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Unrealistc settler-mania: New expansion rules needed!
Below is posted in "AI questions" - i usually NEVER double-post, but this topic is very important (i think), so i make this one and only exception from the rule:
You can easily "expand your way to success" by shoving out buckloads of city-founding settlers i a row, early on in the game.
20+ settlers or more, founding just as many cities + another 20+ city-area settler-developers.
Effective, perhaps - but is it FUN?
Its certanly aint very realistic in historic terms, thats for shure. Also, if the AI should have the same early ultra-fast city-founding strategy for each of the (upto 7) computer-civs; the game would probably grind to a halt, in later endgames.
I have the following four expanding-rules suggestions. They should enable a much more realistic game, and allow the AI to compete more easily (i hope):
A/ Max two "empty" cities (= without any city-improvements) at any given time within that empire, can be allowed. The AI/Human Player HAS to build temple in at least one of above cities, in order to continue founding a new city.
B/ Any city NOT road-connected with some/all of the other cities, gets an proportionally stiff corruption-penalty each turn.
Lack of road-connections to other cities should also give a more noticeable resource-/science-penalty.
C/ A big sized empire of 25 cities or more should be an unstability-factor in itself - increasingly prone to split-up federation-attempts. This should be especially true if the large empire is far ahead in terms of science-/production-/economy- and military might, then the other civs.
(It shouldnt matter if the empire is well maintained: these split-up tendencies should appear anyway, if the empire is self-sufficient and powerful enough (to far ahead the other civs).
The split-ups federations should consist of min 20% - max 40% av the empires cities. A real groundshaker, in other words).
D/ Also (important); the cities in small civilistic-perfectionist 8-12 city empires should in return have less problems with building huge 20+ mega-cities.
Cities in large 20-30 city empires on the other hand, should have increasingly bigger problems with developing indevidual mega-cities.
You can easily "expand your way to success" by shoving out buckloads of city-founding settlers i a row, early on in the game.
20+ settlers or more, founding just as many cities + another 20+ city-area settler-developers.
Effective, perhaps - but is it FUN?
Its certanly aint very realistic in historic terms, thats for shure. Also, if the AI should have the same early ultra-fast city-founding strategy for each of the (upto 7) computer-civs; the game would probably grind to a halt, in later endgames.
I have the following four expanding-rules suggestions. They should enable a much more realistic game, and allow the AI to compete more easily (i hope):
A/ Max two "empty" cities (= without any city-improvements) at any given time within that empire, can be allowed. The AI/Human Player HAS to build temple in at least one of above cities, in order to continue founding a new city.
B/ Any city NOT road-connected with some/all of the other cities, gets an proportionally stiff corruption-penalty each turn.
Lack of road-connections to other cities should also give a more noticeable resource-/science-penalty.
C/ A big sized empire of 25 cities or more should be an unstability-factor in itself - increasingly prone to split-up federation-attempts. This should be especially true if the large empire is far ahead in terms of science-/production-/economy- and military might, then the other civs.
(It shouldnt matter if the empire is well maintained: these split-up tendencies should appear anyway, if the empire is self-sufficient and powerful enough (to far ahead the other civs).
The split-ups federations should consist of min 20% - max 40% av the empires cities. A real groundshaker, in other words).
D/ Also (important); the cities in small civilistic-perfectionist 8-12 city empires should in return have less problems with building huge 20+ mega-cities.
Cities in large 20-30 city empires on the other hand, should have increasingly bigger problems with developing indevidual mega-cities.
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