AI Forward settling

[Erindel]

Please god not again... the AI keeps settling between my cities and I can't even declare to raze their cities, so all that nice planned space is reduced to mediocre vassals for the rest of the game.
The fact that you need a lot of space to develop makes it even more infuriating. I don't want to spend all early game chasing settlers. See example below, I had to reload and block Japan from settling between my 3 cities. Later declared hostilities.

Either you delcare hostilies all the time (and in grandmaster they have a lot more armies than you) or you play the blocking game...

 

[Neil Wilkes]

This happened to me in both starts so far, and additionally the AI is seemingly extremely aggressive, even on the default 'Adept' level whetre it meets you, declares hostilities almost immediately & war a few turns later. Then in come 3 or 4 army stacks, blow up everything & run away and if you fight back you get stuck in a never ending war cycle.
Then in the rare times when you can peace them out - immediate forward settle.
Now, if we could raze the crap AI outposts that would be great, but of course we can't.
It seems the released version is quite different to those early pre-release builds and learning this is going to be fun

 

[Mauer]

This, and the fact that forward settled cities can't be razed, is my biggest gripe with the game. Maybe it the best strategy for the AI, but god is it annoying.

 

[Erindel]

This, and the fact that forward settled cities can't be razed, is my biggest gripe with the game. Maybe it the best strategy for the AI, but god is it annoying.

I tried an island map.... the AI will create 3 cities on a medium island where only one city is viable... so you are locked into one city + vassals only...

 

[MrPounceTV]

Yeah. My first game I pulled half the players off the map for breathing room to figure stuff out and never met anyone before turn like 60. Was fine, gave me time to learn how everything works.

Second game I start on a medium with 7/8 players. AI drops a vassal 5 tiles from my capital on turn 10-12. Somewhere in there, but definitely on a timescale where it'd be mathematically impossible to get enough government XP to buy a settler and move them to settle. Technically, I suppose a couple of goodie huts could have given them bonus gov't xp, but I remain highly skeptical of that.

Declare hostilities, then declare war a few turns later. Manage to take the vassal but it's in a godawful spot with sparse resources and too close to an independent nation, almost as if the only real logic was 'this is close to the player, beep boop'. So now I'm stuck with this craphill of a vassal stymieing my main region's expansion, and I can't get rid of it, because we don't have the option to raze our conquests. Spend the next dozen turns swatting the seemingly infinite number of warriors, leaders, and scouts the AI has zipping about the area. Oops, we're 2 turns into the Age of Bronze but we've already unlocked the Age of Blood crisis era. I'd worry about dragging the world into the Age of Blood, but even after going as fast as I could to unlock the Age of Bronze, on the turn I unlocked it, Japan was 50% done with the tech already, so at least I won't win that research race and doom the world.

I wasn't really expecting revolutionary AI, especially with how complex this game can get, but this looks like a bad case of 'more numbers, bigger numbers = difficulty'. Which, in fairness, it absolutely does--it's just the frustrating, annoying kind, not the fun or challenging kind.

 

[Cruor]

Already said it in other threads but if we are loud enough they will make changes. I agree. I HATED this in Civ games and I hate it here. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's annoying. Stop trying to settle or outpost every bit of land between my cities. Why does the AI love to do this in EVERY Civ-like (civ included) 4X game? We NEED to be able to raze any city we want to, and we need a claim territory option for basically free. (within a few hexs of a settled city we own) Should work like an outpost, claim 7 tiles but if you send a settler or engineer in that area ( the guy who builds outposts whatever he is called) it should be an act of hostility and no penalty to kill it.

Also min city distance should be 4+ hexes away. I always modded Civ since Civ to have more spaced-out cities.

 

[Mauer]

Yeah. My first game I pulled half the players off the map for breathing room to figure stuff out and never met anyone before turn like 60. Was fine, gave me time to learn how everything works.

