{The List} Borders

[marcthornton]

Originally posted by Tiberius
I like the fort city idea.

Forts would be created by army engineers (a special worker, that would cost 1 or 2 pop points, would be much more expensive than a regular worker and would be able to build only roads, fortifications, barricades, fort cities, radar towers, and other military related improvements) and would have a fixed, one tile wide cultural radius. Army engineers should be able to build forts on mountains, too.

A fort city would have zone of control, would offer a defence bonus similar to a barricade and would act as a radar tower.

... the fort would never culture-flip.

I like this a lot, the availability of the Army engineer should be tied to a technology researched, and future technoogies should add to the abilities of the army engineer. The engineer should only be able to build forts and fortification improvements, and cannot be assimilated back into a city without a cost of doing so. (Maybe he is angry for being discharged, etc.)

The zone of control should not be an area around the fort, but more like a wall or line of defence. You should be able to pick the 2 linear directions (At time of creation in which the control grows, and based on the number of units, and or improvements, the length of the defence grows. This defence line should also have a movement penalty for all units to cross, and a higher penalty if you are crossing it in the defended direction. You could then create artifical choke points for armies, etc. You should also be able to bombard these defences to blow a hole in the wall.

I may wish to put up 4 forts around a key area to blockade it in a square format. These barriered squares should provide an increased defencive bonus for your tropps only. (This defensive bonus works much better with Octagons instead of our current on point squares)

You could in fact create the Great Wall of China!

marc.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Yes, but you were basing it on cultural borders moving faster across deserts, which is exactly the opposite of how I see it. Culture should travel faster towards more "useful" tiles.

That results in the problem we're trying to solve - you often end up with the large empty spots.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
That results in the problem we're trying to solve - you often end up with the large empty spots.

But the opposite is nonsensical. Why would my culture expand into the desert faster than into some beautiful, bountiful grasslands?

The heart of Uber's idea that I like is that it causes cultural borders to advance along logical geological lines. My tweak of that idea preserves that while making the choice of which geological lines to follow a little more logical.

Now granted, the empty spots is a problem, but I don't think a non-sensical solution is a good solution.

A better solution would be to allow something other than culture to also effect borders. If you do nothing, they advance into useful tiles automatically, but if you want them to colonize the desert you need to do something about it yourself. Maybe make a colony radiate culture... or how about fortresses radiate culture but only backwards towards your existing cities (so they can't be used to make a huge land grab, just to fill in the empties).

There are tons of other ways to fix that problem other than instituting a nonsensical game mechanism...

[GodKing]

Remove culture from the calculations on determining national borders. Instead, have it based on another property of the tile - rivers and mountains have high values, making them hard to cross with your boundaries, and deserts and jungles low, making them easy to control. Once you establish control, it will not flip to another civ on its own. Most discussion has been along the lines that this is something that happens in the background done by the computer, but there is no reason it cannot be done manually except to probably reduce the workload of the player.

Some natural movement of boundaries towards more resourceful tiles, such as horses or iron should and could be implemented once those resources are known and discovered.

A fort or other system of creating an artificial boundary should be implemented, possibly by using a special worker unit.

Cities should not have to be restricted on what tiles they work. All land in your empire should be productive, the closer to larger urban areas the more productive. This would change how corruption effects / works in civ dramatically. It might also eliminate the workforce allocation system that civ has had from the beginning. However, the extremely flexible nature of the workforce system and the ability to micromanage or not would be lost, and another method would have to be implemented to replace these aspects of the game.

Some diplomatic method needs to be made whereby civs will, under certain financial and corruption situations, be willing to trade territory. Examples in history include the Louisiana Purchase, Gadsden, and the Polish Corridor.

Well, sounds like a game plan anyways. Lots of good ideas.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
But the opposite is nonsensical. Why would my culture expand into the desert faster than into some beautiful, bountiful grasslands?

Because more people would live on the grasslands, so it would take a stronger culture to take them over.

The spread of culture over grasslands is already simulated by the fact that you're going to build your cities there!. You won't do so on deserts, but we don't want them to be empty and unclaimed.

The heart of Uber's idea that I like is that it causes cultural borders to advance along logical geological lines. My tweak of that idea preserves that while making the choice of which geological lines to follow a little more logical.

This does!

