"Build here" icon when placing your second city

[Discarded]

is their any rhym or reason to the icon you see when building your second city? the icon that tells you this is a good place to build a city. because alot of places i've seen it were really bad places with not much of anything in them early game.

now im wondering if it's secretly telling you there is some endgamestuff here later on, but if that's not what it's doing then so far it's been a waste of time. mostly, not always but that could be luck

[bank robbery kush]

if you hover over the icon it should tell you exactly what its logic is

at least most of the time

[Ryika]

The recommendation doesn't factor in stuff that's not yet visible to you. It recommends strange city spots because it evaluates things strangely (with a strangely high bias to city-specialization (very onesided spots), which just doesn't work well in Civ 5) and overall just doesn't factor in the real important things for a human player - the recommendation-system is bad and can be ignored completely as soon as you feel that you know what you want/need.

[Discarded]

Originally posted by Ryika:

The recommendation doesn't factor in stuff that's not yet visible to you. It recommends strange city spots because it evaluates things strangely (with a strangely high bias to city-specialization (very onesided spots), which just doesn't work well in Civ 5) and overall just doesn't factor in the real important things for a human player - the recommendation-system is bad and can be ignored completely as soon as you feel that you know what you want/need.

okay that's exactly what i needed to know thanks

[daddio.1964]

Long time player of the franchise, first time poster here. Played every iteration of Civ, but just recently bought this game. Haven't put 100 hours in, yet, but....

Have we really discounted the idea that unrevealed map resources factor in? I know that for the first several iterations of this game, it was fairly obvious that the hidden resources were not hidden from the game logic (and, thus, not hidden from the AI). I've also noticed that the nearest seeded AI continues to, as it has in all other iterations of the game, make an uncanny beeline for your civ with its first exploration unit. (IOW, there are still occasions when the AI appears to demonstrate uncanny map knowledge).

In my most recent game, the AI suggested I move a settler to a pretty g-d forsaken looking region of the map. Much later in the game, it turned out that spot was right next to a coal deposit and within reach of ocean petroleum. In that same game, my neighbor Greece used his first settler to found Sparta in what looked like one of the least promising areas around his lush valley. I chalked it up to the fact that it was coastal, and Athens was landlocked. However, late in the game, wouldn't you know, Sparta was right next to a uranium deposit, and two hexes from aluminum.

I know that the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data', but still. This is the same sort of thing we've seen from this game franchise for a long time. So I ask: do we *know* that the city-founding AI doesn't peek at the map in this iteration, or are we taking that on (not so well placed) faith?

[El Presidente]

So why doesn't it say that a location with horses is good? I am playing Greec and I had to wait until the middle of the medeavil era to find a spot with horses that the AI liked. Iit was only 2 horses.

[El Presidente]

I wounder if the size of the map has anything to do with it. Maybe the civ you are playing might have something to do with it.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by daddio.1964:

I know that the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data', but still. This is the same sort of thing we've seen from this game franchise for a long time. So I ask: do we *know* that the city-founding AI doesn't peek at the map in this iteration, or are we taking that on (not so well placed) faith?

You can test it yourself. Pick a settler, wait until the turn before a new type of resource is revealed, check if there are new city recommendations on the map - if the system included hidden resources, no new city spots would appear. I tested this back in G+K and yes, additional city spots were added, although there were already spots that included the resource.

It's even easier to test with oil - the system will basically never recommend snow-tiles unless there is revealed oil/uranium to be found.

[daddio.1964]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by daddio.1964:

I know that the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data', but still. This is the same sort of thing we've seen from this game franchise for a long time. So I ask: do we *know* that the city-founding AI doesn't peek at the map in this iteration, or are we taking that on (not so well placed) faith?

You can test it yourself. Pick a settler, wait until the turn before a new type of resource is revealed, check if there are new city recommendations on the map - if the system included hidden resources, no new city spots would appear. I tested this back in G+K and yes, additional city spots were added, although there were already spots that included the resource.

It's even easier to test with oil - the system will basically never recommend snow-tiles unless there is revealed oil/uranium to be found.

I appreciate the thoughtful reply. I seldom have settlers on hand so late in the game, but I can see the logic in your observations. I'll try to remember to check that out for myself, sometime (esp the Alaskan crude scenario).