sth against AI's annoying city founding everwhere

[Manstein3]

And I am not afraid of aggressive civs. The point is, it is a foolish warmongering. One could say, the several AI civs have a secret alliance. The one or two civs who put pressure on me WITHOUT being prepared, without a real chance of winning act like pawns in chess, they sacrifice themselves for the advantage of the other AI civs.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Manstein3
you are right that aggressive behavior is 'normal', for instance city founding at the heart of the neighbours land.
I wonder though why tthis practice was not getting on my nerves in civ II in the same way. I think in civ III the AI's focussing on the human player is even heavier than in civ II. Example: I staying at the south share a relative large continent with another two civs, which sit in the middle-north. They instead of exploring and developping the huge northern territory of the continent constantly spread out south. As I fix a borderline, they even begin to ship or travel units through my territory to found cities SOUTH OF ME. this is annoying because it is bad strategy and forces me to go to war.

In my opinion this is a AI cheating to put pressure on the human player. Against another AI civ they would not do it, they would develop their own heartland instead.

That's not AI cheating, that's just good tactics. I'm trying to use it myself. If you block off his opportunity of acquiring new territory, you can limit his growth. I always try to build out in front, in order to cut off his advance, as soon as I know where he is. Then when my front is secure, I can fill in the spaces from behind. It's all about controlling territory, if you can do it early on, at your enemies expense, you'll have lot's of room to grow later, while he's stuck at a fixed size.

[Baldrick]

I was playing as the Babylonians and had a huge island, intially to myself. However, the usual thing happened with AI civs (namely Zulus, Persians and Chinese) founding cities on 'my' island. This irritated me at first, but I was big and succesful enough not to go to war over it. By concentrating on building improvements I eventually culturally assimilated almost all of the offending cities. One thing to remember is to concentrate cultural power next to vulnerable AI cities on your empire's periphery rather than it's interior. If there is an AI city in your interior then that city will definitely defect in time.
If you have limited space for expansion though war is sometimes the only option. Doesn't it annoy you that it's such a land grab at the beginning? I remember reading Sid Meier's pre-release comments saying that the sprawl method would not be the only way of dominating. In my experience it is.

[BlueO]

I also hated the way ai expands all over the place. Makes huge maps unplayable. I found another solution though.

I increased the food consumption value to four. To compensate for the new value, I had to increase food outputs for grasslands, plains, and flood plains. Then lower food outputs for tundras, forests, deserts, and jungles to zero. The new values work great!

The AI no longer have cities in mountain ranges, deserts, forests, coastals areas with no food resources, and tundras! Plus, it makes rivers a vital water resource early on, since you need good food sites to expand your cities. Not only that, AI also uses colonies a lot more, in areas where a city can't be supported.

The game also plays a little differently early on. Cities will grow like wildfire. Pops grow every 2 turns. Its pretty fast pace early on, especially if you hurry productions. AI empires with good starting location, will expand like crazy. But AI with bad starting location, won't grow at all. But I like the new unbalance, more variety in AI strength.

[Manstein3]

BlueO
Hey, that's a fine solution for my problem, increasing food consumption to four! I wonder though if plains should really have more food output. Have to try that out.
I like your changes and will it try out as soon as possible. For me only by such changes an interesting and historical gameplay is possible. In history there was huge empty space between cultures, and even within a civ. I read in a history book that in early Medieval Age you could walk from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea without leaving the forest. Roman Empire and Charlemagnes Franks Empire was quite different as most of us think.

For that case, @WILLEM,
it may be "all about controling territory", the point is, that the options to do so were limited until the Middle Ages. So I could change my argument to that one: I hate this 'brute force' of ancient civs city founding. It is unhistoric, cripples the game balance (almost only warmongering possible) and is monotonous. As BlueO said, huge maps unplayable because of hundreds and hundreds of tiny stinking crap towns...

I like the idea of a few high cultures with best food conditions, and empty space between them, a few colonies and fortresses maybe... And a underdevelopped civ somewhere in between, with not enough food to grow big.
Then in Middle Ages and Modern Times the empty space is filled out.
By this game the technological advantage is realized in a new way - simply by having the means and knowledge to settle in places where the ancient civs could not.

