Brilliant AI move or dumb luck?

[Metamorph]

When it happened to me, the AI built TWO cities on one-tile islands... in the middle of a lake. So now I had to build ships from cities adjacent to the lake (lucky I had any at all) until I could pound these cities into dust -- a complete waste of ships, since now they're stuck in this silly lake.

What annoys me is that it's absolutely impossible to wage war on these island-cities until you have ships capable of combat -- and even then, you can only use the ships, with no other form of support. Oh well, quirks will be quirks.

- Metamorph

[wheathin]

Could you use a spy or something to subvert the city? Or slavers and preists to try to get it to revolt?

Historically, cities of this type were virtually impregnable until gunpowder, unless treachery of some sort was involved.

[Jonny]

The AI also did this to me in my very first game. It was a decent size when I was ready to capture it (size 25). I tried bringing in marines on ships, but the city was too well defended (12 units). It was close to my continent, so I used a nuke on it, then sent in a troop ship with some troops to capture it.

I want to know why it was so heavily defended if it was on an island???

[marc420]

quote: Originally posted by wheathin on 11-27-2000 10:47 AM Historically, cities of this type were virtually impregnable until gunpowder, unless treachery of some sort was involved.

Can you say Malta? Gibralter isn't too far from being in this category either.

[wheathin]

"Can you say Malta? Gibralter isn't too far from being in this category either. "


I'm not sure what your argument is... That Malta and Gibraltar were difficult to take, or easy?

[MrFun]

You know, I just don't see any production value in one-tile island cities for either the human player or the computer player.

They are very effective and easy to defend - big deal - where is the production in a city with nothing but ocean for tiles? Unless of course, this one tile island is set so that land from a continent nearby is in its city radius.

[wheathin]

They make great airbases and naval bases for refueling and interdicting shipping.

Single island cities generate tons of gold from all the water, and thus good science as well (at least in CtP - dunno CtP2).

When they get big, can't they use their extended radii in CtP2 to reach out to undersea volcanoes and undersea mines?

[Dominous Nemo]

It's kinda like Hawaii ! Just an observation.

[Alpha Wolf]

I've seen this alot in both CtP1 and CtP2 already. I've also seen the AI build on a land locked lake island. i tried to drop a paratrooper into it but later found out it was defended by a stickin lawyer and that was it. Hopefully CtP2 will build real armies on these islands. Nothin more annoying than those lawyers "shooting" down paratroopers. To me, it seems like if the AI finds a single square island of any flat type, it intentionally tries to build there.

[Shooter]

Another cool thing I saw the AI do was abandon a city. I was on the verge of killing the civ, there was no possible way for them to defend themselves, so they packed up and left. I sort of wondered why, but it wasn't long until I found out. They settled a city in the mountains, and stored all the troops they had in there. Now I mean completely surrounded by mountains. Some of my units couldn't go through the mountains to attack the city. My superior tech got pounded by them because of their defensive bonus. I lost my whole attack stack, and it was years before I was able to attack again (they had settled another 2 cities).