Borders and Diplomacy

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by AoA
I don't think claimed territory should be officially part of your empire and so other civ's can certainly walk right through it. This should represent the empty wilderness and it is pretty much up for grabs. Sure the Age of Exploration and continental claims was brief, but it would be interesting to see how the diplomacy could change the game.
I don't think you would have to walk through every tile to claim it and maybe it should be line of sight. Maybe it would be better to actually have to claim the land by clicking the speicifc land you want.
There must be some way to limit it from becoming an explorer free-for all....make it be a max percentage of your settled land or make it have to be within 20 or 50 tiles from a city.
Any settled city automatically trumps claimed land and that would remove any more distant claims.

This might solve some of the problems, but then what would the feature be worth? Would it give you LOS? Seems a bit unfair and unrealistic. % of your settled land size? Advantage big civs (Portugal was tiny).

Again, an interesting idea, I just don't see how it would work or what purpose it would serve in the regular game.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by PapaMonkey
This would be a great addition. Perhaps in early game, in unclaimed territory, you claim the squares any of your exploring units enter. You have the same (or similar) line of sight, but the squares you enter are claimed (picture your unit posting his flag. This would slow down initial exploration as you would have to enter more territory early in the game. It would also only be effective if the territory was yet unclaimed.

This would certainly add a lot of strategic options to the diplomacy later as tiles were traded and exchanged. Another example of this is Israel and the disputed lands there. A possible outcome would be that a country might cede a tile to you that you could build an airbase on, or a fort (Philippines to the US). This would be very interesting!

Although the idea seems i good I think it would result in a perpetual state of war. Ever civ will concentrate sending explores and in no time the whole world will be divided. And since when did any AI put a reasonable price on anything? I once tried to buy a city, just founded and on a very bad place but only 2 or 3 tiles away from oil. The AI was far behind in technology and thus should in theory be unaware of the oil source. Although I was loaded with money, resources and cities I was not able buy the city and had to conquer it....

[inca911]

I agree that building cities is the best way to claim territory. The cultural radius of a city indicates the level of city influence, so building between two other cities really is building in vacant land, not plopping down between Main and First Streets.

I would, however, offer a very simple approach that solves this issue with little game modification:

Make a change such that a colony occupies a small and ungrowing cultural area which in effect "claims" that land (e.g., 4-5 tiles perhaps). Then the building a city within an existing colony's cultural boundary would be an act of aggression. This would allow "colonization" using existing Civ theory, and one could sell/buy/trade these colonies the same as cities. The AI will still not do well at colony trading without a lot of work to upgrade its capabilities.

[Kataphraktoi]

culture and borders has nothing to do with each other. in history there are thousand or millions of examples where areas had the same culture but that didnt have jack to do with borders.

an area is not simply culture a or culture b. culture is an overlapping thing and cannot be measured as such anyway. civ3 places a faulty miscinception into peoples heads

[sophist]

"Culture" is a bad term for it. What they really want is "influence." Rarely in recorded history has anyone expanded into empty space. Usually, what's empty is the historical record of the inhabitants of that area, not the land itself. Most claiming wasn't done by sending explorers to claim empty land, but rather by two or more nations dividing up some other nations' lands between them. The colonization of the New World, Africa, and Asia is full of examples of that. The multiple partitions of Poland are another example. Cultural borders don't represent culture by itself, but rather the strength of the influence of your people. Influence is an approximation of cultural, military, and economic strength. In Civ3, this influence was derived directly only from cultural strength, with little direct correlation to military and economic strength. I am hopeful that the change in Civ4 that allows entertainers to generate culture will help a bit, although I would definitely like to see cultural borders changed to spheres of influence with an explicit contribution from the military and economy.

[Sir Og]

Originally posted by Cataphract887
culture and borders has bothing to do with each other. in history there are thousand or millions of examples where areas had the same culture but that didnt have jack to do with borders.

an area is not simply culture a or culture b. culture is an overlapping thing and cannot be measured as such anyway. civ3 places a faulty miscinception into peoples heads

Very well said
Except that it should be nothing instead of bothing

[LordShiva]

Inca911's colony idea

Sophist

[Kataphraktoi]

Except that it should be nothing instead of bothing

no idea what your talking about

"Culture" is a bad term for it. What they really want is "influence." Rarely in recorded history has anyone expanded into empty space. Usually, what's empty is the historical record of the inhabitants of that area, not the land itself. Most claiming wasn't done by sending explorers to claim empty land, but rather by two or more nations dividing up some other nations' lands between them. The colonization of the New World, Africa, and Asia is full of examples of that. The multiple partitions of Poland are another example. Cultural borders don't represent culture by itself, but rather the strength of the influence of your people. Influence is an approximation of cultural, military, and economic strength. In Civ3, this influence was derived directly only from cultural strength, with little direct correlation to military and economic strength. I am hopeful that the change in Civ4 that allows entertainers to generate culture will help a bit, although I would definitely like to see cultural borders changed to spheres of influence with an explicit contribution from the military and economy.

just as long as it can be done on an abstract map and without manually sending out settlers\whatevers
even though that sounds gareeable to me,i still dont think culture should matter much.culture should effect happiness,not borders

[AoA]

Sophist...yes that's the idea I was trying to express. Influence over land does not have to be solely tied to Civ3's idea of culture. I would be happy with the ability to make a diplomatic gentleman's agreement to divvy up land....even a small portion of land.

