Why here?

[KMadCandy]

That's kind of weird. I duplicated your map exactly (or the part from the screenshot), and it placed the blue circle right where your settler is. I can't see anything about your situation that would be different enough to cause it to put the blue circle where it did for you.

if you mean my tiny test map not the gold mine map, i had other parts explored is one difference. guessing you were persia since i said i was, and added AH since i said i did, if not then the starting techs (ag/hunting) may have tweaked something? or difficulty level if it considers happy/health, altho i'd doubt it. i was on settler i doubt you were . that's all that comes to mind and i doubt even in combination they'd be enough to change it

 

[Bhruic]

Sorry, I meant the original poster, and the screenshot he posted. I duplicated that screen shot exactly, and instead of the blue circle on the plains hill from his shot, I got the blue circle where his settler is standing. Can't account for the difference.

Bh

 

[Dominico]

Sorry, I meant the original poster, and the screenshot he posted. I duplicated that screen shot exactly, and instead of the blue circle on the plains hill from his shot, I got the blue circle where his settler is standing. Can't account for the difference.

Bh

Maybe it is taking hidden resources into account? I dont know its all very confusing!! I will go back and have a look at that area in the later modern game.

This game is turning out to be the most fun i have ever had though. The continent is entirely buddhist and 5 of the 7 civs are on it!! I screwed up by attacking first and now everyone hates me lol. Its 4 vs one on this continent. I dont think im going to be winning!

Thanks for the replies everyone, i guess the consensus is ignore the circles.

 

[Ethric]

Actually, the error in blue circle placement in BtS seems to be that only the INITIAL city radius is condiered. Bonuses and production in the fat cross area are ignored and only the "thin cross" is consisdered. This simple error seems to explain most of the bad city placement suggestions I have seen.

My impression was that city placement don't take into account that tiles are alreayd "taken" by another city, it promotes gross overlap. This could explain it: it doesn't know there is any overlap.

 

[KMadCandy]

But yeah, as Spearthrower mentioned, the AI builds towns far more tightly packed now. It really seems like BtS sort of gimped the AI's ability to pick good town spots. Another good example of this is to note where Barbarians place their towns - I'm consistently shocked by barbarian towns popping up in the dumbest places (not that they do much, but I remember being happy to see them plopping down in decent spots where they'd grow to size 2 quickly so I could just kill it and save a settler, now they're ALWAYS in spots where I raze them and end up placing a settler a tile or two over.

i was always much more impressed with barb city placement than actual civ's city placement in warlords. they'd be nice cities when i captured them and then later i'd find out there's coal there too, stuff like that. naturally that's because they know where hidden resources are, and maybe partly because they don't have to consider distance from their capital or maintenance at all. in fact, the barbarians have to pay a "no palace" penalty on their maintenance but they're not allowed to build one, it's unfair! i don't know if that figures into the blue circles at all or not.

i haven't really seen enough barb cities pop up in BtS to know if i'm still impressed with them. on a terra map i did keep 3 out of 4, 2 were on tiles i'd marked to put cities on myself. sounds like you've seen more than i have. if even the barbs have gone wacko that's a sure sign of something IMO. maybe something really basic like DilithiumDad mentioned, only considering the 9 tiles right by the city? i can't remember if the cities they placed that i liked were based mostly on the inner cross.

Now... if only I could disable the first two "recommendations" within the pop-up menu of what to start next when you finish producing something or research a tech. So annoying...

you can try not ever seeing the pop-up menu at all by using the "minimize pop-ups" options, and then scroll thru your cities starting inside a city screen, so that the list never shows up from outside? i can't stand that "minimize pop-ups" thing but some folks like it. but i think i know what you mean ... you know where everything is on the scrolldown list, but those recommendations are out of place

 

[Ethric]

Yep. "ARRRGH, why can't this city build Tanks, g*****n -ing game.. oh, there they are." Mileage may vary on the swearing*

A filter-box for units/buildings is also high on my wants-list.

 

[onedreamer]

The only thing I can think of is that settling on the blue circle would "secure" your access to horse, and at the same time give you room for two more future cities, one with cow/stone and one at the landtip up north.

Finally someone in topic. I was about to answer with this. The blue circle is there only to show you how an AI civ would behave. The AI civ doesn't fear city-crossing and it wants a decent number of cities. If you build where you want you will have a better city but only one. For the AI that location is too far from your capital, the AI would build 2-3 cities where you build one, like Carabodes already said.

 

[onedreamer]

Sorry, I meant the original poster, and the screenshot he posted. I duplicated that screen shot exactly, and instead of the blue circle on the plains hill from his shot, I got the blue circle where his settler is standing. Can't account for the difference.

