What's with the borders?

moomin · October 10, 2000, 11:56

OK, so I am playing the great builder. I have maxed out my original continent/island and am now happily settling the sea with fresh new sea bases, crash-building facilities and cranking out sea formers as fast as I can. I build kelp farms/tidal harnesses everywhere. I have peace with everyone, being no. 1 a the powerchart at this time and having the navy to prove it, too.

But never fret - I get a war with my allies soon enough, because the darn AI just feels it must expand in my built-up sea territory with its sea colony pods, forcing me to wipe them out.

Now, the moving borders are irritating enough as they are on land - once your borders merge they should stay put irregardless of how close you bild cities. Border movement should be a war event, after all. But as far as I can tell, on sea the AI doesn't even respect your borders when at peace - it'll happily build cities in the middle of your territory. Is there anyting, short of war, you can do to prevent this?

Misotu · October 10, 2000, 14:28

Borders in the ocean don't work the same way as land borders. As far as I know, your true borders extend only one square out from the colony base at sea. This is how the pirates can do that irritating thing of building all the way along your coast

Deimos · October 10, 2000, 15:02

Other than war, there is no way to get the AI to stop doing this. I've had the AI go trolling through my territory with colony pods (both land and sea) and if I demand a withdrawl, I either get a declaration of vendetta or a "But I do not have any military units in your territory" message.

From what I can tell, for a land base, borders extend out 7 squares in all directions. If that would put your borders into the ocean, then your border stops at the coast, and it does not include any sea squares.

If a land base is built on the coast, your borders extend only one square (maybe two) into the ocean, but they go their full distance overland.

For sea bases, your borders extend 3 squares in all directions, including any land squares that fall in that radius. If the land squares that a sea base "owns" come under contention from another player's land base, then the land squares will be owned by the other player, but the sea squares will be owned by the sea base.

RedFred · October 10, 2000, 19:18

But isn't it in Chinese where the words for crisis and opportunity are the same? All those AI cities encroaching sea cities can soon be your cities.

The obvious example is when you beat everyone to the jungle. Sven will inevitably ring the jungle with sea cities. As he does this, you should be be building a naval and aerial strike force. If you aren't running power an attack will inevitably come. You should be able to nab 6 to 12 bases in short order.

I actually like the borders idea. I didn't realize how much until I went back and tried a game of Civ2. Besides, if the AI is good at exploiting those borders there is nothing to stop you from doing the same.

moomin · October 11, 2000, 11:31

Thanks for the border rules info, guys. It matches most of what I've seen.
However, RedFred, your proposed solution does not appeal to me - here's why.
I don't think foreign piddlin' pop-2 bases are an opportunity; I don't need
em' and I don't want them. I like to build up my cities in a serious maner,
my late game sea cities often being at pop-80+, and I hate have to many
cities because all the micromangement. I seldom have more than 20-25 cities
all told. If I could just burn a captured enemy base that would be fine and
dandy, but since that somehow generates pollution I can't - I really cannot
afford words and fungus among my nice kelp farms/tidal harnesses. So when I
take a base I always have it rush build as many colony pods as neccessary
to abandon it. That's pretty expensive, if you have to do it again and again.

Worse still is that I like to win by Transcedence and would like to keep a
noble rep and fight as few wars as I can. I think SMAC/X warfare is stupid
and boring, so I don't usually fight unless I just have to. I mostly play
the University, by the way. Now many factions just have to go; at some point
I wipe out the pirates, the hive, the aliens and the fanatics. But other
factions will be my allies (Morgan, the greens, UN, cyborg girl, the
hackers). I would really like to avoid war with them, but I can't. As far as
I can see, there _are_ no borders at sea - I've had allies put down their
damn bases smack in the middle of four of my own cities more than once. And
then it's war time, wrecked reputation and buying out sea colonies at the
captured base time again. I just hate it.

This bothers me a lot. I really like the early game, what with all the
building, the race for SPs and the expansion, but late game seems destined
to become all out war with everyone if you play builder. I hate that. It's
probably enough to make me stop playing the game.

BTW, does anybody know if there is something in the config files that I
could change to make burning down cities a non-pollution-generating event?
The game would be a little more playable to me then - still to much war, but
at least no to much effort keeping your borders clean.

Deimos · October 11, 2000, 13:13

If you don't want to go to war over the base issue, try using probe team/foil to:

1. buy out the base w/total thought control if it has just been built. The AI won't know who did it, and it shouldn't be too expensive with a pop of 1 and little to no defensive troops. Then you only have to rush build one pod to be rid of it.

