AI settler herding

[geofelt]

A wall of defenders seems to be a good tactic. The ai will sneak attack a city, but I have yet to see them initiate a war by attacking a blocking line of defenders.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Olaf HÃ¥rfagre
Theseus- I have only played the 1337 map until about 500 AD. I don't dare to attack the Greek with my pretty useless Legions. A 12-pop city with 8 veteran Hoplite defenders needs some really good luck with the dize rolls to conquer. Egypt was - well, not easy, but did eventually fall into my hands. By the way, the town you posted on the screenshot held the Colossus in my game. I razed it! Culture flipping sucks more than a few extra gold rocks, especially on deity. Did I do wrong?

I don't want to give out too many spoilers, 'cause I really want to see how 1337 does.

Re the Greeks, I typically take them out with Knights. You need a LOT of Sword-level units to do it, especially once theire cities break past 6 pop.

I probably wouldn;t have razed the Colossus city... when did this happen? If it was before, say 0 AD, I doubt that Cleo would have had enough culture for it to flip very readily. Even if I were worried, I'd probably leave my attack force outside, garrison with one Legion or Spearman, and try to starve it down. Also, depending on how quickly you could take down the evil Egyptians, you could have reduced the chance of flipping in my preferred manner.

Especially with Commercial being improved, the Colossus goes a looong way in the early game.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus


I probably wouldn;t have razed the Colossus city... when did this happen? If it was before, say 0 AD ...

It was about 0 AD.

But a formerly Greek 3-size city did flip before that, with my 3 elite legions in it, despite the fact that it did never have any Greek culture whatsoever, no temple or library, nothing. It didn't get out of resistance after 10 turns, even if it had initially 4 of my units defending. I just thought the higher flipping risk was the nature of deity games ( This is my first game on that level).

[Theseus]

Hmmm, I don;t think flipping risk (good phrase, that) changes with difficulty levels.

I'm pretty paranoid about it... I like the tactic of leaving only 1 unit in the town and parking my attack force outside... even if it flips, the re-taking of the town knocks it down 1 pop.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus
Hmmm, I don;t think flipping risk (good phrase, that) changes with difficulty levels.

(I am sorry to take this thread a little out of topic)

Even after only half a game, my feeling is that deity games gives more resistance tendency to citizens of the opposing civs. I had to place more troops than the number of citizens to quell them, otherwise they stayed in total resistance forever and eventually flipped.

But perhaps I just had bad luck in this particular game?

[Theseus]

Actually, I think it's on topic, as the possibility of culture flipping should be a consideration in the 'how' part.

In any case, one of the things I try to do is always capture cities in adjacent pairs, so that fewer tiles of each are impacted by the AI civs culture. Also, I like to start with cities on the coast, and work my way in, for the same reason.

Another thing that I do is specifically target high culture cities as my first captures... this corresponds with capturing GWs.

I definitely starve down to get rid of resistors.

I try to max out on luxuries, and make sure that the target cities are connected (for instance, in intercontinental attacks, I always include a city with a harbor in the initial city-pair). Happy cities are less likely to flip.

I don;t know if CF relates to difficulty level... I don;t think so. My guess is that the deity advantages for the AI made for bigger towns / cities, and thus you were perhaps dealing with several more resistors than you are used to.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus

I definitely starve down to get rid of resistors...

Out of topic:

So do I. Who said etnical cleansing was a bad thing?

But once I got a thread closed by a moderator after only 3 hours when I asked people what kind of bad names they used for the opposing civs (Krauts, Yankies, Tommies, Japs, Babs, Frogs etc, not to mention the bad names that would possible for the Zulus). You can starve them to death, raze their towns, pillage their farmland, murder prisoners of war (by disbanding) and backstab them when they are your allies, but if you call them bad names, you get kicked from the game discussion forum. Isn't that a contradiction?

[Coracle]

"Herding" settlers is just more boring tedium.

This is all known as Settler Diarrhea - the crazy flood of settlers constantly violating our borders and taking their own good time to leave, or teleporting to the other side of my civ and setting up towns on open tiles they should not know exist.

It is one of the most annoying aspects of the game. And it should be fixed.

I give settlers one turn to get out by the same way they came in - or I attack them. The hell with a rep hit; I get blamed for stuff I never did anyway. I am NOT wasting my time creating a wall of workers or warriors trying to block them.

WE NEED TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY in the game.

[Theseus]

On topic:

There's another kind of herding...

Say you start with a pretty good location, but there's some crap land near you, say desert.

If you're playing straight REX, you'll probably settle this area just for the future resources.

I say, why bother? If it's close to your capitol, LET the AI settlers in, and either CF or capture the town when the time comes!!

Not always applicable, but useful in tight games... I consider that settler / town a gift.