How borders SHOULD work

Bluevoss · July 31, 2001, 23:47

Man, this game would be SO much better if boarders really meant something. If I have a total alience with someone, 'ja think they might conisder it poor taste to sneak into my land, find a square that is 'technically' in my boarders but not claimed by a city, and settle there?

Happened to me tonight. I had a great relationship with another race - we were exchanging science and all that, and were neighbors. We'd raced settlers for one spot of land and he'd won out - fairs fair. But a little later, I'm going back deep into the empire to place some tile improvements and whatdehell??? There's a new city there, and my border has been pressed back!!

You know, Id managed to boot just about every settler I'd found in my empire, but this one had slithered past. While I was lodging pointless complaints, my spy was realizing that their capital city was only weakly guarded, had a wonder, and was a quick march from one of my cities. Zipped in and took it with no hassle. With the other intruder city now well cut off, it was all too easy to run in and take it.

But that shouldn't have happened. The game should just not allow a city to go into the borders of a nation you have a peace treaty with.

Oh well.

mhaupert · August 2, 2001, 10:57

Heh, funny you should mention that. That is one of my favorite ploys to use against the AI and one of the most irritating that it uses against me. In Alpha Centauri, doing that kind of thing is a bona-fide act of war. It should be the same thing here. Imagine the ruckus if Canada decided that the uninhabited area of Alaska would be a wonderful place to set up shop. It would be nice if the diplomacy request included 'disband city x'.

Gen.Dragolen · August 2, 2001, 15:18

Bluevoss, if the AI didn't send in settlers (or maybe refugees?) however would they manage to build an empire? I know the Ethiopians are really bad for it: in my current game, they are spread out all over the map in just about any small opening in the other AI civ territories.

When they built a city where I was goign to, I looked at these impromptu settlements as future additions to my empire: just had to wait until they are size 2 and then I asked for it. They were unable to refuse me. Or I could have just taken it, too.

As for the diplomatic repercussions of wondering into the heart of another's empire, what would all the refugees in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran look like? Just a bunch of settlers that haven't founded a city yet...

I wish that you could convert units in CTP2 like in other games because snagging those settlers would be nice when you are having to wait for your own settlers to be built.

And yes it would make a big ruccuss if we (being Canadian) decided to add Alaska, and more likely Minnesota and North Dakota to our Dominion of Canada. Hell, they're more like us than the rest of the States below the 49th. They play hockey outdoors and they don't even have one of those quaint American accents when they talk!

Bluevoss · August 2, 2001, 16:10

Well, I guess you're right. I'm playing a normal sized map with 10 races, so things are very tight. If they didn't try to sneak in, there would be nowhere left to build.

I guess I've gotten too dependent on the idea of boarders, and didn't realize that they are simply lines drawn by diplomats and nothing more. Now, I take my older units and place them at choke points along the fronteer. Any time I see a settler sneaking his way in, I give him the boot and out he goes.

Besides, lots of times, I'm just looking for an excuse to clobber my neighbors, and border disputes always work well.

Locutus · August 2, 2001, 17:48

I thought about this along time ago, it could well be possible to prevent settlers from settling in foreign territory through SLIC. Never got around to implementing it though, and I quite frankly don't have the time to do so now. Maybe one of the other SLICers could look into it (it requires a pre-settle handler that stops the event if it occurs when CellOwner(location) is an foreign civ).

Bluevoss · August 2, 2001, 18:01

Now that I think about it, maybe it should be based on your agreement. If you have a peace treaty or an alience, they should not violate your borders with settlers (like Canada and US). Otherwise, there is no formal agreement not to, and anything goes.

Speaking of this - what is the advantage from getting a trade agreement with another country. Assuming I ever get one?

Immortal Wombat · August 2, 2001, 18:43

Internal settling commands happen quite unpreventably in SLIC. I tried to add the feature from Civ2 whereby if you "settle" in an existing city, the city grows one size.

I should think that settling would happen before SLIC tried to prevent it.

This might, might, might work. But I doubt it.

Code:

HandleEvent(SettleOrder) 'PreventSettlerInvasions' pre {
            location_t    tmpLoc;
            tmpLoc = army[0].location
            if(CellOwner(tmpLoc) > 0 && CellOwner(tmpLoc) != army[0].owner){
                    return STOP;
             }
}

Worth a try I guess...

mhaupert · August 2, 2001, 19:16

Quote:

[SIZE=1] And yes it would make a big ruccuss if we (being Canadian) decided to add Alaska, and more likely Minnesota and North Dakota to our Dominion of Canada. Hell, they're more like us than the rest of the States below the 49th. They play hockey outdoors and they don't even have one of those quaint American accents when they talk!

Oh jeeze! Being from Minnesota we would think it would be a hoot to defect to Canada. Then Jesse could run for PM and win too, dont ya know.

-Minnesota: Land of 10,000 lakes and 10,000,000 swamps, you betcha!

janilxx · August 3, 2001, 01:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
This might, might, might work. But I doubt it.

I think that it should be something like this(as someone said before):

Code:

HandleEvent(SettleOrder) 'PreventSettlerInvasions' pre {
            location_t    tmpLoc;
            tmpLoc = army[0].location
            if(CellOwner(tmpLoc) > 0 && CellOwner(tmpLoc) != army[0].owner) && 
            CellOwner does NOT have alliance, peace 
or even "do_not_walk_in_my_territory"(maybe not the last one) with army.owner  {
                    return STOP;
             }
}

And how is AI's settlers target set? I am pretty sure AI's settlers are not only just wandering. They have some kind of target place they aim. Maybe that target should be changed too?

Immortal Wombat · August 3, 2001, 07:14

Yeah, I agree there should be all sorts of changes, but if the above code doesn't work at all, then there would be little point sorting out the details until a way is found of stopping the settlers in the first place.

Gen.Dragolen · August 4, 2001, 12:21

I like that idea: Jesse for Prime Minister. Then the US would really be scared of Canada! Land of 100,000,000 lakes and more swamps than we can count.

As for changing the settler's behaviour, I'd still like to be able to subvert the units with spies or secret agents (Clergy maybe?).

If we could create that unit behavior, let them send all the settlers they want.