2. Induce a genetic plague to cut the population down and blame it on another faction, then utilize the prior option.

Both of these will be easier if you have the Alogrithmic Enhancement on your probe team, and you can avoid the problems involved in torching a base.

Also, I don't recall seeing an option in the text files relating to eco/polution for destroying a base, just for it being an atrocity.

Ogie Oglethorpe · October 11, 2000, 13:22

You may also want to try running green capturing a few IoD's and moving them next to the base (works with size 1 base obviously). Release to the wild and let planet wipe the sea base out. Granted it seems a shame to have to waste a perfectly expensive IoD but if the base bothers you that much and you don't want to end your pact and/or enter into war it may be worth it.

RedFred · October 11, 2000, 16:44

Moomin, your complaint against the overall aggressiveness of the AI is justified and I'd agree that it would be nice if it was easier to play a peaceful game if that is your style.

As far as the noble rep goes, I have no worries staying noble and fighting wars, even wars of aggression. You just have to go about it the right way.

I've not experienced your problem of the friendly AI violating sea borders when building a new city. I have (only one occasion) experienced a friendly AI faction building a city within within my land border. That was a shock. It was a submissive pactmate. I'd recently built an encroaching city on my side of the land border so it is possible that he didn't realise the land wasn't still his. Some kind of updating info bug. I asked him give his new city to me and he agreed.

Other possible approaches to your problem:

Ring your own land with sea colonies first.

Stick a naval unit right beside their sea colony pod. This seems to inhibit, but not eliminate, the tendancy to build a city. Often, even if they are a friendly faction, they will wait to see if the ship goes away.

Just ignore the offending cities. If they move in on some areas that have a lot of tidal harnesses, crawler the energy back. Remember that you can crawler anything within the other factions' borders just as long as they are not actively using that particular tile. If you act quickly with enough sea crawlers the offending city will only be able to nab two of your improved sea tiles. The one they are sitting on and one other.

Alinestra Covelia · October 11, 2000, 18:07

Just a short note to affirm that in Chinese, one of the terms for "crisis" is the same as the term for "opportunity".

Misotu · October 11, 2000, 18:47

And so, Moominparatrooper, this is *not* the Chinese term you would choose to use. You would choose one of the other words - probably the one that means both "crisis" and "irritating bloody nuisance".

moomin · October 12, 2000, 10:10

So it seems there are no good solutions, right? Mind controling a size-1 base _will_ have you standing with cake on your face, sooner or later, because you'll be doing it a lot. Also, in my experience the hackers are among the worst offenders, and they are not so easily intimidated by probe teams. IoD's might work, but that's so expensive... Crawlers are right out, I always harvest food and enery both from all ocean squares (and I build my sea colonies so that they can harvest all twentyfive squares, whereas I ICS on land).

This is right up there in nuisance value with being unable to attack an enemy base because some allied faction has troops there. Really, the diplomacy model of SMAC/X is so lacking is unbelievable. The games is totally geared toward war.

Still, I looked up that "non-atrocity" setting for burning bases, and guess what, it seems it eliminates pollution too! So now it seems I can buy some, kill some and worm some. Better than nuthin', fer sure.

Misotu · October 12, 2000, 20:35

Oh, I don't know. Speaking as a builder, I find on the whole that the game favours those who tech

No, you're right, there's no good solution. When the Pirates get to be a real nuisance, I either ignore them or face the fact that the only way to sort it is to wipe them out...

RedFred · October 13, 2000, 01:57

As always, opinions about what constitutes an ICS vary.

Moominparatrooper, you say that you seldom build more than 20-25 cities all told, but on land you ICS like crazy. Please explain. Do you play small worlds?

moomin · October 13, 2000, 09:25

RedFred, by ICS I mean "building cities two squares apart, that is every three squares. I play mostly play large/huge maps, but always have max water on to ensure there be an early war - starting all alone is just too easy. If you get to beeline for Ind.Aut and build all early miracles in peace then I think the games is already over. An early war leaves a builder with some interesting catching up to do, and the water between you and everybody else makes that catching up possible.

So I seldom have more than 20-25 cities. I have transcended with all SPs built with as few as ten (on transcend level) but that was way to much war for my taste. 20-25 gives a nice, slow, mostly peaceful builder game. If only the friendly morons would respect my borders, that is.

RedFred · October 13, 2000, 10:29

I get it. So on land you go with fairly tight spacing, but not for relentless expansion.

Good luck with the "friendly" AI sea cities.