Natural Borders

First of all, I'm assuming most people want borders....

Ok, I know I'm probably going to get a lot of disagreement on this, but I think that borders should be determined by nature. In other words, when the game generates a map, it should make regions that follow a general pattern along rivers, bodies of water, and mountains. Small islands are their own regions.

What does this mean? It means that as a civ expands, its land is not just the limits of exploration that no other civ has explored. Instead, its sort of like with Risk where there are particular areas that can be controlled, but, two civs can occupy the same region and have their own borders within it. It just means that a civ's territory is broken down into groups based on natural borders.

Why have such a system? For several reasons... The first region occupied when the game begins is like the home base sort of. Think of it as any one particular country. When the civ expands to new regions, these are treated as colonies or just adjacent lands. It is the same way that England had Scotland, Wales, and Ireland as adjacent lands, and then all of their colonies.

What this will aid in is in revolutions. Regions farther from the "home base" will be more likely to break off. The farther away a region is, the more likely it is to break away. And the computer will just know that everything in that region becomes separate from the original civilization.

Second, many people were complaining that the AI fails to prepare adequately for war. Under this, as soon as another civ enters their region, the civ automatically begins constructing defensive units in all the cities that region regardless of what they were constructing before that. This also includes times when the opposing civ has borders that extend into that region and they are merely putting units there.

Third, it can be used if the different scale wars is used. Wars will be confined to those regions in small-scale colonial conflicts. Civs will only attack the "home base" in large conflicts.

And finally, when the war is all said and done, it would be nice to have an exchange of territory. The winner can annex all of the territory agreed upon in the peace settlement. Its a lot easier to just ask for all the civ's share in a given territory than to have to select each city or each tile... it would be kind of like the Lousiana Purchase (granted that was not because of war, but its still exchange of land). It should be possible to exchange land in peace as well.

[Dienstag]

Ummm...well, this is an interesting idea. It may even be a good one but it would need some work. If revolutions are based on regions, would it be possible for two or more regions to revolt simultaneously and try to form a single nation? Obviously, what triggers a revolt will have to depend on much more than just distance from "home base."

Also, what is this about different scales of war? What effect would attacking 2 regions have as compared to attacking 1 region, besides that I get more territory?

And lastly, I claim that territory exchange (if implemented correctly) could be done fairly simply without the use of regions.

What I'm trying to say is, "What would regions be able to do that a well-made Civ III without regions could not do just as well?"

[UltraSonix]

quote: ...two civs can occupy the same region and have their own borders within it. It just means that a civ's territory is broken down into groups based on natural borders.

OK, so I'm an idiot, but the idea completely went by me...

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Deathwalker]

We need a system of borders!

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I have walked since the dawn of time and were ever I walk, death is sure to follow

[Blomman]

Having rivers and mountain ridges as borders is a great idea, but having regions is not. Exploring should be so that if you step into a region you should automaticly get the whole region. The will take away the reality of the game and take away the great gameplay of exploring. And attacking a region insted of a city will also never work, what if you have two cities inn a region and you want to attack just one of them, then you can't attack the region. So build on the idea of natural borders but skip the regions.

[Dienstag]

After reading this thread again, I'm not sure that any of us other than Hannibal3 himself understands his idea. If he would take the time to clarify and expand on his first post, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt.

Okay.

I can see I opened up something I probably shouldn't have... I'd just like to defend myself by saying that it made perfect sense last night...

I think I was trying to combine two ideas in mid-description, so I'll try to explain my logic. It was based on an idea, that the computer would generate maps with chunks of land divided along mountains, rivers, forests, deserts, etc. Then, a civilization would claim the land as their own and the borders of their empire to the extremities of that chunk of land. **But this does not mean the whole territory is just exposed.** You have to find those extremities, so break out your Lewises and your Clarks. It was meant to be like in the early days of exploration when Europeans just laid claim to huge tracks of land.

This idea stemmed from a frustration that there was no homeland for the civs. I meant this to be something to separate colony from homeland. By this, the starting chunk of land at the beginning of the game would be the homeland. All extra territories would be like dominions and colonies.

Unfortunately, I then decided that this was illogical because civs should be able to expand beyond such borders. So I decided to change it slightly saying that civs could move into some territory without taking the whole thing making dual occupation possible. By that, you could invade an opponents land from your land inside the region, (or from another place you want). ** I was not trying to say that you have to attack whole regions**. It would also allow players to shape their borders the way they see fit.

By the hybrid idea, the natural borders would cut up the territory into province-like regions. Farther provinces would be more likely to revolt. And to complicate it even more, I remembered that people were complaining about how the AI did not know when to defend itself properly, so I figured I'd throw in a solution to that. It ended up being a real mess.

In conclusion, just forget the hybrid idea... I've decided to restrict my point to whether it should be tracks of land determined by natural boundaries, or just free addition of territory one space at a time?

[Dienstag]

Thanks for the explanation, Hannibal. It crossed my mind that the only experience with borders I have is playing the SMAC demo. I wonder if it wouldn't be wise to see exactly how the Call to Power II border system works (can't wait ) before trying to ponder out all the details of what it would be nice for Civ III to be like. Altogether, though, there's some definate potential here.

You're absolutely right, Dienstag. Maybe it would be best to wait to see how well it works out in CtPII ( i can't wait either ), then we can comment on whether or not it needs revision, but if anybody's got an opinion now, I'd like to hear it anyway.