AI less settler-happy/cheaty ?

[The Viceroy]

Yes, Ive noticed this, and its a huge improvement on previous AI settler activity.

Especially when you had 1 square sitting in the middle of your empire that your borders had not covered yet, and every single AI on the continent would be constantly heading for it..

I was also convinced that the AI didn't seem to know about resources until they had appeared, because they would usually make a dash for them, early on.

[snoochems]

I would have to say the AI is a little more docile than before w.r.t city placement. I'm currently playing game where i'm on a huge continent, and the Dutch pretty much have a huge chunk of land that is lush, and great for cities, all for there selves. There is also two luxuries, and iron in that said peice of land.

Instead of building cities to luxuries or anything, they cramp there cities as much as they can into a tiny space instead of expanding out. Very stupid.
Now, it's about 800AD, and i've managed to get my own settlers there, and take the luxuries for my self, even though they were literally on there backdoor, and i had to travel half way across the globe to get there.

[dexters]

cramping cities into fertile land to make use of every tile isn't stupid IMO. But maybe someone has a different opinion.

[The Viceroy]

Much depends on the size of that furtile land, you don't want a load of cities with overlapping borders, as you reduce your cities capacity later on in the game. However, there is no point in having cities in stupid places (unless there are resources/luxuries to be gained).

[Gunter]

Re: AI less settler-happy/cheaty ?

Originally posted by Timmer
Forgive me if this was the case for PTW,
but I went straight from vanilla-CivIII to Conquests,
but it seems in the epic games I played so far (on
huge maps) that the AI doesn't settle less favorable
land as much as it used to. In one game, I'm now
approaching the end of the middle ages, and the
only continent fully settled is mine, cause I did it.

On another continent, that is home to three AI civs,
a large section of mostly plains and desert is still
untouched by the AI. (even though there are
plenty of oasis).

In vanilla-civIII , the AI would land-grab every
square it could, even if it was just 2 coast
squares not yet under by cultural-border control.

Now, they let these patches be.

There is something I've noticed though.
In the game I mentioned above, I had a
patch of meybe 15 tiles of desert with one
forest that I didn't bother to plant a city on,
and neither did the Dutch AI that I shared
the continent with.

That is, untill OIL became visible and their was
an oilwell on this patch. Then the dutch AI
tried to make a beeline for it.

So does that mean the AI doesn't cheat anymore
by taking advantage beforehand of knowing
where resources are gonna pop up ?

I'd say yes, since that huge plains/desert section
on the AI-run continent is sure to produce some
aluminium once it's discovered...

Timmer

This AI " habit " was one of the things that irritated me mostly on original game. BTW I jumped PTW as well.

I have still to try Conquests but I think I will appreciate the fact that the AI seems to cheat less.

Gunter