AI settler spam

[chequita guevara]

How does one simultaneously grow at an optimal rate and lock up land so that the ai won't settler spam the region leaving you stunted for the future?

If I counter by settling as much as I can, my science rate falls to below 50%.

If I counter by creating a wall of territory and refusing to sign open borders, the AI DoWs me, and sends its settler hordes across my territory while I'm trying to fight their armies.

I've even dropped down to using a regular sized world and normal speeds.

[Blake]

You can't.

I usually find the AI (monarch+, sometimes even prince) will usually get my #1 choice spot.

The solution is to found at less optimal places (while keeping your empire compact and contigious), then build an army and... yeah . Do remember to thank the AI for their terrain improvement efforts (especially clearing jungle).

Oh by the way, it's okay to fall below 50%, I routinely go below 30% and sometimes I run at 0% for a sustained period (altough doing so is foolhardy). The important thing is to have bronze working, pottery and writing making economic recovery possible. As long as cottages are developing and you run scientists (for great scientists) your tech rate will eventually pick up...

[Urban Ranger]

<- beats up che for horrible use of the word "spam"

What I usually do is to grab the best city sites I could find and back fill. That is why the Stonehenge is so good and I hesitate to reseach calendar. One good thing is, if you have sufficiently more cities than the computer players it doesn't really matter if your science rate drops below 50%. After awhile you'll rebound, with a vengence.

[amicus curiae]

That's the thing, I will gladly take a big hit in science in order to grab good city spots. I usually play on tiny maps with 7-8 civs, so any good spot I can get I will go all out for. I will pretty much focus all my early efforts on getting city spots if there are 2-3 nearby.

[couerdelion]

Go with Blake's suggestions. Develop steadily but not too fast and the only city sites you want to go for quickly are those of IMMEDIATE strategic importance.

But plan to use force to evict your neighbours for two simple reasons

a) FEAR - if they are getting an important resource, particularly one that could hurt you badly (eg Rome - Iron or Any - Ivory), then you have to move in quickly to stop them. Also applies if you are a "piggy-in-the-middle" civilisation with lots or neighbours. The one thing you do not want is to have lots of nations around you getting along fine with each other. Play the diplomacy game and wait for the opportunity to take them out one by one (maybe even buy in an ally to fight another neighbour). A small border is much easier to defend than a long one.
b) GREED - if they are rich and/or large then perhaps it is time that someone takes them done a peg or two. One area you really want to be ahead is in tech because it brings more wonders and "first discovery" bonuses. That is not likely to happen if your neighbour is sitting on a huge commerce site so go in and take it.

When you start a war, make sure you have enough troops ready to do most of the job quickly. Don't rush into a war unless you really have to and even then, be sure that you will win it. Learn the combat odds you'll find the combat in CivIV is really just an operational problem rather than anything tactical.

[joncnunn]

Actually, the AI settler spam is much toned down from Civ III.

But on higher difficultly levels, the AI gets more free units and probably less per city upkeep than the human; so naturally the AI doesn't need to wait as long before founding the marginal cities.

[zeace]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Actually, the AI settler spam is much toned down from Civ III.

I would agree that the AI is less aggressive about flooding settlers into dumb spots, but Civ IV is even worse when it comes to hopeless cities. I'm talking about 1 tundra, 10 ice, and 10 ocean square with maybe a fur on an ice kinda hopeless.

The Civ 3 map editor didn't tend to make continents with quite as much useless land near the poles. I imagine that if it did, the horrible settler spamming AI would have gladly taken the hopeless cities. But I hate it when I've got a solid empire that is not only in the good temperate region, but a solid number of cities in the tundra, and then the AI loads a settler on a caravel and founds a city on the northernmost point of ice that is still technically land because it's the only spot on the continent that isn't in a cultural control.

Then I attack him and burn down the crappy city, so he rebuilds it. Can't he see I'm trying to do him a favour...

[Blake]

Eh. Most of those rubbish tundra cities are marginal but not actually entirely unprofitable - they do cover costs.

And quite often it'll claim strategic resources or provide a beachhead for an invasion - or just a thorn in your side.

[zeace]

I'm not talking rubish tundra. I'm talking about when I've already build a bunch of rubish tundra cities, but there's one city spot left outside my culture borders, but it won't have any workable terrain except ocean and maybe a fur on snow bonus. These cities can barely maintain a pop of 1. I suppose given a million turns or lots of gold and US you could get a lighthouse and granary going and eventually it will start to pay for itself as a strict fishing village, but with the cost of a settler and a caravel and the maintenance before the city gets those up it's obviously a waste of resources.

If there was any way to create a viable city there I'd have sent a settler there 50 turns ago. And it's usually a civ on my continent building there, so no miltary purpose. I usually use these cites to train my troops before I send them to my enemies real empire

[axisworks]

Playing the Europe map recently, I tried an odd strategy. The spaces between players are fairly vast so I didn't have to worry too much about AI city incursions into my "homeland" right away. I actually had zero extra cities built while the AI's had half a dozen, and this allowed me to make my capitol into a powerhouse of research early in the game. Mind you, one of the AI's later built a city in rather prime real estate just as I was starting to expand. The best remedy for that is to declare war, capture the city (or raze it, if it's in a bad spot) and then garner a peace with that AI... or take them out completely, which I had to do with Tokugawa (a given, really).

