New territorial borders behavior

[AeonOfTime]

I tried finding info on this, but could find none - in Civ3, when you founded a new city it would always have the 8 squares of land around it for itself: that could be quite annoying sometimes, as the AI likes to settle right on the edge of your territory, and can sometimes steal away tiles that your cities were already using.

Apparently that behavior has changed, as can be seen in this screenshot (Check Tadmekka's borders):

http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?sid=501328954&id=4599&t=fullimage&toprate=5.0000&tophits=5328&cat=310

...I guess this falls into the 'territorial borders will be more respected in Civ4' thing I read about in the interviews. Good thing, too - but does anyone know how that will really work?

I mean, in the screenshot Elephantine's territorial border extends four tiles towards Tadmekka, but will Tadmekka's territorial borders be able to 'repell' those borders with stronger religion/culture?

In Civ3, you could settle among existing cities and by boosting culture, 'take over' tiles that the other cities were using - is this going to be possible?

...so many open questions

[AeonOfTime]

Well, after digging deeper I found the threads about borders, like:

The List - Borders thread

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104076

Border control

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=3228784

But those are all about how they could be done, not how they are currently implemented in Civ4. Anyone got any hints, or is it simply too early?

I really would like to know (referring to the screenshot) whether it could be possible to engulf an entire city so that this has only its own tile to work with... The following screenshot at gamespot seems to support that possibility:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screens.html?page=16

The 'Hills of Slaughter'-city is in blue territory, but is entirely engulfed in the player's territory - or do the borders not represent territory anymore, and can the tiles around the city be worked regardless? That city wouldn't be 7 in size otherwise, would it?

...Aaaargh! I can hardly wait to get that game into my hands.

[MattPilot]

The 'Hills of Slaughter'-city is in blue territory, but is entirely engulfed in the player's territory - or do the borders not represent territory anymore, and can the tiles around the city be worked regardless? That city wouldn't be 7 in size otherwise, would it?

Above the name you can see a FIST and the number 6. to me that means 6 people don't have work. So there is only one workable tile, which is the city square?

Does that make sense?

[AeonOfTime]

It does make sense, at least the numbers do match - but if that's really the case, I hope you have ways to defend yourself! It wouldn't be nice to find some of your cities starving to death because one of your rivals is a cultural monster...

[DerSchwarzfalke]

I just hope it brings an end to the AI's stupid practice of settling cities within what should be my zone of control, even if it is not my border yet. I do not like my hand forced to war in such a manner; I would rather just be attacked randomly than forced to capture ill-positioned cities.

That first screen seems to also answer a question in another thread about religious buildings being religion-specific. "Buddhist Temple" was being constructed.

[Kuciwalker]

They did this so you have to worry more about protecting your cities from cultural conversion and such.

[Qwi]

Tadmekka doesn't really answer that at all; atleast how I see it. I created or saw the same thing in my Civ3 games all the time. Tadmekka is a new city that was founded next to the border of a older more culturally significant city and so it doesn't project control over the existing border, over time Tadmekka will grow in culture and take over some tiles or be over run by the other civs culture, same old same old to me as far as I can see, and that's how I think it should stay. Having an AI that wouldn't build within the 8 or whatever square area of another civs city would be stupid especially when it comes to securing resources or ocean access, or even try to get a foothold on an otherwise crowded continent or landmass. I'd produce cities like that constantly just so I'd have a place to amass troops on another land mass; early in the game anyways, later on I usually have two or three floating "armies" because of transport capacity.

[Changmai Beagle]

Sorry to be OT

AeonOfTime

I'm not sure about your signature quote - I think "no plan survives contact with the enemy" is from von Moltke (spelling probably wrong) - and predates Murphy by a ways.

Of course, you could be being ironic, and I've totally missed the point.

[Vince278]

Re: Sorry to be OT

Originally posted by Changmai Beagle
AeonOfTime

I'm not sure about your signature quote - I think "no plan survives contact with the enemy" is from von Moltke (spelling probably wrong) - and predates Murphy by a ways.

I thought that was Clauswitz.

[DerSchwarzfalke]

Probably none of them ever said it, the way famous quotes like that get attributed to many, many people. I have seen it associated with Napoleon and Patton in the past as well.

[Vince278]

Google appears to attribute it to von Moltke but many people before and after him have said something similar. My first thought before saying Clauswitz was Sun-Tzu.

[AeonOfTime]

Actually, regarding the quote, the original is attributed to Karl von Klausewitz, and does not have quite the same meaning:

"No Battle Plan Survives First Contact With the Enemy"

Murphy's version is more restrictive, as Karl implied that subsequent contacts with the enemy may yield better results. Murphy's version is consistent with the main law which states that "If anything can go wrong, it will." - and in Wikiquote, it is listed under "Derivated".