Second game I start on a medium with 7/8 players. AI drops a vassal 5 tiles from my capital on turn 10-12. Somewhere in there, but definitely on a timescale where it'd be mathematically impossible to get enough government XP to buy a settler and move them to settle. Technically, I suppose a couple of goodie huts could have given them bonus gov't xp, but I remain highly skeptical of that.

Declare hostilities, then declare war a few turns later. Manage to take the vassal but it's in a godawful spot with sparse resources and too close to an independent nation, almost as if the only real logic was 'this is close to the player, beep boop'. So now I'm stuck with this craphill of a vassal stymieing my main region's expansion, and I can't get rid of it, because we don't have the option to raze our conquests. Spend the next dozen turns swatting the seemingly infinite number of warriors, leaders, and scouts the AI has zipping about the area. Oops, we're 2 turns into the Age of Bronze but we've already unlocked the Age of Blood crisis era. I'd worry about dragging the world into the Age of Blood, but even after going as fast as I could to unlock the Age of Bronze, on the turn I unlocked it, Japan was 50% done with the tech already, so at least I won't win that research race and doom the world.

I wasn't really expecting revolutionary AI, especially with how complex this game can get, but this looks like a bad case of 'more numbers, bigger numbers = difficulty'. Which, in fairness, it absolutely does--it's just the frustrating, annoying kind, not the fun or challenging kind.

Turn 10 wtf, that's a perfectly justifiable ragequit right there.

 

[Neil Wilkes]

Already said it in other threads but if we are loud enough they will make changes. I agree. I HATED this in Civ games and I hate it here. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's annoying. Stop trying to settle or outpost every bit of land between my cities. Why does the AI love to do this in EVERY Civ-like (civ included) 4X game? We NEED to be able to raze any city we want to, and we need a claim territory option for basically free. (within a few hexs of a settled city we own) Should work like an outpost, claim 7 tiles but if you send a settler or engineer in that area ( the guy who builds outposts whatever he is called) it should be an act of hostility and no penalty to kill it.

Also min city distance should be 4+ hexes away. I always modded Civ since Civ to have more spaced-out cities.

A minimum distance of 4 hex would not have stopped the Advance Settle we see above though as it's 5 away.

Here's what I am thinking, and please bear with me until the end - we need to forget this whole concept of settling new Cities and remove it from our minds as this is not what is actually happening. We are in fact creating new regions - entire areas that will (if sufficient space is available) develop to support multiple satellite towns and a regional capital (kinda like a US State Capitol, or a UK County City) so being able to raze AI created regions is of absolute paramount importance - so much so that I will be asking for a full refund if not added soon, because as it stands now the game is unplayable.

I stress here that I want this game to work - but the release drop the other day is wildly different in oh, so many ways from the versions available to YT content creators. The AI was not nearly as aggressive with forward settles and 'forever wars' which make any diplomatic plays unviable as it is not possible to get as much as open borders even if you allow an AI civ to open an embassy (this offer came once, and once only - I allowed it and 5 turns later they had declared a war on me even though they could not even get to my lands?? WTAF is that all about?) and in general terms the AI hovers in a constant state of barely reined in hostility - and I stress again this is on Adept level, so I shudder to think how bad it gets in Grandmaster level. The comment above that 'larger numbers = more difficult' seems to be the default for this particular AI and it needs totally rethinking.
A tendency to try & defend against an AI whose only tactic is to advance settle and then continue to throw troops at your improvements - but never actually try to attack anything - is not fun. It's frustrating.