[Manstein3]

BlueO
Do you create a special map with startin locations or is it enough for I would be interested in a saved game of your 'Mod'. If you like, send it to me: robertmichael.a@t-online.de

[Willem]

Originally posted by Manstein3

For that case, @WILLEM,
it may be "all about controling territory", the point is, that the options to do so were limited until the Middle Ages. So I could change my argument to that one: I hate this 'brute force' of ancient civs city founding. It is unhistoric, cripples the game balance (almost only warmongering possible) and is monotonous. As BlueO said, huge maps unplayable because of hundreds and hundreds of tiny stinking crap towns...

Even still, in the past if a nation had a troublesome neighbour near by, you can bet that they would establish some sort of town/garrison in the area in order to keep an eye on things, and to assert their claim to the territory. Granted the AI goes a little over board, but it's not really that different from the way things actually happened, though definitely exaggerated.

[Willem]

Originally posted by BlueO


The AI no longer have cities in mountain ranges, deserts, forests, coastals areas with no food resources, and tundras! Plus, it makes rivers a vital water resource early on, since you need good food sites to expand your cities. Not only that, AI also uses colonies a lot more, in areas where a city can't be supported.

Another way to make your water/rivers more valuable is to use the flags the game now uses only for Nuclear Plant/Hydro Plant. I have it set so that landlocked towns can't build an Aquaduct, since they don't have water nearby. They'll have to wait until Industrialization when they can build a Pipeline.

And towns next to rivers can build things others can't. For instance, every town in my game can build a Library, towns that are near water can build a University, but only towns that are right beside a river can build a Research Lab. I've done the same with my Religious/Economic improvements, adding Monastery (in order to build a Cathedral) and Stock Exchange to the lines. I justify it due to the fact that river squares produce more wealth than others, so the city can afford improvements that tend to be more expensive.

BTW, the "must be near water" flag only counts freshwater, by the looks of it, so even coastal towns are affected. It's adding an interesting dynamic to my game that's also historically accurate. Most of the really prosperous cities in the past where located on a river, and I'm reflecting that in my game. I'm really surprised that they didn't use these flags for more things.

[BlueO]

Originally posted by Manstein3
BlueO
Do you create a special map with startin locations or is it enough for I would be interested in a saved game of your 'Mod'. If you like, send it to me: robertmichael.a@t-online.de

Just change the food comsumption and output is enough, for a random map to work. Depending on the map setting, some AIs will never grow beyond its first city. But, the ones that do, will grow very fast. Personally, I like to start out in an average spot, then send out scouts asap looking for rivers. Makes exploration pretty intense early on. Fresh water is the key to expansion, during ancient era. Later on, electricity becomes important for areas of the map without access to fresh water. Basically with the changes...if you don't overdo the food output, only areas with fresh water are able to grow beyond size 6 or 7 (due to irrigation).

From the top of my head, I think I put plains at 3 food output, 1 irrigation bonus. Grass at 3 food output and 3 irrigation bonus. And flood plains at 5 food oupt and 3 irrigation bonus. All other land terrains have food and irrigation bonus reduced to 0. After much tinkering, I found this to be the best set of values. One last thing, you might consider removing the tile penalty for despotism, because with it, city will have growth of zero once they reach pop 2 in good grass/plain areas but lacks fresh water.

I don't think a saved game of my Mod will work on anyone else's game. I made extensive changes including several new units. I uploaded the new units to the creation fornum weeks ago, but dunno what happened to them. Shrug.

[Willem]

Originally posted by BlueO

From the top of my head, I think I put plains at 3 food output, 1 irrigation bonus. Grass at 3 food output and 3 irrigation bonus. And flood plains at 5 food oupt and 3 irrigation bonus. All other land terrains have food and irrigation bonus reduced to 0. After much tinkering, I found this to be the best set of values. One last thing, you might consider removing the tile penalty for despotism, because with it, city will have growth of zero once they reach pop 2 in good grass/plain areas but lacks fresh water.

