Slowing the mad land grab

[Egbert]

I did not particularly like the mad land grab at the beginning of the game so I did a bit of editing trying out various things.

Making settlers hideously expensive (umh same shield cost as the Collusus) works very nicely to slow the land rush down but hampers the AI so much that I had to go up two difficulty levels to compensate and refrain from early attacking (it is, alas, only a roughly approximate compensation).

Tagging settlers as wheeled (I stole that idea from Willem who posted it in some other thread) helps a bit.

Does anyone else (umh Willem where are you?) have any more ideas on how to slow down the expansion rate without unbalancing the game?

[Willem]

Here I am!

Increase the amount of food required by your citizens to 3. You'll find the setting on the General Settings page. I can play well into the Middle Ages and there'll still be plenty of land unclaimed. Mind you, I play on a 256 x 256 map.

Also, don't allow cities to be built on Desert and Tundra. At least those terrains will give you some sort of buffer you can work with.

However, if you really want to slow the AI down, be sure to grab the land before it does. Set up a frontline, well ahead of your main empire and block it's advance. You can fill up from behind later, when the border is secure.

Oh yeah. Be sure to build lots of culture in those front line cities so you grab the territory as soon as possible. Rush build if you have to.

[Kloreep]

Another one I've seen (which is, IIRC, used in Korn's Blitz Mod along with Wheeled) is to up the pop cost of settlers to 3.

However, I once saw an AI who wasn't able to reach pop 4 thanks to his start, and thus couldn't build any settlers, so beware. Also, the AI seems to build settlers without regard to when a city will reach pop 3, so this may just aggravate that AI problem and tilt the early game towards the human. So a shield cost raise is probably better than a pop cost raise; and this might even benefit the AI, as it won't waste so many shields on a settler in a size 1 city.

[Egbert]

Originally posted by Willem
Here I am!

Increase the amount of food required by your citizens to 3. You'll find the setting on the General Settings page.

Thanks. I wanted to increase the size of the food storage box (a la Civ2) but could not find the means to do that. Food increase to 3 per citizen may suit me, I shall try it out.

I have to think about those terrain restrictions, not sure that restriction on me.

I don't want to have my own land grab to stop the AI land grab. I am trying avoid the need for me to play a land grab strategy.

The extremely expensive settlers with a low optimum city number and 4 forbidden palace type small wonders (becoming available with technology) together with the courthouse and police station help immensely but hamper the AI very much. (The AI starts building settlers when its' city is still tiny and very unproductive, I put in granary, temple, barracks, and veteran troops, and perhaps other things, then build the settler relatively quickly which gives me a huge advantage over the AI civs). Both I and the AI might still be founding cities in the modern age. (I play on small maps by the way). I am trying to find a more balanced solution.

[Egbert]

Originally posted by Kloreep
Another one I've seen (which is, IIRC, used in Korn's Blitz Mod along with Wheeled) is to up the pop cost of settlers to 3.

I have increased the pop cost of settlers to 3 (along with the huge shield cost and wheels). It helps a lot but I have also seen a civ that could not get its capital city province up to the required 4. That is unusual and I can live with that.

[Willem]

Originally posted by peterfharris


Thanks. I wanted to increase the size of the food storage box (a la Civ2) but could not find the means to do that. Food increase to 3 per citizen may suit me, I shall try it out.

I like it. You'll really have to put your Workers to good use, at least early in the game. Especially if you end up in a heavily forested area.

Oh yeah, you might find that you'll have to remove the irrigation penalty in Despotism. I compensated by reducing the Worker rate, which seems to work fairly well. I also lowered the free units per city so that Monarchy is a little more attractive.

[Stuie]

I flagged not only desert and tundra, but also forest and jungle as "no cities allowed". That leaves only hills, plains, grasslands and flood plains as being able to support cities. Now play it on a 3billion yr old wet cold map and you'll find you actually have a use for colonies.

[Optimizer]

I've just doubled the shield cost for Settlers. Too much tweaking confuses the AI.

How does increased food consumption help? That'll just favor many small cities.

I've also tried doubling the production bonus from irrigation and mining as well as the building time. This allows great productivity even with few cities - if you have enough workers.

[Egbert]

Originally posted by Optimizer
How does increased food consumption help? That'll just favor many small cities.

Takes longer for cities to grow so it takes longer to produce a settler thus slowing expansion.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Optimizer


How does increased food consumption help? That'll just favor many small cities.

Why not try it and find out for yourself?

[Clay]

You could also increase the strength of the Barbarians so they could help out by picking off Settlers with weaker units guarding them.

[Anglophile]

I tried wheeled settlers but discovered that if an AI Civ started in the middle of a jungle, it never expanded. Currently am trying the three food approach and it definitely works, until government based tile penalties are off and irrigation is on - then the race is back on. I think that a 3 pop point settler would be punitive to any civ that did't start in grasslands with plentiful bonus tiles about. I do like the extra shields suggestion and will incorporate that into my next new game.

I do have a question for Willem; I too like to play very big maps but am having trouble finding the optimum settings to allow room for expansion for the longest time period but not so much that the 512 city cap isn't hit too early (my first 'hugest' map effort after PtW, the limit was hit before 1600 BC (DyP mod, 24 civs)). What are your normal settings and is the 512 city limit an issue? I suppose if I slow settler building enough, the limit will only be an issue late in the game.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Anglophile
I tried wheeled settlers but discovered that if an AI Civ started in the middle of a jungle, it never expanded.

What I've done is create a second Settler, called a Pioneer, that isn't wheeled. It shows up with Magnetism so they'll eventually be able to expand. Another approach would be to allow certain civs, Aztecs are a good example, who start out being able to expand in the jungle, while most others can't.

I don't worry about that to much though. I see those civs as something like the Yanomani Indians in the Amazon forest compared to the US today. It just adds some variety to the game's outcome.

What are your normal settings...

That's asking a lot, I've been tinkering with my mod for so long, I almost forget what I've changed, and what's default. I haven't run into the 512 barrier yet though. Mind you I haven't actually finished a game either. I keep getting into the Industrial Era and either get bored, or find something that I want to change, and have to start over.

[SlightlyMadman]

I've turned off cities for desert, tundra, and jungle, as stated above. In addition, I've set Engineering as the prerequisite for the Clear Jungle worker task.

Does anyone know if the AI will clear jungle, in order to build a city, once they can? I worry that it might give the human an advantage.

[Bonaparte]

You can edit the civilizations so they are not expansionists. I; however, just made settlers costly. I still hit the 512 barrier in ever game I play though. Wish they would allow you to edit that limit because my PC works fine even with tons of cities.