I've been noticing this with surprising consistency: The AI, whenever they build a city, do not necessarily choose the most oppertune locations. Without being able to compare surrounding resources, I've noticed that many AI city locations are 1 or 2 squares away from a river or forest tile. Without the 'snaking' mechanic, they're WASTING precious resources by deliberately building away from these naturally abundant locations.

It's frustrating for me aswell, as I now have to go through a whole series of saves/loads and try to see if there was a better location closer to a river or forest via conquering the city, comparing it's stats, and then razing it. So far, out of the two I've taken in my current game, BOTH should have been built beside the nearby river.

This has to be fixed. The AI should be choosing optimal building city locations....especially on the challenging setting that I'm playing on.

Either that, or have 'snaking' available again so that the AI can take advantage of it.