I like the idea of raising the food requirements. But I'm going to try raising it to 3, and increasing the irrigation bonuses by 1, except for Desert. At least that will make it impossible for the AI to build on a desert, and anything on Hills etc. won't be able to grow past 1. Only Grassland squares will be able to grow, and not by much until he irrigates.

For me, part of the challenge is trying to outlank his advance, but I have to admit it gets a bit ridiculous at times. I've been trying to use those vast Deserts as kind of a buffer zone, but he keeps plopping a Settler down right in the middle of one. It doesn't make sense to me. At least this way it will slow him down and put some restrictions on him. Thanks for the tip!

Try out those water flags I mentioned, I'm finding it rather interesting. And it makes total sense to me, I don't know why they didn't put them to more use.

[Manstein3]

@Willem:
Welcome on board of the liga against settler-diarrhoe. Finally you made your coming-out.
And I like your idea of linking several city improvements to this river flag (Hydro Plant flag). Peu à peu the game changes to a playable one ...
I do not want to allow a city in hills though, if there is no wine or game around.

@BlueO
about despotisms city 2 restriction because of no water. I am completely happy with that. Water IS essential. In my gamedesign though there are wheat, cattle, wine, fur, game which deliver also more food. According to your numbers for grass and plains I will give them 4-7 or 8. But maybe I will reduce your plains' numbers instead...

[Manstein3]

One last problem for my game 'vision': how to increase food production in late Middle Ages and, most important, at industrialization/sanitation.
Is the second level of irrigation (forgot the name) of civII still there?
If not, maybe I have to link irrigation to sanitation (the idea I do not like to leave out irrigation most of the game) or get in another food resource to allow more terrain cultivation in later game stage.
Or is there a invention/city improvement which allows even more food output

[Willem]

Originally posted by Manstein3
@Willem:
Welcome on board of the liga against settler-diarrhoe. Finally you made your coming-out.
And I like your idea of linking several city improvements to this river flag (Hydro Plant flag). Peu à peu the game changes to a playable one ...
I do not want to allow a city in hills though, if there is no wine or game around.

Well I've put some bonus resources into my Hills and Mountains (a Game icon looks great in a Mountain), so I don't want to limit my own opportunities there. But I definitely don't want cities sprouting up in the Desert. Quite often it's the only defensive buffer I have available, so I'm certainly not to happy to see a Civ plant a Settler there.

As for the water flag, it makes so much sense to me that I don''t understand why it hasn't been used more. By default it's only a requirement for the Hydro improvements, but taken to the logical extreme, it could set up a dynamic that more or less reflects the way cities have evolved over the centuries. Availabilty of fresh water was a key issue in whether a settlement prospered or just existed and being next to a river was an added bonus. Those two tags could very easily reflect this, in numerous ways. They even relate to whether the water is fresh or not. I have a coastal town that has no river or freshwater lake, and it doesn't have the option of building an Aqueduct. It will have to wait until Industrialization in order to grow.

[Gdiguy]

the problem is, are those flags permanent? because while it may make sense in 2000 bc for a city not on a river to be able to thrive, if you start a city in 1900, it should be able to build a temple, regardless of where it is, though maybe with a production hit... and by the time you hit airports, there should be none of those restrictions...

[Willem]

Originally posted by Gdiguy
the problem is, are those flags permanent? because while it may make sense in 2000 bc for a city not on a river to be able to thrive, if you start a city in 1900, it should be able to build a temple, regardless of where it is, though maybe with a production hit... and by the time you hit airports, there should be none of those restrictions...

Yes they are permanent. That's why I've created a Pipeline improvement with Industrialization, and a Factory, in order for them to grow again at that point. And I'm not using them for every improvement, just a few select ones that not every city should be able to support. Temples for instance can be built in any city, but Cathedrals can only be built in cities beside a river. I figure since river squares produce more gold, that particular city has more local wealth in order to afford fancier improvements. In this case, I've created a Monastery improvement, which can be built in cities with access to fresh water and a previously built Temple and is also a requirement for Cathedral, as a middle improvement.

For the education line, every city can build a Library, Universities must be built in cities with access to water, and Research Labs must be constructed in cities by a river.