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

Quote:

Originally posted by wrylachlan But the opposite is nonsensical. Why would my culture expand into the desert faster than into some beautiful, bountiful grasslands?

Because more people would live on the grasslands, so it would take a stronger culture to take them over.

So let me get this straight... people in the desert, who are not going to get any of my cities, whose land I'm not going to improve, who in fact stand nothing to gain from being part of my culture, are going to take up my culture faster than those on grasslands, where I am going to plant cities, whose land I am going to upgrade, who stand to benefit a ton from being part of my culture??? I'm sorry but that just doesn't make any kind of sense to me.

The spread of culture over grasslands is already simulated by the fact that you're going to build your cities there!.

If my cities are on grassland, why would my culture transmit to desert people(a totally different lifestyle) faster than to people who live on grasslands (who live a life much more like my people)?

Quote:

The heart of Uber's idea that I like is that it causes cultural borders to advance along logical geological lines. My tweak of that idea preserves that while making the choice of which geological lines to follow a little more logical.

This does!

Yes it absolutely does follow your logic, which unfortunately I do not.

The problem with the empty spaces, IMHO, is caused by the borders expanding too slowly. Currently borders expand in a negative exponential way. That is to say it takes exponentially more time for each successive border expansion. If borders expanded in a more linear way, you'd never have holes, because the borders would expand to fill those holes.

[Kuciwalker]

So let me get this straight... people in the desert, who are not going to get any of my cities, whose land I'm not going to improve, who in fact stand nothing to gain from being part of my culture, are going to take up my culture faster than those on grasslands, where I am going to plant cities, whose land I am going to upgrade, who stand to benefit a ton from being part of my culture??? I'm sorry but that just doesn't make any kind of sense to me.

Let's assume that each person takes up culture at the same rate. When there are fewer people in an area, it takes less time to "assimilate" that area.

Think of it this way - a center of culture in the middle of a wasteland will stand out more than a center of culture packed in between lots of other centers of culture. Fertile areas will be quite populated (with cities even), so it's harder to dominate them.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
Let's assume that each person takes up culture at the same rate. When there are fewer people in an area, it takes less time to "assimilate" that area.

That's an assumtion that there is no reason to make. Why would a person who will get no benefit from a culture take it up at the same rate as someone who stands to gain a lot from taking it up?

Think of it this way - a center of culture in the middle of a wasteland will stand out more than a center of culture packed in between lots of other centers of culture. Fertile areas will be quite populated (with cities even), so it's harder to dominate them.

A center of culture in the middle of a wasteland? How did it get there?Are you're assuming that cultural expansion happens through the effect of missionaries??? Which would beg the question why am I sending missionaries into the desert for a bunch of land that I don't want instead of focusing my effort on those nice grasslands which I do want?

[Trifna]

It seems that I didn't ever got a comment... so here's what I wrote, which denies that direct link between borders and culture to replace by occupation:

Hey, is border really depending on culture to start with?...



Cultural influence is linked to culture, but the boarder is determined by ECONOMICAL and POLITICAL aspects! A city/civ may be very advanced, great and so on, if it has less population and is not using some territory, others will be able to take the territory anytime.

Borders are dependant on the territory you USE and are able to keep, perhaps less/differently when the nation-state comes in modern times. Like Canada: if it is not able to keep its presence in North Pole, USA may just take the territory (even with nation-states) without asking permission!

This is how territory is internationally determined right now, and this is how it always have been in the past. Territorial possession is done by using this territory, OCCUPYING it (economical use, demographic presence, military presence of an empty space (like northern Canada), etc.). Cultural expansion is not directly the same thing as physical border. To resume my point: Territory must be own de facto.

I believe it is really crucial since the cultural border concept is the base of all the border discussion up to now.

[Flinx]

In my opinion (and various people have expressed each of these) there are 3 types of borders.

1) City Borders - this is the land a city can/is using for productive purposes.

2) National Borders - these are ultimately politically determined.

3) Cultural Influence - A measure of ability to control a certain area.

