Forward settling again

[cerulean jackal]

Usually I wouldn't bother much, but in my particular case, context in which AI forward settling me is really annoying. So closest AI (yet she is quite far) to me is Jayna and we have mutual decraration of friendship (turn 19), yet she comes and founds an outpost on territories I have claims on. On turn 21 save you can see we 520 positive relationship, next turn when her outpost is completed she now feels threatened by me which worsens our relationship by 300. She has persevering diplomat personality and probably still enough space with resources to expand steping on my claims, we have good relationships, there is no much sense in her action. Now I will have to deal with headache, I'll generate grievance for annexing provinces in her direction and will have to pay for them or has to force wizard bond and then province claiming pact, and those became more expensive due to worsened relationship, that got worse due to her own action. Usually I wouldn't bother much, wait a little till I get enough grievancies, get rid of outpost etc. But I really intended to make alliance with her, so the whole situation is really frustrating.

So here is some highlight of a problem:

1. AI don't understand when it's own action have offensive character and by change in relationship it feels like the other side at the fault. In my case Jayna came and found outpost near my city and now feels threatened by me, which make no sense.
2. When founding outpost, AI seems only thinking about economical factors, so it doesn't take into consideration diplomacy. I think consequence of it is that often AI that on paper should tend to be allies often end up enemies, due to grievances generated by uncontrolled outpost founding and settling.

[silent fiber]

Forward settling is annoying, period. Just let me play sim city dammit 😆

[cerulean jackal]

It's not about sim city, I wouldn't complain if Ai who forward settled me was in bad relationships with me or it was fitting it's personality, but all of these are opposite. We had good relationships and AI's personality is diplomat, so it's action makes no sense. I wouldn't even complain if it was made with intent to spoil relationships or provoke, but it clearly wasn't, AI just saw a bunch of resource nodes and slapped outpost there, it probably just doesn't "consider" any diplomatic implications of it's actions.

[silent fiber]

So your problem is that the AI is selfish (basically)?

[sand ravine]

I think the problem is more that a supposedly friendly AI settled in a way that was likely to lead to worsening relationships and outright war.

[coarse rune]

Devs said that its bc they expect players to do it too and take advantage of nice AI.

However, not everyone plays like that. Half of the game is roleplaying, so if someone wants to just look at the game mechanically, just let them do that

they didnt say it recently but i remember many months ago that someone was talking about it in one of the general chats

[swift umbra]

Yeah, I've had this issue as well. And whilst it's something I would expect from a hostile AI, it's quite baffling when a character that I have good relations (or even treaties with) intentionally settles in my claimed provinces in spite of there being negative consequences to that.

I do wonder if in these cases it's meant to let you farm grievances to trade for the sake of diplomacy if you're trying to ally - but that comes off as a little bit cheesy, and doesn't get around the issue of having to compete with an ally for space.

[summer charm]

In general I think the AI forward settling is good, this is wargame first and forward settling creates tension and conflict. It's also important to note that the AI is essentially tethered to a range around it's territory, so building outposts/cities forward is needed for the AI to gain influence over the map: whether that is for exploration, clearing, conquest, or stopping victory conditions in the end game.

I do agree that the behaviour is a bit too much of a default and different AI personalities or relations could possibly be factored in here to make the thing a little more natural and less rudely imposing.

If you really hate the behaviour, I've found map size matters hugely here with large relative distances often minimizing the impact of the AIs forward settling behaviour. It becomes more of a marking territory borders than imposing on other people.