Way to influence culture border expansion?

[excommunicatus]

Hey guys, have a question about culture border expansion. Is there a way to influence which tiles your city governor goes for when your culture borders are planning to grow? I just had a game where the governor for one of my cities made the absolute worst decisions on tile acquisition I've yet seen in my 1900+ hours in Civ 5.

My city was on a river, with the south side of the river being a region of jungly hills and the north pure desert tiles (as in, no yields desert, not flood plains). And for the whole game, once the tiles actually along the river were acquired, that governor grabbed nothing but the empty desert tiles, and had no interest whatsoever in getting the yielding jungle hills to the south.

7 consecutive tile expansions, all he wanted were those dead deserts. There never was even a choice - when I looked to see the tile outline of the next likely expansion, it never showed like a desert or one of the other tiles with yields, he just set it to grab deserts only. Eventually there was no other choice, as India's city further down to the south gradually took up all those yielding tiles my governor didn't bother to try for.

In case it matters, this was a multiplayer game with 2 humans and 4 AIs, Prince, small pangaea, CS's set down to only 9, AIs on random personalities and the rest default. I was Babylon, and Akkad (second city) was the city in question, and had been set to Production focus.

One other detail that might have had an effect, though I don't think it should - my third city was on the other side of the smallish desert, and had built Petra. The tiles my Akkad governor were grabbing were not tiles within Dur-Kurg's workable radius (no overlap), but I wondered if it was possible my gov was being confused into thinking those desert tiles had the Petra bonus yields (which they certainly weren't, of course), and would have made them at least somewhat desirable in that situation if it were true.

Now, I know that if you're hoping for your city to reach out to grab a particular resource tile you can buy a tile in that direction to help encourage the governor to see it, and try to acquire (in cases where said resource is two tiles outside your current border, etc), and that's one way to have some measure of influence on your governor's choices. But this was a case of the gov just ignoring yield tiles in favor of dead ones - and I was, and am, baffled.

Was I just super unlucky in having an idiot governor that game? Was there anything I could have done to smack some sense into him? Should I be petitioning Firaxis to give us a game option to Execute City Governor As Traitor?

Any insight would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[joncnunn]

It's not actually supposed to be perfect. If it always chose the same tiles in the same order a human would they wouldn't have bothered with the cash buying tile mechanic.
In fact one of the thresholds for an achievement suggests that it's quite likely that cash tile was initially considered the PRIMARY way that humans were going to expand their tiles with the cultural mechanic thrown on top of it later.

The only things you can do are:

1. Cash buy tiles yourself. (This will expose a resource adjoining the new tile to the governor) Or if that's the tile you wanted, your now golden.

2. Clear Marsh early if you either want a hex with it or one beyond it. Technically this also works for clearing forest/jungle on flat tiles as well (as long as the base is NOT tundra) because both forest & jungle make a tile "hard". (Note that tundra itself is considered hard and so is hills)

 

[excommunicatus]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't really expect there to be much I could have done to improve my governor's decisions there, but it was worth an ask.

Though your answer did clear up a bit of the mystery for me as well. Since the southern tiles were jungle hills and forest hills (and thus considered Hard), ol' gov may have been seeing them as the same lack of value as empty desert - even though they had workable food and production where desert is empty - which can help explain his decision too. He saw both sides as terrible, and just went one way not realizing one side was less terrible than the other.

Very well. I now have a private crusade for Execute City Governor as a Traitor to become a new feature addition, so at least I can feel better about it when I get those governors.

 

[peddroelm]

-chopping forests might make governor pick the unforested tile faster
-clearing marsh same
-buying a "bad for governor" tile to expose tile(s) good governor (luxuries/strategics) - he will pick them up once in 1 tile reach

Other than that power up culture output of the city to get trough tiles faster (culture buildings//faith brought buildings//working culture tiles//honor garnison//works of art ..etc ) .. Great general can steal tiles at arbitrary range from city center as long as you have border..

