Need "land claim" feature in Civ3

[Kuciwalker]

I want this feature, but in a somewhat different way. I think cultural borders should spread A LOT farther over poor terrain (desert, tundra, jungle, mountains maybe), "poor terrain" just being a flag you can set in the editor. You can negotiate for territory that is outside what the ACTUAL culture borders would be if the terrain wasn't bad terrain. You can only get the land in huge chunks, though (the chunks only being divided sometimes, like by lines between cities) of all the same terrain type, though, to make it simpler. To get more, you'd have to take cities.

[orange]

I also would like to see borders subject to negotiations. I mean real-world-line-on-the-map-borders. I'm thinking Berlin conference 1884 here

I agree. But wasn't the Berlin Conference in 1885?

[Admiral PJ]

What do people think about Internal Borders? such as US style State borders, or Empire Borders where the British Empire rules India, and has a separate Government set up to rule it - a Governer.
This could cause civil wars inside a civilisation, or rebellions such as the US war of Independance.

I agree national borders should be negotiated with other civs, or minor civs even.

I wouldn't want anything complicated though.. perhaps it could be like an Auction.. the closer you are and higher culture you have in a square means you don't need much currency to Bid for it, each civ can outbid the other ever 10 turns say, or just occupy it with a unit to claim it.
I think a better milliary occupation system should be used too, if you win a battle near a city its borders expand. This or a better system would relfect how in Pre 20th century times armies would fight on a set battlefield and the loser would withdraw, and the winner would claim the land near the battlefield.
I've not explained it well.. in general terms its about Force Projection of a millitary power.. The USA's aircraft carriers or a group of Knights can send their millitary power far from their city boundaries to threaten and occupy lands.
Different governments should have different land claim abliities.. Governments who are millitaristic (lots of army support) or have advanced economic systems can gain land a lot easier and cheaper.
Revolutionaries and Freedom fighteres/Terrorists also fight to take land, like in the India Pakistan 'conflict' or Al Quadia and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

[GhengisFarb™]

Another possiblity, and I'm not sure how this would interact with the other ideas is to have an Explorer unit able to "plant flags" so to speak. Like a Worker has a build outpost option, a unit with the "plant flags" ability can "plant a flag" on it turn which would do nothing more than claim a 9 tile chunk of tiles in your nations name. You would still have to road to to acqurie resources and what not.

[MartynC]

Originally posted by Admiral PJ
What do people think about Internal Borders? such as US style State borders, or Empire Borders where the British Empire rules India, and has a separate Government set up to rule it - a Governer.
This could cause civil wars inside a civilisation, or rebellions such as the US war of Independance.

I agree national borders should be negotiated with other civs, or minor civs even.

Totally agree with. Internal borders should also help keep corruption down, e.g. A State/Provincial Capital lowers corruptions no matter how far you are away from the 'National' capital.

I think also you should be able to claim a square & 1 piece around it, e.g. the British Claimed the Falkland Islands with a plaque, although they had to defeat the Argentina from thousands of miles away to assert the sovereignty over the island, you should have to do something similar in Civ.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Solver
It's indeed a good point, Civ 3 AI certainly has difficulty with city trading. In the later versions, the AI would never trade cities, not in any case.

Actually, the AI civs in Civ3 consider city-trading only during peace bargainings. It will reject any trade involving cities (even when you're the one offering cities) in other situations.

[Spiffor]

I like the idea of land claims (or territory bargaining in general), but I don't like the implementation as thought in the opening post, nor do I really like Boris' implementation (100+ Civs would be way too complex I already have trouble keeping track of the international state of affairs when there are 31 simultaneous Civs). Besides, I think Boris' implementation is not flexible enough, because of its strongly limited timeframe.

There are 3 ideas I'd suggest for "land claims":

1. You can claim unclaimed tile simply by bringing a fighting unit there, and letting it fortify for at least one turn. If the unit moves, the territory stops being claimed.
In order to claim a large unsettled territory (such as Siberia), I think these borders should behave a bit like in Civ3: when one tile separates two tiles belonging to the same Civ, that "unclaimed" tile automatically belongs to that Civ. As a result, to claim whole areas, you'd have to put a unit once every two tiles.


2. Foreign cities cannot be founded in your borders, but their own borders will always be stronger than your claims: if a foreign city can culture-get a tile you have claimed, it will always get it.

3. I think "land claims" should be possible only after a tech has been discovered, probably a tech associated with the age of exploration (that's where I chime in with Oncle Boris). Printing Press, Navigation, Banking, or some exploration age Government tech could do the trick in making land claims possible.

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As per land bargainings, I think a simple interface should allow it once an adequate, middle ages tech had been discovered (Monarchy?)
There is one limitation I'd like to see, however, it is that the bargained tile would come back to its legitimate (culture wise) owner if it remains unoccupied by a unit for X turns. That would make it possible for the military player to increase its borders without too much culture, but that would force such a player to pay a real price for it.

Also, if you bargain "claimed territory" (one that doesn't have any culture-legitimate owner), the results of the bargaining win over the claim: the "claiming" unit will have to pack if the tile is given to somebody else. However, the territory would revert back to "unclaimed" status if no troops occupies it for X turns.

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I'm really fond of enabling these features only after some time in the game. The first reason is that I generally like not to have all the possible options up front (this way, things are much more simple and progressive for the newbie, and more exciting for the fan who strives to unlock abilities).
But the second reason is that culture should play an important role in the early game, when unsettled territory is the norm and settled territory is the exception. In early game, it's much easier to build a warrior / militia than a settler or a temple, and claiming territory like that would mean every ancient Civ would neglect culture and settler building, to grab land as quickly as possible with warriors