Let me try to explain how I would implement these ideas:

Cultural Influence map toggle on/off solid shading in your colour (stripe in overlaping zones?)
This can be exactly as in Civ3, but several good improvements have been suggested in this and the culture thread. Some ideas I like are:
- increasing influence due to fortified military units -- Options for additional influence increase per additional fortified units; a cap on the number of additional units; the cap varying with government etc.
- creating an area of influence separate from a city when a unit is fortified in a colony or fort.
- increasing influence along roads and railways.
- modifying influence across/along geographic features. (without getting into the debate above)
- limiting/modifying influence based on government type.
- limiting/modifying influence based on era/date.
(I am also open to the idea of using a completely different basis than Civ 3 Culture Points as the starting point to calculate a zone of influence.)

City Borders can be shown on map with a thin white line
In Civ3 this is the 21 tile fat-X and the 3x3 tile square. In my idea city borders would expand at certain population levels (e.g. 8 tiles for pop 1-6, 20 tiles for pop 7-18, 36 tiles for 19-34 etc.), be limited by zone of influence and national borders (i.e. a city border cannot extend beyond a national border and cannot extend beyond the influence of the city core) and there would be no maximum number of tiles to a city and no fixed shape.

National Borders - Claimed can be shown on map with a dashed line in your colour
Initially as you settle your first city at 4000BC you claim all land on your continent/island. With each additional settler you make the same claim (I claim this new found land in the name of the glorious and immortal god emperor Flinx the magnificent ). As you meet other civs on the same land-mass(es) you will have to negotiate your overlapping national claims.

National Borders - Fixed can be shown on map with a solid line in your colour
All borders established by negotiation/treaty. This obviously requires a lot of new diplomatic options!!!

[Flinx]

Originally posted by Fosse in {The List} - Diplomacy

I would like to create a new state of land owndership, occupation.

If France and England go to war, and England captures Leeds, then Leeds and all territory that the capture turns over to France, is considered English territory, occupied by France. France exploits all resources, but it is still recognized by the world as English.

If France has an MPP with the Celts, and England takes back Leeds, then the MPP isn't activated because the French are the clear aggresors. If England pushes on and attaks the English on some land that was French at the war's opening, the MPP is activated.

At the end of the war occupied territory can be put on the bargaining table. Whoever keeps it at the peace treaty official gains control. So if England is willing to give up Leeds to sign peace, it becomes a real French city.


This will make MPPs stronger and less unpredictable... so you can sign one and not worry about your pact mate waging a purely aggresive war that activates thier "protection." Perhaps England would be able to offer the occupied land to another country, on the condition that the other country can take it from France. So at the end of the war, the Romans might get Leeds if they enter an alliance with England.

[Kuciwalker]

A center of culture in the middle of a wasteland? How did it get there?

I build a settler, told it to goto a tile in the middle of the desert, and when it got there I hit 'b' and told it to start working on a Temple

[Skanky Burns]

Colonies should have their own physical border. Plonking a city down next to a colony shouldn't just force your colony to pack up and leave.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker

Quote:

A center of culture in the middle of a wasteland? How did it get there?

I build a settler, told it to goto a tile in the middle of the desert, and when it got there I hit 'b' and told it to start working on a Temple

OK, maybe we're not understanding each other. My point was that if I create a city on grassland, even if it borders a desert, the culture from that city should tend to expand along the grasslands more than on the desert.

If you go to the trouble of planting a settler in the desert, then sure, the culture should expand through the desert. But how is that different than the way it is now. I thought you were advocating culture travelling faster across desert in order to "fill in the holes". If you're gonna plant a city in the desert anyways what's the point?

[Kuciwalker]

Ok, so I put it at the edge of the desert. So what? Look at Europe - it has good terrain and a lot more cultural diversity than, say, the Sahara. Expansion over good terrain is easily represented by people actually settling there. Over bad terrain, where there are virtually no "natives" one city will exert more influence, farther.

[CerberusIV]

Really the whole idea of borders determined by culture has to go. One of the Civ3 exploits (humans do it, the AI doesn't) is to found a city right on the border and eventually overwhelm the AI city.

Borders should be based on actual city radius with gaps up to, say, 2 tiles wide joining up. To cover deserts, tundra and to extend borders there should be a way to build forts with a ZOC effect that puts the surrounding tiles into your territory. This should be restricted to building them within a couple of tiles of your existing border.

So you could cover a desert with a chain of forts like the French did in North Africa. No forts or cities should be possible immediately adjacent to a rival's border.

Oh, and other civ's units trampling across your territory really needs too be tightened up. What's the point of having a border if no-one respects it?

