AI always building on your own territory

[KAKATAL]

I honnestly love this game but the fact that the AI always build very very close to your own city or even in the middle of your empire in the making, simply ruining all the fun. Even on a very large map, the AI come accross the entire map jsut to put one of its fk... city stick to mine. You can never build an empire in this game. As it was possible on civ, I guess it could be possible to insert a notion of territory or a minimum distance beween your home and their.

[Bob]

If they do this too much you can gather grievances against them for expanding too close to your domain, you can declare a justified war on them and slaughter them for their actions.

[Pantagruel]

If they're building too close to you, they give you grievances and you can declare justified war and kill or capture their city.

[PlutonArioch]

I rarely see that happen, and if I do, I declare war and get rid of it. But really it is extremely rare in my experience.

Originally posted by KAKATAL:

... I guess it could be possible to insert a notion of territory or a minimum distance beween your home and their.

That is already in the game. Any province directly at your border, you have a strong claim on, and anything up to 2 more provinces outside your border, you have a weak claim on. Whenever someone (you don't have a "Province-Claiming pact" with) takes a province you have a claim on, you get a grievance (reason for war) - unless their claim is stronger. So, aside from the pact, the only way you don't get a grievance for someone building close to you, is if it is touching their border, but not yours.

[Astasia]

This happens constantly, especially with higher difficulty AIs. They will cross half the map to forward settle you just outside grievance range to block you in, and then if you want to expand your city at all in that direction the AI is the one who farms grievances off you. It's definitely annoying and one of the main reasons I stopped playing with the challenge mechanics that start with one or more advanced empires, they are the ones most likely to do this to you in my experience.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Pantagruel:

If they're building too close to you, they give you grievances and you can declare justified war and kill or capture their city.

Honestly, the grievances from building an actual settlement within like 6 provinces of your territory should be massive. In any even remotely realistic situation, setting up a military outpost anywhere close to anything but an ally would be considered an immediate act of war.

[PlutonArioch]

Originally posted by Astasia:

This happens constantly, especially with higher difficulty AIs. They will cross half the map...

Not in my games. At least not constantly, and usually not from across half the map.

Originally posted by Astasia:

...to forward settle you just outside grievance range to block you in, and then if you want to expand your city at all in that direction the AI is the one who farms grievances off you.

That is not how it works though. If you just expand your city, you expand into territory you have a strong claim on, and as long as you do not yet touch their borders(where they also have a strong claim), they get no grievance. For you to be completely blocked from expanding they would have to build right in your claimed zone, which gives you a grievance first.

Granted, 3 provinces between your border and their outpost is still uncomfortably close, but it does not prevent all expansion... and that is where fabricated grievances come in handy - if you care about justifying your war that is. Or expand to only leave one province space, and wait for them to build the city, so they have to expand into your claims. Though I probably would not want to do this either, and they don't always turn outposts into cities.

Originally posted by Astasia:

It's definitely annoying and one of the main reasons I stopped playing with the challenge mechanics that start with one or more advanced empires, they are the ones most likely to do this to you in my experience.

Well that could be it. I have only played two of those in total, and one is the succession war, where so far the kings have been too busy killing each other to bother me (this one is still ongoing), though one of them did build an outpost just outside my claimed territory - but to be fair, it is right in the middle between both of our capital cities. So he did not go out of his way to build it next to me. I would have wanted an outpost there as well in his place. Usually I play without those challenge traits, and don't notice this behavior.

[Pantagruel]

This may be an indication that you aren't expanding fast enough. Put your own cities down to block out the AI.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

That is not how it works though. If you just expand your city, you expand into territory you have a strong claim on, and as long as you do not yet touch their borders(where they also have a strong claim), they get no grievance. For you to be completely blocked from expanding they would have to build right in your claimed zone, which gives you a grievance first.

Granted, 3 provinces between your border and their outpost is still uncomfortably close, but it does not prevent all expansion... and that is where fabricated grievances come in handy - if you care about justifying your war that is. Or expand to only leave one province space, and wait for them to build the city, so they have to expand into your claims. Though I probably would not want to do this either, and they don't always turn outposts into cities.

Like I said they drop these settlements specifically in locations to box you in so after a few pop upgrades you have to start claiming tiles next to this settlement and generate grievances. It's especially bad if you start near mountains, often they drop their settlements right at the edge of valleys giving you literally no path out.

Originally posted by PlutonArioch:

Well that could be it. I have only played two of those in total, and one is the succession war, where so far the kings have been too busy killing each other to bother me (this one is still ongoing), though one of them did build an outpost just outside my claimed territory - but to be fair, it is right in the middle between both of our capital cities. So he did not go out of his way to build it next to me. I would have wanted an outpost there as well in his place. Usually I play without those challenge traits, and don't notice this behavior.

They definitely go out of their way to do this, sometimes they cross oceans to do it, often they settle on the opposite side of your starting city from their main territory. They are also obnoxious enough to release the city as a vassal once it has served it's purpose, just to basically say "I never wanted this anyway."

Originally posted by Pantagruel:

This may be an indication that you aren't expanding fast enough. Put your own cities down to block out the AI.

It's specifically bad with the map modifiers I mentioned because the AI can do stuff faster than you with their accelerated starts. It's like on turn one they send a hero stack directly at you to start setting up outposts in literally the most inconvenient spots they possibly can as a form of harassment. It's an incredibly "well designed" mechanic that is very effective, but also not fun to play against, and they don't do it to other AIs as far as I have seen, it's just used as a form of player bias.

[TriumphJordi]

There's no Player Bias, the Player just has the most Valuable settling locations surrounding them and Brutal AI has no turn restriction on when they can start building outposts.