National borders - away from cities.

[THE PITTS]

How about the ability to establish (and try to protect) internationally recognized territorial borders. In real history, this came about with the creation of nation-states in the middle ages, and is now the norm worldwide.
One little pet-peeve from CivII: EVERY technology should have some kind of immediate benefit, not just the ability to go on to other ones. example: gaining Physics increases efficiency, so should decrease waste.

[Pythagoras]

I diagree-
Ok the point of doing that would be to gather resources from that area which would imply you either building a city there or sending 'supply crawlers.' Building a city already gies you the area, supply crawlers will take resources from there, which may require military backing.

If you just want a buffer zone between someone else, just build a line of forts or something to establish your frontier, send in the troops, otherwise if your not getting any resources from it, and you dont have any troops there, whats the point?

[Napoleon I]

Pythagoras: Actually, PITTS has a point. You might want to stake out territory that you want to colonize later on, when you have sufficient resources. Think about Spain, England and France in the New World. They fought over something that was mostly empty land.

PITTS: How would you go about making claims to the borders? Would you have to have a unit there? Can you just click on any area on the map and say that that is your territory? If you need a unit and that unit leaves, does your territory belongs to you forever?

The idea itself though is very good, if you can find a good way to implement it.

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Napoleon I

[Dienstag]

I like you ideas, THE PITTS. Territory should be more than just a relatively indisputable city radius. The whole colonization era was based on claims and the attempt to defend those claims.

In Civ II, any given square either belonged to somebody or nobody, and the only way to do anything about it was to build a city or invade someone else's city. There was no way to peacefully dispute or transfer territory, and there should be. I know SMAC allows you to exchange cities, so that's a start.

One thing that would be would be to choose whether or not you recognize another country's territorial claims. You could say, "No, China, I don't think Taiwan is any of your business." A new border might not be fixed, then, until most nations recognize it. This would also keep nations like Kuwait from being eliminated from the game as long as other countries are actively opposing Iraq.

There might also be the ability for nations to declare a certain place (like Antarctica) international property, so no one in particular can own it. I don't know when this would ever happen; it's just a thought.

And in keeping with my idea of lots of techs, I could see having techs like Physics give a incremental bonus of some sort. Of course, I wouldn't mind seeing techs like Optics, Acoustics, Thermal Dynamics, Relativity, Quantum Dynamics, Astrophysics, Geophysics, Kinetics, Electrostatics, Electrodynamics, Solid State Physics, etc..., etc.... (I'm a physics major, can you tell?)

For all I care, there could 314 physics-related techs .

Dienstag

[NoviceCEO]

quote: Originally posted by Napoleon I on 03-02-2000 04:57 PM Think about Spain, England and France in the New World. They fought over something that was mostly empty land.

It impresses me how mucc Apolyton'ers ignore Portugal. The people who actually fought for the New World were Spain and Portugal. They came to an agreement in the Treaty of Tordesilhas. That treaty created a meridian (The Tordesilhas' Meridian) that dividided the America (that received this name later) into 2: the Eastern part for Portugal (where they started colonizating Brazil, who also received that name later) and the Western for Spain.

About the idea of being able to agree in order to create borders, it may be a good feature, even though I think it would be more fun to fight for them.

[Father Beast]

I like the idea of setting borders between civs, and this is one of the things discussed in THE LIST area. But naturally, borders don't mean anything until you actually meet another civ, and then you would have to hammer out the details with your opponent. as more and more civs come in contact with you, this would get more complicated. When you just start out, you think the whole world is there for you to own. Ideally, I imagine civs dividing up land that is actually occupied by another civ they haven't met, like Spain and Portugal, like noviceCEO said, or the infamous papal line of demarcation.
s for techs, I don't know... I would like a benefit, but I think it's pretty balanced as is. I usually find myself trying to decide to go for the short term benefit of an immediate use tech, or one that opens lots of doors for future bennies.

