Border Control

[Toby Rowe]

Marcos,

Come on mate,

Weak nations were attacked by stroppy nations as they were militarily weak- but one thing always was constant- the borders betwixt the two nations- weak military or not.

A border is a border is a border- The developers of Civ 4 must concentrate the programming on this aspect- no one supports any of the previous 3 versions in this aspect, settlers try to get into your nation simply as the AI is basically thick (stupid) about this.

In programming terms, at least X certain squares for AI settlers, or decide on Square cities (workers). If they decide to retain the current city shape and the daft cultural model then asking a nation to remove units must happen immediately, not 4 turns later when it's already to late as they are now closer to the other side of the city, and well on the way to plonking a city inside your empire (they get removed ((finally)) exactly into the free space they wish the build a city in).

Playing on the harder levels, losing a city to cultural influence is very. very frustrating-Rome never took a Greek city by cultural influence, it did it by being an ancient Hitler- and destroyed a noble civilisation in so doing.

however, whilst helping bring tribes into a more enlightened period- like us British, although enslaving us didn't help to make us love them, and once gone from the island, the aquaducts and colusseums went to ruin with wattle-and-daub hutted settlements once again begame the norm. Still, The Pagan Queen of the Icendi tribe of Britain fought them- seriously culturally backward compared to the Romans, but not a cats hell in chance they would all throw up their hands saying "we love Romans, lets all become on, even if we are only made Slaves"......The resistors in Civ 3 is accurate, cultural influence isn't.

Toby

Ps; Trip: Was the Roman area once Greek? I know almost nothing about the ancient world I'll happily admit.

I do know that peoples in Europe didn't suddenly city by city "go Roman"- soldiers made it so, nothing else!

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Toby Rowe
Ps; Trip: Was the Roman area once Greek? I know almost nothing about the ancient world I'll happily admit.

I do know that peoples in Europe didn't suddenly city by city "go Roman"- soldiers made it so, nothing else!

Parts of Italy, along with other areas of the Mediterranean were under Greek rule originally (the Greeks were quite the overseas colonizers).

As far as whether a city can suddenly "go Roman," it depends on how you look at it - control over cities or regions is determined by who the people give their loyalty to. If not enough force exists to keep them under the control of one leader, they will disobey the "correct" authority and instead opt for that which they support.

This is reflected in Civ 3 in that if you do not have enough military units to suppress a city the chance of it flipping increases. With enough military units, you can assure that a city will never flip.

While I agree that this mechanism does need to be tweaked for gameplay reasons (i.e. it's annoying and there are better ways to do it), it does actually have somewhat of a historical precedent.

In any case, I'm sure both the culture and borders system will be expanded upon in CIV.

[Toby Rowe]

Yep Trip,

But that's implying any city between the two nations' captitals have no loyaltly to either as a starting point-patently not true.

I once played on deity level- I'd built 3 cities and then discovered the Russians. Geographically the Russians owned the rest of the land. I started to concentrate on Map making to avoid an expansion war. alas, my middle city was subsumed into the Russ Empire before I began, even though they hadn't even built a single wonder- we were equal.

On the more realistic Regent level, Ive watched as a city I conquered get subsumed by the very civilisation I got it from- about 10 turns later., and once I'd built a temple.
The Chinese whom I was fighting were "In awe" of my culture- not shocking as I'd built every wonder bar two. (by cheating in starting with 20 cities).

What angered me in this event apart from the obvious (above) was that 2 other of my cities lay between the nearest Chinese city to this one (a size 5 outpost, against this size 11 city).

I personally think that cultural influence distracts from the game, and does nothing the enhance it.

If they were to produce a credible model in Civ4, the simple fact that the "cultural value" might exist within it just makes me laugh- under this model all current nations in Europe would be Greek or Roman, only Britain , Norway and Sweden might have avoided the inevitable- by water and physical distance to a nearest city alone.....

Toby

[patcon]

Originally posted by Toby Rowe
asking a nation to remove units must happen immediately, not 4 turns later when it's already to late as they are now closer to the other side of the city, and well on the way to plonking a city inside your empire (they get removed ((finally)) exactly into the free space they wish the build a city in).

Absolutely! It so torques me off when a civ with whom I'd like to remain peaceful decides to waltz a settler toward a tiny unclaimed (because it's a terrible place for a city) area in the middle of my territory and then blows off my requests to leave until either I'm forced to declare war to get rid of the pest or they're so close to their goal that the automatic move out of my territory actually saves them turns in getting where they wanted to go. Yes I know I can assign units as "shepherds" to block their route and make them wander back and forth, and I've even devoted 8 obsolete units (when I had nothng better to do) to completely surround them so I could watch them sit there, but that's a huge waste of units, time, and player attention.

RESPECT MY BORDERS!!!!!
Why not have one-way rights of passage? You want to cross my territory, but I don't want to cross yours? Request "Safe Conduct" across my territory and offer me something of value.

An easy way to deter Safe Conduct or RoP abuses - Any of your units in another civ's territory under Safe Conduct or RoP are instantly redlined (or possibly destroyed) if you declare war on that civ. Presumably they were travelling in a non-combat-ready status and being watched by the home forces as part of the agreement. Their units in your territory would be similarly effected by this logic, but I would prefer that the innocent civ not pay the penalty as a way of avoiding abuses.

I would prefer eliminating R's o P in favor of Safe Conduct, as these one-way agreements are more realistic. The English "allow" the USA to base forces in their country in exchange for various considerations, but the last time I checked there weren't English tanks freely moving about the USA.