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
Ok, so I put it at the edge of the desert. So what? Look at Europe - it has good terrain and a lot more cultural diversity than, say, the Sahara. Expansion over good terrain is easily represented by people actually settling there. Over bad terrain, where there are virtually no "natives" one city will exert more influence, farther.

Yes, but the cultural diversity in Europe has nothing to do with the way borders work. In civ terms the cultural diversity of Europe is caused by the fact that there are a ton of civs that all "Start" there. You could say that they all start there because the terrain is good, and you'd be right, but civ doesn't model the 20,000 to 4,000 B.C. when each civ's starting settler is travelling from Africa to wherever they start.

If culture travels so easily across uninhabited areas, how is it that so many remote areas remain cultural diverse? Are Mongolians chinese? No. They retain their cultural identity. There are numberous examples of two cultures on either side of a mountain range being totally diverse.

But for me the biggest issue is that allowing culture to "travel faster" across "less habitable terrain" undercuts the best part of the system, which is that it causes borders to be created along geological lines.

Your system would also create a lot more instability. If two civs both have cities bordering a desert and one of the cities has its cultural border grow, since desert is "easy" to grow in, it could gain a bunch of tiles. Then when the other city grows it could gain them back. That's more variability than the system you're replacing.

[Kuciwalker]

But for me the biggest issue is that allowing culture to "travel faster" across "less habitable terrain" undercuts the best part of the system, which is that it causes borders to be created along geological lines.

It has the opposite effect - geographical features like deserts will now affect borders, rather than terrain having virtually no effect at all.

[Flinx]

[PresidentMarcos]

How about being able to just simply CLAIM (annex) land? Drag your cursor...highlight...push the button...and it's yours!

Just the basis. Might grow a bitty bit more complex...

[ScipioX]

My thought was to have a combination of culture and control. Control comes from cities and spreads outward from there. Control come from military units and does not spread.
Culture flows like water, quickly through hospitable terrain that is easy to traverse and slowly through difficult, hostile terrain. Rivers will slow culture when it crosses, but culture will spread faster along rivers.
Control extends from a military unit's square through its ZOC. When it travels through a square, that square becomes controlled. A military unit will leave a trail of controlled squares behind it, but they will evaporate if they are not adjacent to a more permanently controlled square (like a city) or a fort.
A fort will extend control into the adjacent squares by itself. If a unit is garrisoning the fort, control extends outward up to the movement limit of the unit, adjusting for terrain. A fort that is not garrisoned will deteriorate over time.
Units without an attack strength and air units do not control terrain.
Culture and control can spread over water, but only if the technology to cross the water exists. (You don't actually have to have the ships.)
If two or more civs have culture in an area, a civ must exceed the other civ's culture by enough to control the area normally. If it takes 10 points to control a square, and the enemy has 6 points, you have to have 16 points to control it.

[chrispieX]

Not like I'm one to get involved in these kind of discussions normally - but what the hell

It seems to me that the (arguments) here are from people talking at cross purposes over clamied land and cutural identity. That is, a country can claim as much land as it's own as it wants, which I suppose it's the Sahara effect, where as in places like Europe where there is a lot more competition, you can only claim land that you culturely or militarily control.

So the point should be that with your units you can claim all the land you want to (well within limits) that hasn't got people settled on it by other players, however if you just claim it and then leave it, other players can just walk right in and claim it themselves.

So, to keep empty land you need to build colonies or other such things on it, so you have people there to actually state the fact that it is your land.

[Kramsib]

COUNTRY BORDERS, COLONIES AND SIMMILAR.

- General Idea: Colonies surviving among other civilization's city borders.

- Details:

One of my first games in Civ III was on a world map, I was able to rule all over Europe, except Britain and Russia, I have controlled North of Africa too.

As further cities were full of corruption I decided use colonies. I successfully colonize South America and Africa and I used some strategically placed cities as commercial ports in order to unify my trade net.

There is no use to create colonies so far when other civilizations can take them by enlarging their borders over them.

So I think we can simulate Colonialism and Neo-colonialism very easily if we make colonies to have a border (a one tile border) where we can garrison units to protect them.

APPLICATIONS.

As your superior civilization you don't need to conquer natives' cities (as they are so far from your capital the corruption would be extremely huge) you only want their resources.