 

[Potoroo]

This happened to me in both starts so far, and additionally the AI is seemingly extremely aggressive, even on the default 'Adept' level whetre it meets you, declares hostilities almost immediately & war a few turns later. Then in come 3 or 4 army stacks, blow up everything & run away and if you fight back you get stuck in a never ending war cycle.
Then in the rare times when you can peace them out - immediate forward settle.
Now, if we could raze the crap AI outposts that would be great, but of course we can't.
It seems the released version is quite different to those early pre-release builds and learning this is going to be fun

Wow, that's pretty much a perfect description of my game today. I got to Age of Kings which was an improvement but I bailed because I couldn't get out of the forever war and after some hours of real time I was over it. I'm prepared to allow that I've still got a lot to learn about the game mechanics and maybe I could have done something more effectively with diplomacy, perhaps, but forever wars was always a pet hate of mine in Civ games. They promised there were non-military ways to win but attempting a cultural victory or whatever would inevitably generate a military response that I was ill-prepared for, so my Civ games inevitably fell back on combat. I had hoped that the way the Age of Blood is so easy to trigger was a subtle sign from the devs that the early game would be better spent on gearing up your economy for the long haul but no, the longer the game went the more enemies I acquired and that was that. Even on those rare occasions when I could get the AI to agree to peace they'd declare war on me again only a few turns later.

 

[Bankipriel]

Wow, that's pretty much a perfect description of my game today. I got to Age of Kings which was an improvement but I bailed because I couldn't get out of the forever war and after some hours of real time I was over it. I'm prepared to allow that I've still got a lot to learn about the game mechanics and maybe I could have done something more effectively with diplomacy, perhaps, but forever wars was always a pet hate of mine in Civ games. They promised there were non-military ways to win but attempting a cultural victory or whatever would inevitably generate a military response that I was ill-prepared for, so my Civ games inevitably fell back on combat. I had hoped that the way the Age of Blood is so easy to trigger was a subtle sign from the devs that the early game would be better spent on gearing up your economy for the long haul but no, the longer the game went the more enemies I acquired and that was that. Even on those rare occasions when I could get the AI to agree to peace they'd declare war on me again only a few turns later.

My experience so far on Adept difficulty, for what it's worth, is that two things primarily drive AI aggression: proximity & relative strength.

It also seems like AI disposition/personality makes a bit of a difference, as well as if there is any room left for expansion.


However, in my current game in the Age of Monuments, 3 of 5 nations are hostile with -30 to -50 relations. I have never had war declared on me during this game, I think, because I have always had stronger armies than my enemies. And, once I allied with my closest neighbor who had also declared war on our shared neighbor/enemy, the AI stopped even sniffing around my borders, so it *seems* like having a strong alliance also might make a difference, but my experience with that is just anecdotal from the one game so far.

Has anyone else had experience where having a strong alliance prevented aggression from other AI nations?

One thing I've found that helps with keeping an alliance: I wait to pick an ally until some nation sends a merchant or two to my regions. Then I reciprocate, declare hostility toward all of their enemies, and so far I have always gotten the alliance without them ever changing their mind. In my current game, allied to Egypt at 100 relations, it's the first time I got a nation of equal strength to accept my nation's religion. Not sure if that was luck, AI disposition, a result of the alliance, or all three.


The other thing I've done this game, which may or may not have made a difference (as I can't tell from only one game), is that I functionally avoided having any real borders, by settling my first two cities in mountain passes, so that enemy armies can only attack the cities one at a time. No one has even tried to attack them, where as I lost several cities to aggressive AI in my earlier games. I don't know if the AI avoids attacking cities without multiple armies present, but it seems like it. I've noticed Barbarians will not attack a stronger army across a river into hills; I actually had to chase them down after waiting on the defensive for numerous turns.

 

[Mnoracle]

You need to send envoys and have high military strength. When I was stronger than anyone everybody wanted to ally with me. BTW Raiders in the age of blood is completely ridiculous.

 

[General Luigi]

Yikes. I despise how in Age of Wonders 4, the AI has a tendency to plop down settlements near my Throne City pretty much the instant they learn where it is. If this problem is also present--let alone worse--in Millennia, then I'm a hard pass on this game until a patch or mod solves the problem.

