Borders and Diplomacy

[Kataphraktoi]

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.

well im marking it down as my border in my dictators bunker. ill check my other papers to see where everyone else thinks it is when needing to deal with them

[MrFun]

You don't scare me, Cata.

[Matches10]

I wonder about a certain point in the game, perhaps the discovery of a certain advance that allows a civilization to make claims on land. This solves the early-game problem of explorers/scouts or other units roaming claiming all the land and also mimics the reality of civilization which is that claiming land just didn't really happen - civilizations had to back it up with influence. After reaching this advance there are then two forms of "border" - one that is culture/influence and the other which is a declared border.

Obviously parts of a civilization which are under it's cultural infuence immediately become part of that nation's recognized border until them come under military duress. Beyond that, units roaming about can claim land as they go, and can solidify their claims on said land by establishing a fort or colony. A small perimeter of tiles around a colony or fort then becomes part of your recognized territory. Any other claimed land is denoted by perhaps a dashed line as "Claimed by [Civilization]" Other civiliaztion scouts/units may:

- freely walk through unmanned "claimed lands" with no penalty unless spotted by the claiming civilization

-stake a claim to the same land, in which case those tiles become "disputed territory."

Disputed tiles are resolved when a civilization establishes a colony or fort on disputed lands. A border is then established and then must be respected by other AI if they wish to avoid war.

Human civs claiming land already claimed by AI suffer in diplomatic relations with that AI. I'll let human civs decide how to react when an AI tries to claim their unguarded "territory" for their own. :-)

The benefits to claiming territory are obvious. Friendly AI or civs not wishing to ruffle feathers will respect a civilization's claims and you effectively establish future lands for expansion. However the negatives to claiming land willy-nilly are there as well. You can claim bunches land but unless you have the units/colonies to back it up, it's largely a waste of time if another civilization wants to expand there too.

Herein I think we also estalish a way to make colonies a major part of the game (as they were in reality) and set the stage for new civs to sprout. Distant, neglected colonies are hard to keep under rule and may decide to form their own civiliazion. I would love to go into a bit more detail about my ideas for colonies but I've already said too much in my first post...

[Kataphraktoi]

You don't scare me, Cata.

not trying to

[Philotas]

I wonder about a certain point in the game, perhaps the discovery of a certain advance that allows a civilization to make claims on land. This solves the early-game problem of explorers/scouts or other units roaming claiming all the land and also mimics the reality of civilization which is that claiming land just didn't really happen - civilizations had to back it up with influence. After reaching this advance there are then two forms of "border" - one that is culture/influence and the other which is a declared border.

Matches has the right idea, IMHO. Historically, early civilizations didn't really understand "land ownership". Europeans "claimed" the land in the Americas with little resistance from the Native Americans, who simply didn't understand what owning the land meant.

[Matches10]

Yes, to me that asks the question, are less advanced civilizations bound by the same rules in this case.

Say the advance is called "Age of Exploration." What this does is that for any civ that has this advance, a new "recognized border" (denoted somehow differently than a cultural border) appears around all your cultural border and around any land you claim and back up with a fort or colony. I think an interesting idea would be to allow all Civs that have not discovered this, to still cross your borders (after all, they cannot see it and don't really know what this means) without declaring war. However civs that do have the advance must respect the borders - crossing them with a military unit is an act of war.

From what I read, it sounds that this is going to be the case in the new game from the start? To combat the annoying tendency of AI to repatedly ignore your borders, now they must have a right of passage from the very start just to go through?

[Kataphraktoi]

advanced civs can slaughter lessser ones like america>indians and without diplo penalties,as is historical

surely one of the most embarrasing things in my countrys history

[AoA]

I like your idea, Matches.
Land claming should be a later skill with advanced diplomacy. And in real life, you only had control of whatever land you could easily defend up to a certain point in history. Remember, the Pope split the entire world between Spain and Portugal...and that held firm, look at Brazil. Negotiating and trading for borders once the advanced skills get there could make the late game more interesting.

Lesser civs respecting or not respecting borders? I'm not sure how that should be handled. What is the rule in Civ4...You can never cross someone's border without permission?
In prior Civ's and SMAC, it seems the AI could drop a base right in my terrirtory and clearly within my borders without a problem if I had never made any contact with them (esentially early game)? Maybe I'm wrong but in one way that's realistic, but levels of diplomacy should advance to block/allow rite of passage and eventually claim additional land.

[Matches10]

Yes, that's why I think from a historical perspective, it's a bit odd if in 1000 BC, you are exploring some land and can't go in because some imaginary line of culture has been drawn. Especially with out any military force to back it up.

I think the best way would be a scenario like this: If your early unit crosses the cultural border of another civ, you get a message saying something like, "Local peasants tell us that we are entering [Aztec] lands," yet you are allowed to move freely until you come to a city or unit, where you meet the leader. The ideal would be to have options for right of passage. Allow right of passage for:

• This unit
• All like units
• All units

Have the costs associated be relative to the unit(s) being allowed to move, preferably on a per-turn basis. Perhaps 1 gold per turn to let a lone scout travel through, but much more to let a bunch of military units through. A friendly civ might even let your scouts through for nothing however an "isolationist" leader might not ever let anybody through for less than 5g per turn.