I would also like having the ability to build airbases and forts (ground bases) in an ally's territory to serve as forward bases for my forces under a Safe Conduct agreement. If the Safe Conduct agreement ends, the bases get turned over to the host country.

OT - Along a similar vein, I'd like to have one-way protection pacts, as well as mutual protection pacts.

[alva]

Simcity 4 like layers

[Toby Rowe]

Patcon,

What you say makes sense.

Imagine that pesky settler unit being automatically destroyed upon entering your territory as it had no right of passage.

Your idea's for mutual protection pacts and forward basing are excellent, I hope this gets into Civ4- after all, you don't want your best trading partner destroyed, and it is in your interests to protect them, and even spend some cash in so doing.

If Political systems are retained, then the same principal should apply- a natural affinity to nations with the same system- making mutual protection pacts more likely, and a system of shared defence common, just like NATO.


Going off topic, US Forces are on British territory in several parts of the world (Ascension Island, Diego Garcia and the UK of course). They are there as part of NATO and will always be welcomed by the majority of UK subjects, mind you, it still doesn't change the fact that our Challenger II MB tank is miles better than yours.....what's that US petrol-guzzler called again?!

Toby

[Addled Platypus]

Question


How about the tatic have moving a palace to get other cities to flip. Cultural borders are realy invisible, but extend further.

Wouldn't that have a huge impact on borders?


The other thing I hate, which could be fixed with these ideas:

I try to place fortresses with a unit side by side to close off any gap (never happens), they just move diagnolly right throuh.

[Toby Rowe]

I never tried that one- with corruption as is in this model (more than about 20 squares away you get 100% corruption, bar a democracy, and one sheld per turn only- so 200 turns to change Palace).

What would be the point?- all your core cities would then suffer the distortion on the "real world" Infogrammes imagined. I'd love to know what pollution the infogramme office suffers, and how much corruption exists within it. I assume the average pay in the Seattle office was $15,400 pm, but by the time it reaches the Boston office they only get paid $11pm and are hungry, hence the frustration the programmers felt ;-)

Of course I take the piss, but this was how how I viewed the model after spending $54 (£30 buying the game back then infogrammes)


I certainly don't remember many Roman Governor's being executed for not providing the money the senate decided that province would produce, corruption, like Pollution in this version is daft- joining another empire is plain stupid. If it did ever exist- whom does it penalise?- the player of course- hardly likely to make us play the game again is it?

On lower levels, we get the (unwanted) cities, on highest levels, they get ours- but as I observed, the trigger is utterly random, whilst the concept is bonkers.

Toby

[Addled Platypus]

Just a tatic I read by others, I never tried it.

[MartynC]

Why should there be cultural flips? Look at Nagorno-Karabakh, it is totally surrounded by Azerbaijan, yet is still pro-Armenian because of the population being Armenian. No culture flipping there

[Grim Leaper]

i want the ability to hold my borders from an encrouching AI. for example say i have a colony close to an AI border which i want to keep. i could build a fort on it and add some military units and could keep the land from being swallowed up by culture.

Also i like the idea that i could "claim" land for myself, whether it's empty or inside another civ's borders. Of course that civ could let it go, or demand it back, etc. Maybe the action of building a fort would claim the land as my own and even make a border around it. Building the fort could use up a worker. Then i need some military units to make sure my new land stays mine.

[Toby Rowe]

Hi mate,

A sguare-shaped city might help, but it also forces you to place cities in a position you may not want just to close the gap.

Personally, as your cities expand, I like a line drawn that follows the tips of your cities to each other in a link- like a modern national border, how difficult this is to achieve in terms of programming I've no idea- I do know that all 3 versions haven't addressed the problem. bar the last, but the means they employed (culture) pleased almost none of us.

On final thing: Square shaped things work well in human minds- planning is so much easier!!, now, where's my box....

Toby

Ps, I was watching a BBC "Open University" programme last week, and like an unwelcome tap on the shoulder, the Med' history it was covering told me a few cities from the Hittite (sp?) empire "went Greek" on the Western border- typical! However, it only happened once the Hittite empire was collapsing around the Emperors ears.

But.....I just knew examples would exist!!

Anyways, If you have already won the game by a "cultural" victory, to lose a size 10 city to a size 2 city, two cities away is a complete mockery of the concept anyway, which shows how seriously Infogrammes took their own idea on incept!

[Kropotkin]

I don't care how they solve it! As long as there's no more annoying units standing around outside the main gates of my capital, picking their noses or whatever they are up to I'll be happy!

Seriously, when I first heard about the cultural expansion border I thought I would get rid of them, but no, the AI just had to keep littering my highways.

[Toby Rowe]

Heh!!

I mused upon it, then I thought "hold on, they have given us the solution"- The borders now expand, and it does generally stop the AI code from sending many settlers to that single square.

Problem was, they had to call it "culture" and then wrap a new unwanted concept around a solution to an annoying gaming issue.

Why didn't they simply use the "spread of influence" bit only? (cities alone, not temples etc provide the needed points once borders eventually meet as they will.)

Still, I'd prefer a border concept at onsett.

Toby?

[Niptium]

There you go! Thats the biggest problem with the Civilization franchise. In all of the 3 civilization games, but especially in the 3rd one, I was having, in my mind, control over a certain territory. I had cities populated with borders. But all the time, I found out that some other civilization would try and colonize the only little square that wasn't taken by my borders on the continent, even if that meant colonizing a lonely 1x1 desert tile. That's just nonsense. I got pissed more than I could ever remember. Add to that the freaking behavior of some Civs to circulate freely within your borders at peace time, I was just going crazy.