The instant return of troops paradox

[Bereta_Eder]

One of the things that worked fine in Civ 2 but was totaly unrealistic was the option to instantly have your troops return to the closest city if another civ demanded you to and you accepted.

I don't think this created any problems in the balance of the game. Actually it was pretty exploitable too in a lot of circumstances.

But I can't help feeling that this sudden and immideate return of troops is completely absurd.

Do you think it should be changed in civ 3?

[Kevin Ar18]

How about the comp automatically sets a route back to your territory if you agree to withdraw troops.

As turns go by you will not have control over those units till they return to your territory.

I tell you what, you'd be a whole lot more careful about doing that.


Of course you should be able to cancel their path back, thus threating to break your treaty.

[tniem]

Welcome back paiktas, glad the lag didn't keep you from posting on the civ forums here.

I concur on this issue. Unrealistic. With new diplomacy options and the proposal from Kevin, it can easily be solved.

[Dauphin]

Its no more ridiculous than the airlift order which could transport a unit half-way round the globe in one turn. Are they getting rid of that too?

If you have an automatic path, the units shouldn't be sent all the way home, just out of the other civs territory.

[Inverse Icarus]

persoanlly, i think the airlift thing was a good thing.

it could only be once from a city each turn, so you needed like 5 on your mainland, and 5 on the island.

and fighters in the way could shoot them down.

[Bereta_Eder]

At least the airlift has some sort of justification =airplanes (doh!)

[Bereta_Eder]

I too like Kevin's idea. I think that was what was intented to be done by the creators but they didn't manage or didn't have the time to implement it.

There are some points where it could be difficult tho. An island where all squares are city squares of another civ... If transport ships come intoplay I think it can be difficult, but again this is the only realistic way.

[Inverse Icarus]

bah, why would you backoff enemy territory, or pece tratied terrirory for that matter?

diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" until you can find a big enough rock.

[Kevin Ar18]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Its no more ridiculous than the airlift order which could transport a unit half-way round the globe in one turn. Are they getting rid of that too?

If you have an automatic path, the units shouldn't be sent all the way home, just out of the other civs territory.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Units should be sent to the nearest place outside enemy territory.

There are some points where it could be difficult tho. An island where all squares are city squares of another civ...

That's a good point. I had not thought of that. I don't have any good solution for this, but for one if you KNOW that that island it completely controlled by someone else then the comp should get even madder for dropping a unit on their island for no reason. This would make the comp very suspicious of you (wouldn't it make you suspicious?)

The only way that I can see to take care of it is that you must pick a transport and it automatically picks up the unit, then returns control to you.
But what if you have no more ships? I'm not sure... Maybe the comp should be allowed to capture the unit and you have to negotiate to get it back?
It seems this idea does have some flaws.

[colossus]

I think the solution would be simpler if we scrap the idea altogether.

How about this:
A civ can make a demand to B civ that all unallied military units leave their territory within 2(maybe 3) turns. After 2 turns, if there are still B civ's armies inside A's territory, A civ automatically declare war without suffering diplomatic/cultural penalty. But how to retreat those units is B's matter. As a last resort, B may be forced to disband them if unable to ship them away.

[Cyclotron]

Colossus has a good idea. A unit should be immediatly put on a "go" command out of the city radius. The unit will find the fastest way out, but if several tiles tie for the closest it will go towards friendly troops or the most easily defensible terrain (Mountains, hills, forests, etc.). After 4 rounds, if this has not been achieved (either by interposing enemy units or no place to go) the offending unit will be disbanded.

[tmarcl]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Colossus has a good idea. A unit should be immediatly put on a "go" command out of the city radius. The unit will find the fastest way out, but if several tiles tie for the closest it will go towards friendly troops or the most easily defensible terrain (Mountains, hills, forests, etc.). After 4 rounds, if this has not been achieved (either by interposing enemy units or no place to go) the offending unit will be disbanded.

I wouldn't want it to be automatically disbanded. Maybe returned to your control, though. After 4 turns, I may change my mind about leaving.

Marc

[Kc7mxo]

So, are the chinese requiring us to disband our airplane before they return it to us? heh.

[Bereta_Eder]

I like the idea.

You are given a time frame in which you must comply. How you do that it's your problem but if you don't comply and the deadline ellapses you have committed an act of war that also must reduce your reputation.

