AI and Region spamming

[Angelic_Daemon]

Is there a way to absorb or raze a regional capital?

In my current game the AI conquered a neutral capital and then settled two right on top of it. During a war they slip a settler in between a mountain pass and settled on my borders. I didn't see an option to raze them when I conquered them, nor absorb them into another region, but a quick search prove it not to be an option.

Has this been addressed by the developers?

 

[Mauer]

Nope, and this is making the game very very frustrating atm.

 

[Cruor]

Agreed. 1) You NEED to be able to raze cities, at least that were below size 10. 2) Should be minimum 2-3 hexes from the BOARDER (not city) to found another city. I hate when cities are founded on top of each other.

Seriously... how do people see these problems in games DECADES ago, then a new game fixes the problem, then an even newer game has the same problem again. Like it was done, it was bad, people complained, it was fixed, and then the same mistake gets made again. How does this happen? I mean with ANY game, not just this one. I honestly feel like people who make games don't play games.

 

[Bankipriel]

Yeah, it's pretty bad. I'm sure we'll be able to mod it in later, but it's seriously frustrating right now.

I'm assuming it's a multi-player balance issue, so you have a chance to conquer your cities back, instead of being totally F'd if you lose a major city despite having the army to retake it.

But yeah, it should be two toggle options in game-setup:
Cities can be Razed: YES / NO
Capital Cities can be Razed: YES / NO

 

[Mauer]

This is getting ridiculous now:

 

[maerde]

As neutral regions(vassals) can be destroyed, for +2people. My idea would be to get a vassal to neutal by barbarians or disaster units. Then conqer it to raze it.

Has someone tried this?

 

[Knut Are Mykland]

I hope they will patch it so that you cannot settle closer then 5-7 tiles to another region, vassal or minor nation. There are a few reasons to do this. It makes it harder to vassal spam. It makes sure each region has enough room to be useful. It adds empty space where outposts can be used. It reduces the number of vassals that can be taken from the AI on grandmaster.
To compensate I hope they increase the distance for road creation.

Reducing the number of vassals and regions might slightly improve performance as well.

 

[Bankipriel]

I hope they will patch it so that you cannot settle closer then 5-7 tiles to another region, vassal or minor nation. There are a few reasons to do this. It makes it harder to vassal spam. It makes sure each region has enough room to be useful. It adds empty space where outposts can be used. It reduces the number of vassals that can be taken from the AI on grandmaster.
To compensate I hope they increase the distance for road creation.

Reducing the number of vassals and regions might slightly improve performance as well.

Yes. This would solve so many problems; well said.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Old World's solution was innovative & addressed the issue well; giving a more curated feel to city (Region) settling.

I'd wager something similar could be quite easily retrofitted into Millennia's map generation code.

 

[Cruor]

Old World's solution was innovative & addressed the issue well; giving a more curated feel to city (Region) settling.

I'd wager something similar could be quite easily retrofitted into Millennia's map generation code.

Old Worlds set city sites was possibly the best feature I've ever seen in a 4X where you can found cities. Forces the AI not to be stupid, and stopped me from pulling my hair out on an Europe/Medi map. I loved it. Should be in every 4X from now on. Not sure it can be done but if it could I'd LOVE to see a mod for that system here. Or for the devs to just add that.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Old Worlds set city sites was possibly the best feature I've ever seen in a 4X where you can found cities. Forces the AI not to be stupid, and stopped me from pulling my hair out on an Europe/Medi map. I loved it. Should be in every 4X from now on. Not sure it can be done but if it could I'd LOVE to see a mod for that system here. Or for the devs to just add that.

In order for that system to work, your map needs a lot of space and, from what I've seen (haven't played), Millennia's maps don't have that kind of necessary space.

 

[Peace Weaver]

Would be nice if there was a way to slowly dismantle a city, with projects or special actions that cause the population to immigrate to other cities and buildings to be scrapped until it is eventually demoted to an outpost and can be either left to claim the territory or packed up by a pioneer and carried away.

 

[Erindel]

In order for that system to work, your map needs a lot of space and, from what I've seen (haven't played), Millennia's maps don't have that kind of necessary space.

there's a ton of space available, totally doable (i've played both games).

However, restricting settlement removes a mechanic from the game (where to settle/city spacing optimization, etc.)

 

[Cruor]

there's a ton of space available, totally doable (i've played both games).

However, restricting settlement removes a mechanic from the game (where to settle/city spacing optimization, etc.)

Can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. It's the best solution I have seen. City placement isn't hard for the people it's a problem for the AI, Set city sites solves that. You could still choose if you want the choke point city or the recourse city, cant grab every site first.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. It's the best solution I have seen. City placement isn't hard for the people it's a problem for the AI, Set city sites solves that. You could still choose if you want the choke point city or the recourse city, cant grab every site first.

It'd also make the presence of neutral cities slightly less jarring; instead of them being 'free settlers', they'd be obstructions occupying City sites that would need to be dealt with.

Slightly off-topic, but neutral cities shouldn't be capturable.
Either pillage & destroy them with military then resettle (better short-term/militaristic strategy), or vassalize them with one-use envoys.(better long-term/diplomatic strategy)

 

[Angelic_Daemon]

I'm noticing how annoying trees are to have around, give me a nice clump of five in a ring and I'll be happy all game, but a whole forest in brutal, even more so if you are using engineering for other things.

The pic, the German cities were minors, the Greeks were settled by the AI, they seem to be doing well. I gave Sparta and Delphi cities as they could get some goodies with them.

 

[Mauer]

there's a ton of space available, totally doable (i've played both games).

However, restricting settlement removes a mechanic from the game (where to settle/city spacing optimization, etc.)

I find city placement is not as big of a deal as in Civ, since cities can grow in any direction you take them with towns and they're not limited to work a 3-tile radius. I didn't play Old World, but this fixed city sites sound like it would work really well here, after all we can place outposts everywhere we need to as well.

 

[Erindel]

I find city placement is not as big of a deal as in Civ, since cities can grow in any direction you take them with towns and they're not limited to work a 3-tile radius. I didn't play Old World, but this fixed city sites sound like it would work really well here, after all we can place outposts everywhere we need to as well.

that's true, but the placement at the beginning of the game is important, same for your first few towns, as your borders expand slowly at first. It's a snowball effect as usual.

 

[Black_Shade]

I played a couple of games and the AI city spam annoyed me to no end. It's just non-stop 7 hex cities on every nook and cranny on the entire map. It's bad enough that I don't think there's much point in playing until this gets resolved.

A minimum of 5 hexes between cities AND the ability to both unsettle controlled cities or raze captured cities is required.

 

[Straenger]

of all the little nit-picky complaints and stuff that I agree with, I don't actually REALLY care about any of them except this one. My main focus in all 4x games is "city building" and "city planning" and it's rendered nearly non-existent because of how the AI settles. I don't mind having to go to war to free up map space so i can do more city building, that's the juggling that you have to do, but so far in Millennia it's not possible, you just end up with a couple nice cities and a hundred of these stupid useless 7 hex nobodies. It's pretty game-breaking for me, which is a shame.