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"Interference" and AI city placement
Hi all,
Here's a dirty little trick that's proved its worth to me countless times in the early-game land grab. If you've got a pretty good map of the terrain, you can usually guess where the AI is going to place its next cities (for me, this is usually where I would place them...I think the AI and I are using the same algorithm!). The trick is to use some of your extra Warriors and Scouts as interference in order to delay their city as long as possible (hopefully indefinitely).
Place a unit on a square adjacent to their future city-site. The turn before they reach that tile, move into it. The AI gets a little confused here and tries to find the next best spot. In the best case scenario, there is none, so it turns around and returns into friendly territory. You've basically just gained 5-6 turns. If you manage to get your own Settler in there, you've just (peacefully) stolen a city right from under them. Sometimes, the AI will settle for another tile, which isn't really a problem if you have multiple units available. You can make their Settlers run around quite a bit, wasting precious turns.
If you can do this at 2 or 3 locations simultaneously, you gain a considerable advantage. In one game, I backed the Greeks into a corner with this strategy; for a long time after that (until I finally conquered them), I could see 5 Settlers (10 population points) pacing around their borders with no place to go!
And the best part is, the AI doesn't get angry when you do this! You can bet human players would get very angry if you tried this one on them! I know I would...
Dominae
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