Military Occupation

[Über KruX]

first off, lets remind / refresh you people. i am a huge warmonger. fear me. ANYWAY, i'm not fond of but i accept the "culture" system. i love the whole border thing, keeps the AI out of my land. thubs up firaxis.

but i believe that if you are at war with someone (or plan to be) you should be able to station military units on their side of a border, and claim it as your own. say you have to be fortified for 10 turns or something before you get it. there should be SOME military way to enforce border disputes. i dont see how a library can do that better than 20 panzers.

another idea is to give fortifications borders, or to make them expand/reinforce existing ones. in all seriousness, i almost NEVER use fortresses in civ3, unless they happen to be in AI territory. if they had borders, or the power to fight AI border expansion, i'd have TONS of them.

thanks.

[FrantzX]

The first sign of the Apocalyse: UberKruX being constructive.
The second sign of the Apocalyse: This is a good idea.

[whosurdaddy]

I second that motion, a terrific idea. As usual, the only thing that I would be worried about is making sure the AI would be programmed to take advantage of such developments as well.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Über KruX
but i believe that if you are at war with someone (or plan to be) you should be able to station military units on their side of a border, and claim it as your own. say you have to be fortified for 10 turns or something before you get it. there should be SOME military way to enforce border disputes. i dont see how a library can do that better than 20 panzers.

I'm afraid I have to disagree; it's a long-recognized facet of warfare that no territory legally changes hands without a peace treaty or armistice. You may be able to occupy the land, but it isn't "yours" until the owning power cedes it to you.

Now, having said that, it would be interesting to see the game allow you to demand occupied territory, either during peace negotiations or as a threat backed up by a declaration of war.

As far as the library vice Panzer issue, it's admittedly rather abstract, but the gist of the idea is that as your culture becomes more enlightened and, for lack of a better term, interesting, people in the surrounding areas decide to become a part of it. In this manner, village by village, your sphere of influence grows until eventually entire cities decide to defect from one king to another.

Perhaps the game might have also considered using the military to do the same thing. Barracks would give you so many "Empire" points per turn, as would each military unit in your inventory. Furthermore, military wonders would give you even more points per turn. As you accumulated these points, your "Empire" borders would grow, village by village, as local neighbors feared being eradicated by you and instead willingly submitted to your rule. Eventually, even cities would submit to the growing pressure of your empire rather than be bombarded, assaulted and razed.

Just some thoughts....

[Solver]

I agree with Barchan more. Either declare war on him, or get off his land!

I'm a builder though...

[Über KruX]

well, if you sit in his teritory long enough you WILL goto war. but just say they have a saltpeter and you dont. if it's on your border, you should be able to fortify a stack of men or build a fortress there, and TAKE it without having to kamakazie horsemen /knights into musketmen.


my main point is that civ3 leans towards the peaceful players and have made the game impossible war even 60% warmongers to win. you have to build up a huge infastructure when you invade enemy isles, or your borders are tiny and you cant get immediate use of captured resources.

[Arrian]

Hah! CivIII tends toward peaceful players? You've gotta be kidding. Sure, there are a number of things in the game to balance it out, but the warmonger still rules. I usually play "builder" but the first real warmonger game I tried, as Japan, was more powerful than my best builder style game. The key is attacking early, before the AI has any culture to speak of (I didn't have a single city revert because I did my fighting in the ancient era). Then, having doubled or tripled in size, hopefully getting a few great leaders, you settle down and build for a while... and watch the AI's disappear in the rearview mirror.

Fighting is the only way you get leaders. Leaders are the best way to 1) increase your productivity dramatically (forbidden), and 2) guarantee you get Great Wonders you want. Producing a leader is also the only way to increase leader production (army -> heroic epic).

Playing as a religious civ, btw, really helps make sure your culture is better than the AI's, not to mention the other benifits. Hence, my favorites: Egypt, Babylon, Japan.

-Arrian

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Über KruX
first off, lets remind / refresh you people. i am a huge warmonger. fear me. ANYWAY, i'm not fond of but i accept the "culture" system. i love the whole border thing, keeps the AI out of my land. thubs up firaxis.

but i believe that if you are at war with someone (or plan to be) you should be able to station military units on their side of a border, and claim it as your own. say you have to be fortified for 10 turns or something before you get it. there should be SOME military way to enforce border disputes. i dont see how a library can do that better than 20 panzers.

another idea is to give fortifications borders, or to make them expand/reinforce existing ones. in all seriousness, i almost NEVER use fortresses in civ3, unless they happen to be in AI territory. if they had borders, or the power to fight AI border expansion, i'd have TONS of them.

thanks.

Yes, fortresses are useless especially without an effective ZOC even if you go into the Editor and increase their strength and make it easier for workers to build them. But they can sometimes help fool the AI, but the AI is so dumb that doesn't take too much effort.

Your point about 20 panzers instead of a library is absolute right on. The CULTURE flipping stuff is NONSENSE. Borders do in fact get determined in the real world and in history far more by military force than whether some civ's Wonder is sending out "culture points".

Culture borders is one of the dumbest ideas Sid (if he was involved in this game) and Firaxis ever had. But all of Civ III is really a beta test version with us as the playtesters who paid $45 for the "privelege".

[Inverse Icarus]

i like the idea of negotiating borders or whatever, but that would be needlessly complex, actually specifying squares you want, and the AI probably wouldn't go for it (as of now, they hardly ever sell cities).