[Youngsun]

Basically I support the idea of having borders. Borders in SMAC were pretty good but I wanna see more advanced features about them.

Ola Novice!

Portugal's impact on other civs were great! Especially ,in Asia(15~17th century)Portugese merchants were active in trade with Japan. They introduced muskets to the Japanese and the Japanese were enthusiastic about this new weapon. The introdcution of the musket to Japan changed whole course of East Asian history.

At that time Japan was divided by many warring lords. Wars were fought endlessly and there was no signs of quick unification. Lord Oda, who was an expansionist, knew the importance of the musket and bought them at large quantity. He introduced new technique of 3 lines of musketeer which reduced the vulnerablity the unit due to reduced firing interval. Eventually lord Oda's musketeers defeated Lord Takeda's mounted force which had been regarded the stongest of all in Japan.

Later unified Japan launched an invasion to Korea and also this time Japanese musketeers came as a terror to the Korean army. Ming China finally intervened and won the siege of Pyongyang. But later also smashed by the Japanese at Byouck-Je. Finally the Japanese lost the war due to severe naval loss done by Korean fleet and persistant local resistance.

The winner of this war was the Manchu!. While Ming china was spending its vigour to fight the Japanese, Manchus' economic and military success were not checked. Finally whole of China came under the rule of the Manchu.

The biggest winner of course was Japan. Japan had its own version of the Crusade. While many warrior lords were absent at home, the merchant class finally got the upper hand and many serfs left their farms to start new life in cities. Returned warlords came with new perspectives of the World and the contact with other civilisations made Japan culturally rich. (The beginnig of Japanese version of renaissance)

China and Korea were clearly the losers. Especially Korea whose lands were devastated by the war never recovered from the wounds. China had to face humiliating consequences by accepting Manchu rule-Manchus were regareded as insolent barbarians to Han Chinese!

If there were no Portugese merchants around Japan at that time What would have happened?
Well I don't know

[NoviceCEO]

Youngsun, I deeply appreciate your comments.

Unfortuantely, due to a failure in the school program of all the countries I've heard, we generally tend to know too little about other countries' history as we should. I didn't know of the Portuguese influence over Asia and I thank you a lot for the history class.

I had heard of Portuguese merchants traveling to Japan (on a Teenage Mutan Ninja Turtles movie!!) and there was, of course Macau, which has recently been returned to China.

Again, thank's for the history class.
novice

[MidKnight Lament]

Anyone read Shogun? It's long, but good. I didn't know they had anything much to do with Japan until I read it.

[Youngsun]

Novice

No need to appreciate I just had to do it.

By the way, Did you know Japanese food "Tenpura" also introduced by Portugese sailors? (In Portugese->Tempora)And I simply love this Japanese food. hmmm yum.

Midknight Lament

Yea! "Shogun" is great to read I strongly recommend to other people to read it.(Really worth to read since it gives lots of detail about feudal Japanese history.)

I think, maybe you have heard of this but I´ll say it anyway

I think every, okey maybe not every, unit should be able to claim land. Claimed land becomes apart of your civ.
But to keep the claim you need a constant military precence, this precence doubles/triples or whatever with fortresses.

So a legion moves into an unclaimed square, claims it, it takes maybe 2 turns, and moves on leaving the square without military precence(unfortified), after maybe 5 turns the square the square becomes unclaimed.
Now if the you fortify the legion it will keep the claim on say, the actual square and the surrounding square. A legion fortified in a fortress will keep the claim in double that.

That is the basic idea, now I´m quite sure there where problems with this, but I cant for the life of me remember what. One issue I do remember was the whole idea of expanding by fortresses. Its not a big problem with me since I want fortresses to have a bigger role in the game, but it would ofcourse be nessecary to make them more expansive to build and they should require upkeep.

Anyway this would be one way of expanding and the actual borders would be between the claimed land and unclaimed/enemy land.