Tradition opener (policy)//russian barracks(UB)//Angkor Wat wonder give culture cost discount to tile aquisition ..

 

[beetle]

Will a pink highlighted tile always be the one expanded into? I am pretty sure this is the case.

Does buying a non-highlighted tile effect the highlighting? I am pretty sure that it does not.

I mention both these things because they mean you have to be thinking ahead. Sometimes I will clear the tile I want (assuming that's an option), then purchase a highlighted tile (because they are cheaper) when I can't afford the tile I want. That seems to work pretty well.

I have read people asserting that putting a unit on the tile you want influences the odds, and I experimented a bit with that, but I don't think that does anything.

 

[joncnunn]

Does buying a non-highlighted tile effect the highlighting? I am pretty sure that it does not.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
It doesn't really "see" a resource tile until it's adjoining and so cash buying a tile next to one will sometimes change the highlighting.

It's also the case when there's multiple paths to a resource it prefers getting both of them first. So in this case, buying the resource will completely change what it's highlighting.

 

[NomadMan284]

I am not certain if this is the case, but after 2000+ hours of play I have noticed a frequent trend where tiles are selected to join the borders of one city to the borders of another city. I have noticed the same scenario you described in my games and it was always to join city borders.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[renton555]

I'd really like to know the governor's priorities. Is this in an XML somewhere? He seems to favor river tile and empire-contiguity over even luxury resources, and he NEVER selects hills. I generally spend my gold buying hills for this reason.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

I have often wondered about this, although usually I see the city growing into yielding tiles (Ocean, coast, dry plains), its not usually the tiles I want them to grab first.

when multiple tiles are highlighted, it will only pick one of them. I guess maybe all of those tiles have the same rating to the AI and it just picks one?

Important note: Move some great works into that city, as they increase the local culture and thus the rate of tile acquisition in that city. Combined with Tradition policies, and maybe Ankor Wat, your borders will pop pretty fast.

 

[excommunicatus]

Thanks for the various insights, everyone.

This was a pretty specific and particular case of grabbing empty desert instead of forested/jungled hills, not a matter of culture borders taking a really long time to expand. Yes, I had my culture buildings built, and had great works of art/writing, etc in slots there so my borders were popping at a decent rate, they just kept popping new empty desert tiles at a decent rate. That was the problem.

The mention about governors seeming to prefer closing up space between borders of your other cities may well have been a big factor - great observation, and I think you're probably right there. It would help explain his choices, above and beyond the yielding tiles being considered "hard", as joncnunn pointed out, and together it makes pretty good sense as those desert tiles were seizing open territory between Akkad and Dur-Kurig. Even if I wouldn't have done it that way, at least it's a lot more understandable why the governor AI made those choices.

 

[Acken]

I have often wondered about this, although usually I see the city growing into yielding tiles (Ocean, coast, dry plains), its not usually the tiles I want them to grab first.

when multiple tiles are highlighted, it will only pick one of them. I guess maybe all of those tiles have the same rating to the AI and it just picks one?

Important note: Move some great works into that city, as they increase the local culture and thus the rate of tile acquisition in that city. Combined with Tradition policies, and maybe Ankor Wat, your borders will pop pretty fast.

Maybe it's somewhere in the DLL.

By experience the game seems to just atributes values on your available tiles and then will pick the highest one or chose randomly when there are ties.
Easy terrain increase this value (flat, no forest) ) (or hard terrain will decrease it)
Luxury and ressources increase this value
The more tiles already acquired are surrounding the tile, the more the value is increased

 

[budweiser]

Has anyone tried parking a unit on the tile you want to expand into? I sometimes do it, not sure if it really does anything.

 

[beetle]

Has anyone tried parking a unit on the tile you want to expand into? I sometimes do it, not sure if it really does anything.

I have tried this a couple games. I don't think it has any effect, and have given up on the practice.