Bh

Did you place the capital in the right position (presumably 1 tile south of the lake) ?

 

[Bhruic]

Yeah, I didn't duplicate the full minimap, but I did place the capital. It shouldn't have been hidden bonuses, but I do admit I'd like to see the save game so I could look at it. I'm wondering if it's some modification I made that caused it to move the blue circle, or if there's something hidden that's doing it. Either way, it's very curious.

Bh

 

[aronnax]

Experience has thought me that the AI reconmedation, is collaborting with the AI civs to ruin me. They recommended me a Missionary! When I was at war

 

[Dominico]

Hold on i will post a save game bhruic. I dont think i have one from the start of the game as i dont save only when i stop playing for the day. Hope that will help.

Hmm I dont know how to attach save files. lol If someone can tell me that would be cool thanks.

 

[Bhruic]

The start of the game will get saved in the "auto" folder - it should still be there unless you've played another game since you started this one.

Bh

 

[Dominico]

ok cool i dont know how to attach them though. wait i sussed it im being dumb. 5 mins


http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/63951/AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave


ok thats the 4000BC save in the beyond the sword folder. I guess thats it. The second sight was north of my first city on the coast. If thats not it let me know and i will give you one of the other saves from later on.

Ive got an 1120ad save and an 1878 save.

 

[onedreamer]

Yeah, I didn't duplicate the full minimap, but I did place the capital. It shouldn't have been hidden bonuses, but I do admit I'd like to see the save game so I could look at it. I'm wondering if it's some modification I made that caused it to move the blue circle, or if there's something hidden that's doing it. Either way, it's very curious.

Bh

Yep, I'll look at the save later today. Let's keep in mind that originally the AI did take hidden bonuses into account. Firaxis said that they would fix it but who knows if that really happened ?

 

[Bhruic]

Ok, very odd. This is what I got when I duplicated your situation:



I guess it can't make up its mind.

Oh, and there are no hidden bonuses that would make any of the 3 locations preferable.

Bh

 

[Dominico]

Maybe it takes into account the techs you have and your ability to mine or whatever? I got there quite a lot later on then you and maybe its thinking about all those hammers? Hmmmm i think its still wrong anyway though lol.

I have a feeling it takes into account cramming cities quite close together which is something i never do. I always try to space my cities quite wide apart. I wonder if this option of pushing them all up close is a better idea?

less cost in maintenance etc

 

[Bhruic]

Well, all of those things may be true, but that still doesn't explain why we didn't get the same blue circle. I gave myself all of the early techs via WorldBuilder, so we should have had roughly the same ones. I can't see any reason why we'd get different results.

Bh

 

[onedreamer]

gah, nevermind this. Oddities of the AI.

 

[ushram]

not in my experience. i've even had my initial settler spawn on a resource i can't see yet, and it's recommended that i settle there, and i've done it and regretted it later when i do learn to see copper or whatever it is. i don't have any saves of that tho. my current game i'm looking at 4 AI cities that are settled on top of resources, in 3 cases coal, the cities were founded before the AI knew steam power. does the AI settle cities where there isn't a blue circle?

i do know that barbarians know where unrevealed resources are. i'm often impressed with barb city placement, sometimes even more so after late-game resources are revealed. fun fact: barb animals are not allowed to step on tiles with any resources ... dye, uranium, oil, cows, you name it. so if you're playing "come chase me, i want your exp but i really want to be on a hill when you attack" with a bear, and he just refuses to come at you, that might be why *giggle*.

edit: it definitely won't move blue circles off of resources if you add one to a blue circle it's already recommending, i just tested that in worldbuilder. i even hit enter to see if it needed a turn to register the fact that i'd sneakily added iron to that tile (i don't know IW). no change in the blue circle.

it will change blue circles if you change the terrain quite a bit. in the past hubby's tweaked maps for us to do duel-OCC games, and given us extra health resources. the blue circles move a lot during that process, even before you hit enter, just as soon as you leave WB the blue circle kinda bounces *giggle*. it seems to confuse the system, it wants to split the goodies into two cities or whatever. so i know it is capable of changing the decision once its been made. but it did not in this case.

it would obviously take a lot more time for me to find a situation where it's naturally giving me a blue circle on top of a resource and i'm not going to go to all that trouble .

very interesting, i did not know that

 

[Bhruic]

fun fact: barb animals are not allowed to step on tiles with any resources ... dye, uranium, oil, cows, you name it. so if you're playing "come chase me, i want your exp but i really want to be on a hill when you attack" with a bear, and he just refuses to come at you, that might be why *giggle*.

That's not entirely true. They won't move on to the resources by themselves, but they will attack on to it. I verified that using the world builder.

Bh