[MidKnight Lament]

Youngsun - I was actually studying Japanese at the time (even if I was crap at it), so I was loving the detail. It can be rare to find a book which makes learning history an interesting novel. (Although I'm sure all you historical gurus will swamp me with them now). You could tell the author had done lots of research. Who was the author, btw?

Gotta love that Japanese honour system....

[NoviceCEO]

Youngsun, the word "tempora" sounds familiar to me, but I don't know much of Japanese food. (I prefer something more like bees, rice and beaf!! hummmm )

[Youngsun]

Midknight Lament

Author? I don't remember now who was the author of that book. It's been almost 6 years since I read that book. At that time, I was able to tell most of lords and generals' names but now I can tell only key figures.(some without given names) For example, that defeated Takeda's mounted force was not led by Takeda Shingen.(legendary tactician) It was his son and I am not sure about his name(maybe Takeda Katsuyori?)
But I will ask my Japanese friend about the author and as soon as I get the answer I will post it. OK?

Novice

Actually it was that Japanese friend who recommended the book(Shogun)and I became aware of the significant role of Portugese merchants.

Japanese appreciation to Portugal is well represented even in pc games such as "Uncharted water" series(Koei made) In Uncharted water I, the main character(Leon) was portugese. In Uncharted waterIII, Whole demos(beginning and ending)are written in Portugese!<-I was really surprised "gash! this game is Japanese made and has whole demos written in Portugese!? not even English!?" Nobunaga's AmbitionV(Koei made)'s ending demo also had a picture that shows Portugese merchants interaction with the Japanese!

[MidKnight Lament]

Thanks for that Youngsun. I might have to read it again. Hopefully someone else might take it up too.

[LordGrey]

Neat that you guys brought up James Clavell's Shogun in this here topic. I have been reading the book for about the last month and am now about 30 pages from the end. The book has given me a new found fascination for feudal Japanese culture and society. As for other names that are changed as the characters are fictionalized, here are some I am pretty sure of, my spelling may well be wrong. Goroda from the book is Oda Nobunaga, the Taiko is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Toranaga is none other than Tokagawa Ieyasu. and Toranaga's capital of Yedo is clearly Tokyo (Edo).

[LordGrey]

Oh, yeah, this thread is originally about borders... as for borders, I do think that claimed borders should be a part of Civ3. It does seem pretty clear that they will be a part, and any logical use of borders at all would almost definitely be an improvement over Civ2.

[MidKnight Lament]

Good work, Lord Grey. We've got some cluey people here on Apolyton. I'm no history student, but I found Japanese history in that book a good read.

Sorry, we'll go back to borders now

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- MKL

[Youngsun]

Oh Lord !

Thanks for informing that! It's good to hear there are more people who actually read that book.

Midknight Lament

I'm sorry about being unable to tell who was the author but my "Shogun" was not written by James Clavell and it was Japanese author so there is no fictionalisation of characters. I also read other books which describes only Toyotomi Hideyoshi,Tokugawa Ieyasu,Takeda Shingen,Uesugi Genshin and Mori Motonari so my description about Japanese feudal history can come from many sources which can be multi-directional approach. Sorry anyway

[MidKnight Lament]

Haha. Yeah, the one I read was James Clavell. I'm sure you're cluey anyway, Youngsun

And we managed to keep talking about two separate things without anyone knowing we obviously had no idea what each other was referring to.

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- MKL

Borders is an interesting concept.. I didn't like the way SMAC did it though...

Borders don't change each time u build a city.. There should be a degree of permanence.. One way of agreeing on borders is through diplomacy.. The could be a mini map under the 'Negotiate Borders' option, and u could submit proposals to the other guy.. Of course, naming of landmarks would prove VERY helpful here...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@mailops.com
Web: http://www.crosswinds.net/india/~shiva
ICQ: 17719980

[Slingshot]

How about simply being able to drag your border over explored territory? If the border is exceedingly far from a city, then there should be a good chance that enemy units can cross over without detection. Nonetheless, it allows a player to expand as he or she sees fit - provided they have the ability to monitor those borders.