[Ijuin]

Re: AI settler spam

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
If I counter by creating a wall of territory and refusing to sign open borders, the AI DoWs me, and sends its settler hordes across my territory while I'm trying to fight their armies.

If your army is bigger than their army, then nobody except for the worst warmongers (Isabella, Montezuma, Ghengis) will declare war on you.

[Dis]

I still hate it. The AI can get cities up so fast. Even on noble. When I do that I take a big science hit.

My last game I only built 3 cities, and then just axeman spammed the mongols before they got their Keshiks up and running. I knew I'd have to face war with them sooner or later. So I took them out sooner. My science dropped pretty low (0% for a short time). It's good to do this right after you get currency and code of laws. It's usually right after I get these techs I can recover my economy with courthouses.

[joncnunn]

Actually, 10 ocean tiles make a city site semi-decent. It's just going to take a long time to get it set up. The exact placement of the fur would matter for me; if it looks like a nearby city of mine will take in the fur anyway in a reasonable time frame I wouldn't found such a city, but if it's too far away; I'll found the city for the fur.

Originally posted by zeace

I would agree that the AI is less aggressive about flooding settlers into dumb spots, but Civ IV is even worse when it comes to hopeless cities. I'm talking about 1 tundra, 10 ice, and 10 ocean square with maybe a fur on an ice kinda hopeless.

The Civ 3 map editor didn't tend to make continents with quite as much useless land near the poles. I imagine that if it did, the horrible settler spamming AI would have gladly taken the hopeless cities. But I hate it when I've got a solid empire that is not only in the good temperate region, but a solid number of cities in the tundra, and then the AI loads a settler on a caravel and founds a city on the northernmost point of ice that is still technically land because it's the only spot on the continent that isn't in a cultural control.

Then I attack him and burn down the crappy city, so he rebuilds it. Can't he see I'm trying to do him a favour...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dis
I still hate it. The AI can get cities up so fast. Even on noble. When I do that I take a big science hit.

You can do the same thing on Noble/Prince. On Monarch, probably not.

You need a whole bunch of scouts. I usually have at least 4. Then just send them out exploring and hut poppin'. Once you have an idea of what the land is like around you build cities on the best sites. Just keep a corridor lit up so your settlers won't get killed by barbarian units.

The computer players will try to grab the best spots. So if you beat them to the sites you will come out ahead.

[Generaldoktor]

I'm mostly playing on Noble, was considering moving up because somebody said there weren't true "cheats" on the next level or two. Now I'm scared.

Game I played last winter (on Noble, I agree with Dis, it's still a problem there,) and frequently cite, I was all settled down into my happy science-culture thing on a peninsula with three going to six cities, had Napoleon, was going to build a "castle" on the peninsula and put out a bunch of Wonders. Tokugawa comes up right in my face and takes a) stone, b) horses, c) copper, right out from under "my" peninsula with some stinking settler spam (apologize for misuse of the word "spam" )

I quickly developed a whole new attitude.

I was new on Noble then and genuinely feared aggressive AI. Civ4 had really rattled my cage as far as how many ways you could get killed off and early. But I bucked up and put my little cultural projects on hold (except for Oracle and Pyramids, both of which proved, as usual, to be supremely useful; started fortunately before Toku reared his ugly head.) I unilaterally started my first war in Civ4.

Funny thing was, Toku didn't get it. He had founded half a dozen cities within about twenty turns right up to my border and he still considered me his "little buddy." He was outraged when I attacked and counterattacked with everything he had, but guess what? Having spent that much early production on settlers, he really didn't have crap for an army (and I found iron after a quick rush to ironworking right next Paris, waaay back on my castle-peninsula.) I ended up "axing" him quick. Oh and I very much enjoyed all the nice cities he'd built me.

Morale of story, I'm with Blake on this one. Attack, Attack, Attack! I did take a science hit, but, maybe because I then built a larger version of the castle and continued churning out helpful Wonders, my science never dipped below 40%. I stayed ahead of everybody except Peter, who did annoy me later by eclectic research like rifles in the 1500's. I should have taken him out, because the game was stalemating late with him big enough to challenge me and ahead in tech. But the v.161 patch came out and I wanted to play some games with that, so I abandoned this game. Still think I would have won a domination victory by the end, though.

Now on the other hand, regarding arctic tundra garbage towns; later, in I believe the same game, my buddy Caesar did exactly what Zeace is talking about, using our open borders to slide the settler up and building on tundra with just one beaver and the clear, blue sea surrounding. With this, I say ignore it, which is what I did in the game. I culture-bombed that town from three surrounding, (viable) cities until even the beaver was in my border. Caesar sat there for years with his own Arctic version of Guantanamo Bay, holding onto his baby chunk of my ice, defended by two bitter-cold archers who would never see home. Probably if the game had continued, it would have finally defected, but I think defections are maybe more common post-v.161.

With arctic garbage outposts, if you have enough navy around it and enough cultural infringement, they are never going to be able to sustain viable military operations or cultural infringement of their own. They might grow to size "2" or "3" (for awhile.) Just ignore them anyway and let them "die on the vine," like Guantanamo essentially does, or those Japanese fortified island towns the U.S. "island-hopped" in WWII.