Very good idea

[tniem]

Originally posted by colossus
I think the solution would be simpler if we scrap the idea altogether.

How about this:
A civ can make a demand to B civ that all unallied military units leave their territory within 2(maybe 3) turns. After 2 turns, if there are still B civ's armies inside A's territory, A civ automatically declare war without suffering diplomatic/cultural penalty. But how to retreat those units is B's matter. As a last resort, B may be forced to disband them if unable to ship them away.

That or you could work some type of diplomatic negotiation where you can keep your unit in their territory in exchange for payment or something for an extra number of turns before you can leave the territory. I like the idea colossus.

[Captain]

So far so good!
The window of turns to leave is much better than an instant return

BUT what happens if the AI gives me 5 turns to pull my troops out and instead I use those 5 turns to pour tons of troops in before they declare war? I think they should AUTOMATICALLY declare war on me if I add any units when told to pull out.

Also, is it common to be able to be able to get a unit deep into enemy territory before they tell me to get out? I would think I'd only get 1 tile into their territory before they told me to leave - so we should only have 1 turn to pull out.

The only exception might be a cancelled alliance (then you could have 5-10 turns to pull out), or where you unit goes deep in along a railroad but then has the tracks pillaged behind it (but I think pillaging land should count as an act of war anyways)

Other diplomacy options are always good!

[Bereta_Eder]

Emm, if you start pillaging they propably will get suspicious that something is going awfully wrong

I think it can be easy to program the AI to detect if you are adding troops during the period that you sre supposed to leave the area.

I can't help but belive that there are some serious drawbacks with the plan that Firaxis discovered and they decided to opt for the immideate return.

Still they should surprise us and find a nice solution to the problem

[Kevin Ar18]

BUT what happens if the AI gives me 5 turns to pull my troops out and instead I use those 5 turns to pour tons of troops in before they declare war? I think they should AUTOMATICALLY declare war on me if I add any units when told to pull out.

That's a good idea.
However, I don't think they should declare war automatically every time, but if you, say move a unit in there they should contact you RIGHT away (and give you just one more chance).

But if you move another unit in then its war.
Or if you move the unit to another tile in their territory.
Or if you hit space bar to waste it's turn without starting to move it out.
Even sneakier, the comp would wait till it's his turn and then declare war!

[colossus]

quote:

BUT what happens if the AI gives me 5 turns to pull my troops out and instead I use those 5 turns to pour tons of troops in before they declare war? I think they should AUTOMATICALLY declare war on me if I add any units when told to pull out.

To prevent such stuff, we really need a border between civ to delimit the extent of military activity. Incursion to no-allied civ's border should trigger war immediately. Then the pulling back of troops are restricted to cancellation of alliance.

In civ2, representative governemnts(for human player) often suufer in ceasefire when enemy civ's units coming near the gates of cities without means of declaring war(they refuse peace and we have no option to insist armies leave). Consider how ridicolous it is when we have to maintain the peace when we see enemy's canons are pointing to our city gate.

[Kevin Ar18]

That makes me think colossus...

Somewhere in CivIII diplomacy there should be an option when making treaties to let them know that if they even enter your territory that war will automatically be declared.

This will of course hurt your friendship with whatever civ you make that agreement with (even if you agreed not to come into each others territory), so you might only do it to people you dislike.

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Its no more ridiculous than the airlift order which could transport a unit half-way round the globe in one turn. Are they getting rid of that too?

If you have an automatic path, the units shouldn't be sent all the way home, just out of the other civs territory.

I somewhat agree.

The offending unit should be given the option of retreating out of the other civs territory. This should be accomplished by having a goto order executed having the unit being ordered to move in the direction in which he entered the area to an area just outside the other civs territory. The civ whose territory was offended would allow the unit to take this course and would not consider his actions as a threat or a breach of treaty unless the units goto order was cancelled. The unit would have the option at the beginning of each turn to either continue with the goto order or to belay those orders with new ones that may cause the other civ to declar war or whatever. This would give semblence to the unit actually being escorted out of their territory in accordance to their predescribed movement rate, no matter how many turns it took to obey the goto order.

This would seem like an actual occurance in real life, rather than magically transporting the unit all the way back in only one turn, which is ridiculous

[Kevin Ar18]

The unit would have the option at the beginning of each turn to either continue with the goto order or to belay those orders

Good idea