This was already discussed tangently in the past ( https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/ai-and-region-spamming.1648012/ ), but since that thread is old and dealt more with AI behaviour and the request to be able to raze vassal regions (which was then added in a patch), I would like to start a fresh discussion on this...
I learned from @Dissenswurst while ago that there is a technical minimum distance of two...which is of course a value which hardly has any impact (except maybe for cases of playing on tiny maps with many players) and also that there are mods out there increasing the minimum distance, which I started to use after getting tired of the AI settling too close to existing regios to their own detriment.
What I can say from the modded games is that increasing the minimum distance greatly changes how the game playes - and IMO, really positively. The reason for this is to me that the inner mechanics if regions in Millenia (in terms of pop growth, the improvement system, yields, buildings, regions, towns etc.) only really work out if there is at least some space between them. Cities ending up too close is a problem in Civ6 as well, but there it is rather one for the battlefield AI (their limited ability with the 1UpT system breaks completely, if they ZoC and multiple attacks from cramped cities/encampments come together), while economiaclly an "ICS" (infinite city sprawl) start might even work. In Millenia, it does not. At least not in the way the AI makes use of the ability to settle two tiles away. They end up with tons of small regions with little economic power, get behind and then the human player has the not particularly challenging but extremly tedious business to forcefully get rid of those border cities.
My suggestion would be using 4 tiles as minimum distance between region capitals instead.
After playing with the different values, I think this is a good compromise - it definitely tackles the problem described above, but still allows fairly close grouping if needed and OTOH avoids another for of tedium which can creep in with value of 5 or 6 (you then often get blocked by cities really far away in the FoW, so you can't even see where the obstacle is). It should also work on smaller maps.
Finally, another reason why I would really, really like to see this "officially" (at least as game option): The distance-increase mods suffer from two technical limiations making the implementation of the minimum distance both incomplete and overzealous. It is incomplete in terms of free minor cities not caring for the minimum distance when appearing, while on the other side even towns and outposts count as cities in terms of blocking new foundings inside the "minimum distance radius"
I learned from @Dissenswurst while ago that there is a technical minimum distance of two...which is of course a value which hardly has any impact (except maybe for cases of playing on tiny maps with many players) and also that there are mods out there increasing the minimum distance, which I started to use after getting tired of the AI settling too close to existing regios to their own detriment.
What I can say from the modded games is that increasing the minimum distance greatly changes how the game playes - and IMO, really positively. The reason for this is to me that the inner mechanics if regions in Millenia (in terms of pop growth, the improvement system, yields, buildings, regions, towns etc.) only really work out if there is at least some space between them. Cities ending up too close is a problem in Civ6 as well, but there it is rather one for the battlefield AI (their limited ability with the 1UpT system breaks completely, if they ZoC and multiple attacks from cramped cities/encampments come together), while economiaclly an "ICS" (infinite city sprawl) start might even work. In Millenia, it does not. At least not in the way the AI makes use of the ability to settle two tiles away. They end up with tons of small regions with little economic power, get behind and then the human player has the not particularly challenging but extremly tedious business to forcefully get rid of those border cities.
My suggestion would be using 4 tiles as minimum distance between region capitals instead.
After playing with the different values, I think this is a good compromise - it definitely tackles the problem described above, but still allows fairly close grouping if needed and OTOH avoids another for of tedium which can creep in with value of 5 or 6 (you then often get blocked by cities really far away in the FoW, so you can't even see where the obstacle is). It should also work on smaller maps.
Finally, another reason why I would really, really like to see this "officially" (at least as game option): The distance-increase mods suffer from two technical limiations making the implementation of the minimum distance both incomplete and overzealous. It is incomplete in terms of free minor cities not caring for the minimum distance when appearing, while on the other side even towns and outposts count as cities in terms of blocking new foundings inside the "minimum distance radius"
- 4
- 2