We should have much more realism with borders in the game such as it following natural boundaries such as rivers or mountains or coastlines. And if the computer won't handle it automatically, then let us hammer it out diplomatically with the AI.

I like inca911's idea. I think a colony should function as a placeholder (i.e. I hold this place) and should not count as a city for corruption level or culture or population growth. Maybe at best it could provide an extension of your borders and act as a port (although you can always load people onto boats from any shore I guess). If the AI wants to put a city there, you can peacefully yield it, trade for it, or make them declare war and fight for it.

It doesn't matter if the AI would never go through with a tile trade. Right now there's no possiblity of us getting land without going to war (as the AI rarely ever trades), so at least there will be another option.

[sophist]

Originally posted by Cataphract887
culture should effect happiness,not borders

Borders are just a formalization of existing spheres of influence. Borders come after influence, not before. Through most of history, borders haven't been nearly as formal as today. Far more important was control of cities, ports, strategic points, resources, etc. The "empty" space around those mattered less. That's why it's more important to think of it as the informal and powerful concept of influence, rather than the formal (and relatively meaningless on its own) concept of borders.

That's why cultural strength is so important (though, as I stated above, it shouldn't be the only factor). There's the influence that comes from the barrel of a gun, the influence that comes from getting paid, the influence of a spiritual leader, and then there's the more subtle influence that comes from a sense of common identity. Civilization thus far has only modelled the last in this way. I don't have suggestions for how to incorporate the other three in a mechanism for influence. I'm not even sure whether it's meaningful in a game context, as methods of control using military, economic, and religious means are built into the game in other ways, while borders are the only expression of control possible using culture.

[Kataphraktoi]

and then there's the more subtle influence that comes from a sense of common identity

i dont see that you can take a nation say germany and say because germans have a majority in poland(just as example) then germanys borders still stay where treaty says they are. the germans living there,why would they be influenced more towards german rule? they have their own country and plan going now.

Borders are just a formalization of existing spheres of influence. Borders come after influence, not before. Through most of history, borders haven't been nearly as formal as today. Far more important was control of cities, ports, strategic points, resources, etc. The "empty" space around those mattered less. That's why it's more important to think of it as the informal and powerful concept of influence, rather than the formal (and relatively meaningless on its own) concept of borders.

depends on if we are talking about true borders or paper borders. in more modern times the 'empty' space you refer to is as important as the important items themselves as an area to stop the enemy before he can get there. control all the space around an object and the object too is controlled

[sophist]

Originally posted by Cataphract887
i dont see that you can take a nation say germany and say because germans have a majority in poland(just as example) then germanys borders still stay where treaty says they are. the germans living there,why would they be influenced more towards german rule? they have their own country and plan going now.

That's why it's influence and not control. Germans (ethnicity and culture) are a majority in Austria, but it's an independent nation. The economic, religious, and military factors counteract the cultural affinity. Besides, Germany and Austria have been separate for centuries, but there was a lot of fuzziness before the unification of the German states in 1871 regarding who controlled what.

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Cataphract887
depends on if we are talking about true borders or paper borders. in more modern times the 'empty' space you refer to is as important as the important items themselves as an area to stop the enemy before he can get there. control all the space around an object and the object too is controlled

There are no true borders. It's all on paper.

[Kataphraktoi]

There are no true borders. It's all on paper.

if as a dictator of a country and i have my army occupying an area,i would say that my boundary roughly runs around the edge of where my troops can control. true border.

That's why it's influence and not control. Germans (ethnicity and culture) are a majority in Austria, but it's an independent nation. The economic, religious, and military factors counteract the cultural affinity. Besides, Germany and Austria have been separate for centuries, but there was a lot of fuzziness before the unification of the German states in 1871 regarding who controlled what.

thats (and thanks for the austria,i couldnt remember its name)

but in civ3 the model used simply showed culture=control. weather or not there is influence in the area,your border shouldnt go through their lands. a german and an austrian border and then a german culture border that encompassses both.that would be

[RJC]

if as a dictator of a country and i have my army occupying an area,i would say that my boundary roughly runs around the edge of where my troops can control. true border.

That's control, not necessarily borders. You can control areas that are outside your borders; other countries may be occupied. When Russia (and other nations) occupied parts of Europe after WW2 they had effective control over the occupied nations but in most cases their borders didn't expand to envelope those nations. Real life borders exist only on paper and may or may not correlate with area of control.

[planet]

The diplomacy of Civ III is like a commodore 64 game. We had better database style games for such trading on apple II e's.

They have no excuse in this day and age, with the wonder machines we have.

I expect them to have a comprehensive diplomacy and trading system, that will take this game to the next level that is deserves.