but it is smaller than many may think.
Current settlement logic may look strange sometimes but it is performant and works good enough for AI.

But well, it is always possible to improve.
It just needs somebody motivated to invest the effort to work on it.