You can

1) Declare war on them, defeat them and you should be able to put colonies in their territory. They conserve their country but they lose their resources.

2) Buy tiles with resources from these factions where you can build colonies and fill them with units.

On the other hand natives can recover their resorces by declaring war or rebuying the sold tiles. (Perhaps in advanced eras, we should give the UN an important role in such negotiations).

NOTES.

Not only colonies but also Fortresses (military bases), or Airfields. This idea can be used for these items too, in a cold war scenario, USA can buy tiles in Europe to put their bases against the USSR.
(Perhaps we should think about multiproperty bases so allies can use the same fortress or airfield to garrison units of different allied countries).

[chrispieX]

I like that idea, I've always thought that the daftest thing about Civ is that you build your empire in an effectively empty world - which just isn't reality.

The idea of having like minor nations I'm sure was discussed for Civ3 here, but didn't get taken up, so I'm sure it won't this time too but anyway....

Having 'minor nations' brings such colour to the game I think, being able to buy parts of them for your own resource gains, or just plain conquer them (more realistic slave trade can come from that).

IMO, colonies should be something that you need to build to grow it into a city, if you build a colony in already occupied territory (near existing cities I guess) it will grow faster and become a town.

This also would encourage people to sign pacts with the minor nations (lettign you build colonies in the territory, which grow into towns faster), effectively granting your development rights in their lands, as long as you protect them.

Getting back to borders, these type of colonies are really just very small towns, so exert a border in just the same kind of way, only smaller.

[Kramsib]

As far as I am concerned and under the point of view of the game we can talk about 2 kind of Colonies.

- Cities in other continents or territories which involve the intention of a permanent presence (gather resources is an added value).

- Colonies (game concept) with the only purpose of exploiting resources but not maintain unefficient cities or make other kind of investments.

The first option is representative of a colony which depends entirely from the Metropoli as a part of the national territory.

The second option is representative of a Protectorate. And this option involves some diplomatic options to make it fully a Protectorate (control the exterior relations, right of passage, ...).

[MartynC]

I think Colonies next to other Civs would work, & if connected to trade, ie Harbour or Airport, should be just like any other village/town/city you "own". Just look at Hong Kong under the British, or Singapore

[chrispieX]

That's very true, but I don't think of places like Hong Kong as colonies in the Civ sense, they are obviously Civ Cities - that's why I prefer the more natural idea of colonies growing into cities, and otherwise treating a colony like a small city where you can't build improvements etc.

[MartynC]

Maybe I got it wrong, in that case I apologise & withdraw. Colonies should be able to expand, maybe 1 square every direction & become a colony/city cross. It may only work thru, as others have said, it may Food shipments to survive, (Does West Berlin in the 50's & the Soviet blockade count here?)

[LzPrst]

Hmmm. I like to go to history for solutions. As mentioned large expanses of "poor" land has never been settled "properly" by major civs. I'd like to see a clustering of cities where the good terrain is and few or none in a total desert/tundra terrain. How does this become your land? You claim it, and back that claim by force/diplomacy.
for example I'm egypt. most of my cities are along the nile river and the coast. as time goes by I decide that I want to lay claim to the vast deserts nearby. I draw out a line based on my ability to "uphold" my rules in the area (possibly based on military units) or something similar and then its "virtually" mine. The longer the claim the more right you have to it. If another civ shows up, say France, and decides they want the desert you have an "age old" claim and the french would have to pay more for it, if you're willing to sell it at all.
I'm not being 100% clear here, as I have to run soon, but the point I'm trying to make: You claim unsettled lands as far as you can. If anyone challenges that claim you'd have to make some sort of arrangement. Of course this would be impossible unless there was a strong limitation against building cities in difficult terrain.
So your borders are decided by your cities (your home land) and your "claims", sparsely habitated lands that you see yourself as the ruler of.
Thoughts?

[LzPrst]

of course claims that couldnt be settled would be "disputed borders" like kashmir is to pakistan and india. what if cities couldnt be built in desert/tundra squares at all. after all noone can or wants to live there, and there are hardly any cities built on such terrain that has grown to any size. in civ I tend to build on these squares since I get the minimum food/production/trade there and will have less crappy squares in the city radius.
you could build forts and possibly even colonies, but they'd be limited so that they never grew beyond a certain size.