And what about being able to put down markers? There have been times I wanted to place a future city, and it would have been great to mark the tile.

[Deathwalker]

Personally I think that the whole idea of borders is great. SMAC touched on this with the automatic borders and I also liked the idea in the very first civ when at the end it showed your countries territories. So this would make a great part of Civ3. I also think the idea of having military units claim land is also good, you could have a way to mark the land and also when two countries claim it, it is shown as in dispute. I do not think you could have international land simply that any unclaimed land is free to everyone. Also you could have an option that when you make peace you can recognise a persons borders and either settle disputed land or leave it disputed like no mans land that was in Europe. One last point when after peace a country claims land how about the people they are peace with have to option to recognise the claim or ignore it, this way if they want they can claim it later? So in peace you can have recognised claims and unrecognised claims.

[Urban Ranger]

The idea of border is relatively new, and the ability to map out where the border should be is even newer.

In the old days nations tended to just grab land when they feel like it. If somebody was already there then the parties involved settled the differences by violence.

The only way to guard a border is to build forts and stick units in them. Putting sticks in empty places wouldn't work.

There was no such thing as internationally recognised borders for the longest time. Nothing of that sort until the League of Nations came about. Before that, when even a few countries recognised some sort of border, nothing gauranteed other countries would follow suite.
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited March 18, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

Urban Ranger

I don't think the border will be some sort of guarantee for preventing outside invasion.

And I agree with you about that many nations will try to ignore the borders when the situation is right.

The border should be working as a intended line of your civ's territorial ambition to be recognised and when this very intention is somewhat threatened or ignored by some civs for some reasons then you can at least prepare oncoming invasion by mobilising your army.

But there are lots of examples of borders nowadays which have no significant fortresses or military forces on the duty of guarding these lines.

And are you saying that if we want to creat a border, we have to build forts to be recognised all the time? Then how do you explain many borders drawn in Europe today which have no forts?

I'm not saying the border things were around since mankind knew about creating a nation. I'm just asking "Do we have to build forts every time if we want to declare our territorial integrity to be recognised?" or Are forts and garrisons absolute neccesities to create a border?"

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 18, 2000).]

Perhaps forts wouldn´t be necessary to keep a 'claim' after..say nationalism. Or something like that.

[S. Kroeze]

Though its a new phenomenon, in this discussion I completely agree with Urban Ranger. The idea of precise, fixed borders before ~1800AD is very anachronistic. In peace treaties only a list of towns or feudal rights changing sovereignty was made and ratified. The actual situation in the countryside remained a puzzle, with several powers having different rights thwarting one another in the same area.

Often there was a great difference between official claims of sovereignty and actual control of a region. Without support of the local elite control of a region was next to impossible. As a rule the outlying provinces of an empire paid less taxes and didn't contribute much in other ways. On the steppe and in the colonies the political situation was even more fleeting.

[S. Kroeze]

I don't think I'll become popular because of it, but it seems imperative to repost this thread.

The anachronistic idea of borders existing in 2000BC is back again!

[Grier]

I agree with Youngsun, even if borders were not official until the 20th century, they have certainly existed before then. Also due to the scale of the civ map the exact location of a border would not be recognised anyway, only a rough estimation.

The best part about borders is that they are a workable game mechanic that will make the game more interesting to play and create more diplomacy options.

[UltraSonix]

Perhaps the anachronistic problems of borders could be addressed by having the early government/social engineering choices having small or even no borders, but as the game progresses, have borders that have important diplomatic meanings.

Border ideas:
1. A unit inside its own borders could fight better (does SMAC already do that?).

2. If two civs are hotly contesting an areas with cities built close to each other, the borders could be 'loosely defined' ala India and Pakistan over Kashmia.