 

[Erindel]

Yikes. I despise how in Age of Wonders 4, the AI has a tendency to plop down settlements near my Throne City pretty much the instant they learn where it is. If this problem is also present--let alone worse--in Millennia, then I'm a hard pass on this game until a patch or mod solves the problem.

yep, played a couple games, now waiting for the mod/patch to allow razing cities (or vassals at a minimum) to try again.

 

[Olden Weiss]

Need to nip it in the bud. Don't be afraid to declare hostilities and instantly wipe out their settler. That's exactly the kind of thing declared hostilities are for. "I don't like what you're doing, and this is your warning to stop doing it."

 

[d4everman]

Already said it in other threads but if we are loud enough they will make changes. I agree. I HATED this in Civ games and I hate it here. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's annoying. Stop trying to settle or outpost every bit of land between my cities. Why does the AI love to do this in EVERY Civ-like (civ included) 4X game? We NEED to be able to raze any city we want to, and we need a claim territory option for basically free. (within a few hexs of a settled city we own) Should work like an outpost, claim 7 tiles but if you send a settler or engineer in that area ( the guy who builds outposts whatever he is called) it should be an act of hostility and no penalty to kill it.

Also min city distance should be 4+ hexes away. I always modded Civ since Civ to have more spaced-out cities.

^^^THIS.

At least in Civ you could get an agreement with the AI to not settle too close. They might break the agreement, but it gave the player a reason to go to war.

I absolutely hate the AIs forward settling. It's a manufactured way to piss players off into wanting to go to war. It makes sense only if there is no more space or there's something super valuable in the area. But often it's not.

It's a shame because instead of feeling immersed like you're guiding a civ into the future it feels like "everyone is my deadliest enemy and there can NEVER be peace between us".

 

[Cruor]

^^^THIS.

At least in Civ you could get an agreement with the AI to not settle too close. They might break the agreement, but it gave the player a reason to go to war.

I absolutely hate the AIs forward settling. It's a manufactured way to piss players off into wanting to go to war. It makes sense only if there is no more space or there's something super valuable in the area. But often it's not.

It's a shame because instead of feeling immersed like you're guiding a civ into the future it feels like "everyone is my deadliest enemy and there can NEVER be peace between us".

Yup. Something I loved in Stellaris was with like set stars and planets the AI couldn't to dumb crap like settle behind you, or found in an idiotic spot, because there were only a few habitable planets and they were set. Old Worlds city sites = literal best idea ever in a civ-like 4x. The best. Wish they all had that. If you can't program an AI to found cities in a good spot after 30 years, force them to with set spots.

 

[Erindel]

Need to nip it in the bud. Don't be afraid to declare hostilities and instantly wipe out their settler. That's exactly the kind of thing declared hostilities are for. "I don't like what you're doing, and this is your warning to stop doing it."

that's what I did, but you need an army of scouts to keep track of escaping settlers...
In addition, in grandmaster, it's simply impossible because the AI has 2 or 3 times more units than you during the settling phase.

 

[Mnoracle]

I think it's map dependent, the number of settlers generated stays constant and AI thinks that having an another vassal is better than not. Which is mostly true.
On more spacious maps AI does not forward settle that much,

I play a lot on Large Continents and have not seen this problem at all. If AI has space they they prefer to cluster their cities.

 

[Ivan Rogov]

I'm playing my first game and just reached Renaissance. Map settings are 4 players, Huge, Continents, AI is all Apprentice. I haven't encountered ANY AI. All I know is that the Spanish got into Ren before me because I wanted more AoK tech.

I have a ship searching for them. I first thought "I set Continents, this looks like Pangea, why?" I then realized that the minimap shows only MAYBE HALF of the whole map! I have a dozen cities and won't get any more. I just realized what an effect the number of regions has when your cities are in unrest.

I used to HATE forward-settling AI in Civ and was so glad when 6 had the "loyalty range." Kupe once tried to FS me a few years ago and his city IMMEDIATELY flipped. They need to do that here. My cities have touching borders, but the AI could still block my outer cities from growing.