The AI settles their cities too close to one another

[Tdot1]

Pretty self-explanatory here, but has anyone else found this? They are settling really close together, much to their detriment, and this seems especially an issue when there is plentiful space. I thought this was particularly poignant when watching 'Drew Durnil' AI only battle where Russia was completely surrounded by great land and just refused to settle further out, and he's Russia, I mean, that's the last Civ that should be worried about being forward-settled.

Spoiler :

http://imgur.com/a/ifDsr

 

[Victoria]

I place my cities clse like this, I suspect many do.... If you spread out too much its harder to defend your land, internal trade routes take longer and adjacency planning is more effort. Sure if you want to play 400 tirns your coties would get the 3 tile value but I see the AI doing fine here.

 

[Tdot1]

I place my cities clse like this, I suspect many do.... If you spread out too much its harder to defend your land, internal trade routes take longer and adjacency planning is more effort. Sure if you want to play 400 tirns your coties would get the 3 tile value but I see the AI doing fine here.

So you don't see a problem with it? It just seems to me that its a waste of precious space, I often place some cities close, but I do it in more of a clustered fashion as opposed to clumped. And what about their reluctance to settle a larger area, given all the land they have available to them?

 

[LDiCesare]

That's not a waste at all. Bonuses from some districts (IZ in particular) spill over to nearby cities, so you have more benefit from these districts if you are packed, close, and since the price increases with the number of districts, it's a net win.
In addition, you can get closer from one place to the next in order to defend your land.

The problem is more that the AI should settle more land. With a size 20 city, they should have sent settlers around to make use of the free space.

 

[Ryika]

Wait, the complaint is that these cities are settled "too close" to each other? I'd rather say the gap in-between is way too large.

And those Encampments...

 

[Zaarin]

My problem with the AI's city planning isn't how far apart their cities are: it's how many of them they settle. Seriously, every last worthless tile on the map is claimed by some AI power by the end of the game. Granted, this isn't a new problem--I remember finding AI cities in Antarctica in Civ5--but it's still obnoxious.

 

[Victoria]

There definately seems to be a limiter on how much they expand initially. Maybe to help us peaceful folk survive

 

[Tdot1]

Yeah, I see what you guys mean but still, it seems like they are not using an optimum number of cities or the space available to them. And I often see them settling one tile away from a nice river and straight on a plains tile, it just feels like this is a major downfall for their abilities. Not to mention settling some of the weirdest spots just cause there is a singular tile where it can.

 

[Lynnes]

Oh I can completely relate! I also don't like settling too close, and as long as there is plenty of unsettled land left, I keep sending out new settlers until a huge part of the map, each good location that is either strategic or just looks pretty, every single resource and each Natural Wonder says M-I-N-E on it.
There lies another civilization between my empire and the new land? Just walk around then!
I already own more copies of that resource than there are players in this game I could trade it to? Doesn't matter, I want it anyway!

If you rely on cavalry, forts, airlifts and turtle defenses (I'm quite peaceful and never declare offensive wars) this works fine, at least for me.
But unlike most people here I only play on Immortal with AI+, so maybe I'd have to change my "tactics" on Deity.

Well.. I guess I wandered off the subjuect a bit, so what I originally wanted to tell you is that there is a mod you might find useful:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/cities-gap-4.605135/

Just make sure you also include the chages that @qqqbbb suggests at the end of the thread.

 

[Captain Potato]

I played a game on an islands map, and I remember Greece had this little island where they started and ended up quartering it with one city in each corner. And I do mean little. The four corners were minimum settling distance. After I took the island over I remember thinking just how bad the cities were. Obviously the water tiles are absolutely terrible to work and there was the odd bit of mountain on the land as well. This one city was settled on a little peninsula and it literally had like four workable tiles. What can you even do with such a city? And you know what else? They still ended up building wonders.

It's a different story on Pangea yes, but for islands I agree entirely; the AI settles far too close. Just a little bit of foresight on what districts they wanted and what workable tiles they would be left with would have told them that four cities was too many for the space.