[Sabre2th]

I agree that there should definitely be some way to control land with just your military. It is somewhat ridiculous to not be able to control land like that.....look at the real world

[GeneralTacticus]

I think there should an 'annex' button for military units (maybe all ground units, maybe just attack units), that makes a square into you territory but has to be either in another civ's territory or adjacent to yours. It might have to take some time/gold/whatever, and doing it in another civ's territory could be considered an act of war (they can declare war if they like, but they don't have to).

[Inverse Icarus]

seriously, if there is, say, saltpeter on an enemy border, and you stack units on it (or even build a fortress), why shouldnt you be able to comandeer tthat resource? that would truly enforce civ3s claim to be a "Defense of territory, not just cities"

[Barchan]

Originally posted by UberKruX
seriously, if there is, say, saltpeter on an enemy border, and you stack units on it (or even build a fortress), why shouldnt you be able to comandeer tthat resource? that would truly enforce civ3s claim to be a "Defense of territory, not just cities"

I think this problem merges with the "useless colony" problem (yeah, remember, the game has colonies. When was the last time you built one of those suckers?) If you could plunk a colony down, and the colony had a border of 0 (meaning it was exempt from the "border swallowing" that makes them virtually useless now), you'd actually be able to defend it with units. I'd also make the colony immune to culture assimilation as long as it was garrisoned. Thus, you could, quite legally since you own the square the colony is on, garrison and defend a strategic resource or luxury long since subsumed by enemy expansion.

As an additional twist, colonies should be allowed to be built within enemy territory. Doing so would, quite naturally, require a declaration of war. But if you were at war and had a critical resource adjacent to your border (or adjacent to neutral territory) you could occupy the resource and ship it out to your cities to use.

Now there's a strategic element Firaxis could add to the game that is neither overly complex nor (AFAIK) too tough to write into the program.

[Ethelred]

Seems to me that Krux wants to eat his neighbors cake AND have his land too. Without actually earning it.

Declare war. Take the land. THAT is how land changes hands with all those tanks. Plopping them down in your neighbors territory is an act of war. So quit being a wimp and start the bloodletting or wait till your innocent victim tries to liberate its people from your evil prescence.

As for culture just ask the Canadians. We Americans are bombarding them with our hideous TV shows to force them to become Americans. So far the Candian culture has survived the viscious and horrifying onslaught. Probably its the beer. Canadians actually want some alchohol in their beer.

However their will is crumbling. They even have a profesional Base Ball team a sure sign their will is being drained. Nothing else could explain such a thing.

SOON THEY WILL CULTURE FLIP.

Sid will be vindicated.

Many members of Apolyton will blame it on Canada's inadaquate beta test of their parlimentary form of government. They will demand a reality editor that allows them change the starting postion of Quebec.

Ethelred will get more sleep so he won't be so silly.

[Inverse Icarus]

i just really hate the idea of the indians popping a city down in the tundra near my empire, and start taking MY land from me because i'm pumping out horsemen rather than libraries. sure i always end up killing them anyway, but i'm just saying that there should be a militaristic way to expand

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by Coracle
...
Culture borders is one of the dumbest ideas Sid (if he was involved in this game) and Firaxis ever had. But all of Civ III is really a beta test version with us as the playtesters who paid $45 for the "privelege".

I totally disagree. As a matter of fact the culture aspect is one of the (scarce?) innovations from civ2 to civ3. It opens new roads to victory (though culture flipping isn't powerful enough yet IMO, only applicable toward fairly 'isolated' and slow developped cities).

About the beta: quite right, but at least they seem committed to edit the game by some of the ideas many have posted on various threads.

That proves they're not the a**** that some reckon they are.

Civ3 isn't lost yet, not at all, that is if they keep improving and balancing the game. Preferrably, as other great games will be launched soon, ASAP, ASAP... Civ3 still could be great.

AJ

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Originally posted by UberKruX
... but i'm just saying that there should be a militaristic way to expand

IMO succesful militaristic campaigns are greatly rewarded in Civ3: free techs, workers, leaders, promotions, territorial expansion, ...

However, a few changes would be necessary:

a player shouldn't have to cope with the extreme unhappiness of conquered civilians, caused by the actions of the former ruler (drafting, whipping) !!!

Unhappiness caused by conquest and warring with mother AI civ is realistic, unhappiness caused by 'evil' actions of former AI civ not. As a matter of fact, a part of the newly acquired civilians should be HAPPY, because the new ruler (the player) might threat them more civilized and respectful ...

AJ

[Ethelred]

i just really hate the idea of the indians popping a city down in the tundra near my empire, and start taking MY land

Its not your land anymore at that point. Its theirs. They didn't take it from you. The rules did. The same rules that stopped them from plopping that city down directly adjacent to your city. They won't get much of your territory either unless you respond by simply pretending they aren't there. Build some culture and take it back.

sure i always end up killing them anyway, but i'm just saying that there should be a militaristic way to expand

You need to work on your sarcasm. Sarcasm doesn't work when it sounds exactly like what you say when you are serious. That tends to make your previous post look poorly thought out. Perhaps if you said that there should be a way to expand via culture at that point with the smilely it would have that touch of needed vitriol. Your sulphurous avatar just won't ad that on its own. Vitriol need a bit of oxygen and water to go with the sulpher. That is you need to mix in something besides the same thing as you started with.

[lawren8]

I don't think there's a problem here, the game will let
you do excatly what you want.

There is a unit that allows you to take territory. I'ts called a settler. Make a settler, plop it down over the land you want,
create a city, and stock it with troops so it doesn't flip.
I do it all the time. Of course you'll have to declare war if you
want to do it inside another Civs border but then what would you expect.