When will an AI pass on founding a city?

[E66man]

In previous versions of Civ it seemed like there was never a location so bad that the AI wouldn't plant a city there, even in the versions with borders that would leave the city with maybe 1 workable tile.

In Civ V it looks like the AI won't found a city if it won't get a full inner ring of 6 hexes to work. Has this been anyone else's experience? If this proves out it makes guarding your turf a little easier since you won't have to found unwanted cities to close off the gaps, you can just buy some strategically placed tiles to convince the AI there is no space there.

 

[Udey1]

It is not foolproof and does not always work, but yes I have noticed/have used the inner hex rule you describe as well. It does stop their settlers almost every time if you are able to tell where they plan to go and ruin the 6hex.

 

[Slowpoke]

mainly it is based on food. The exact value is 15000 so I have no idea what that means.

 

[dalowrider]

Monty has planted a city in the middle of a desert to get a foothold on my continent and empire(i would assume) in a previous game, so i would imagine other factors are also involved

 

[E66man]

Monty has planted a city in the middle of a desert to get a foothold on my continent and empire(i would assume) in a previous game, so i would imagine other factors are also involved

Sure, but did this city have a full 6-hex starting ring, or was it founded with less hexes available?

 

[Paradigne]

I've only really noticed them beelining for resources, and a little upsetting, where resources WILL be.

 

[gcaliber]

I've had the ai settle right next to my capital without a 6 hex ring to work, they only had 4 of the 6.

 

[Mystere]

While it is true that you can "block" the AI building a city by grabbing a tile quickly and thus making it impossible for him/her to settle one with a full first ring it is sadly not always working. I had the AI squeeze in a city at the coast between me and a CS before with only 2 out of 6 tiles available. I can understand the need for expansion but I do hope that in a patch or by any other way the AI can be told to expand to reasonable area's, not just ANY patch of open land.

A good example can be found when you visit another continent for the first time. Most early cities are concentrated but you can bet some of their later cities are all over the place because at that point in time those were the open spots. That is not reasonable expansion at all. If no big wars have been fought the map looks like a rainbow with cities from random civs all mixed up. Most of them not bigger then that magic 6 tile inner circle.