Are your border open?

[Waldin]

Mutual "open borders" is probably the thing I get offered most often by the other civilizations. And most of the time I refuse. I know that open borders mean I could get some advantages from better trade routes, I could spy out their territories, and I could spread my religion. But so can the others, and I'm not sure that agreeing to let them do that is a good idea.

What is your opinion? Do you have "open borders" with all other civilizations, or only a few selected ones, or none? Where do you see the advantages and risks?

[vmxa1]

Depends on the time of the game. early on I see little harm. May as well not start ticking them off so soon. Now if I am concerned about a settler coming through, that is another matter.

Later the point for OB is not going to offset being in the wrong religion, so I may beg off.

[Didymus]

You are (hopefully) smarter than the AI, and consequently obtain more benefit from Open Borders than they do. Also, it helps diplomatically. As does spreading your religion (whichever you founded, I mean), since it often means they convert to your religion.

Now, if you don't mind taking on the rest of the world, fine. But going it alone isn't gonna help you, and your neighbors can make a nice buffer between you and your enemies if they like you enough. Would you rather an enemy plunders your improvements, or your friend's ?

Of course, as vxma1 says, if you can restrict his expansion, that's something else. But that's very map dependent.

[BigWilly1974]

I think I've only once found reason to decline Open Borders. Too valuable diplomatically in my opinion.

[Proteus_MST]

The only cases when I decline open borders for some time are if I want to prevent settlers from reaching certain spots which are not already within my cultural borders
and if I consider the AI Civ to be my mortal enemy

[Crossfire]

I shared a very small, long, narrow continent with just one other civ last night. My 3rd city cut her off from expanding on the other side of me where most of the spare territory was. Needless to say I declined open borders and took all of that for myself. Once I had it developed I opened my borders.

[quinalla]

Originally posted by Crossfire
I shared a very small, long, narrow continent with just one other civ last night. My 3rd city cut her off from expanding on the other side of me where most of the spare territory was. Needless to say I declined open borders and took all of that for myself. Once I had it developed I opened my borders.

This is when I keep borders closed the most. The other time is if I have a weak military that I don't want the AI to see when they scout through (and they will) after they get the open borders agreement.

[khearn]

Here's an idea I haven't yet tried, but it might be fun.

If you've got most of your cities in place, but have one or two holes that are pretty much surrounded by your cities, it might be interesting to open your borders and see if the AI will plop a city down in your midst. Being surrounded by your cities, it would end up under a lot of cultural pressure, and ought to culture flip fairly easily. You'd end up with the city without having to spend the effort building the settler and building up the infrastructure around it.

If you can build missionaries at the time, you should have one handy to infect the new AI city with your religion immediately, just to make the flip that much easier (does anyone else think of religions as a virus, with which you try to 'infect' other civilizations?).

I'm guessing it would hurt your relations with that AI, but depending on circumstances, it might be worth it.

Keith

[Crossfire]

If you are persuing a cultural path then it would be pretty easy to culture flip the other city assuming you can generate a reasonable supply of great people. Otherwise, the gap to the next cultural expansion gets so long after the first 3 or so expansions and his new city can expand faster, so you need to be careful it doesn't go the other way.

I have left gaps and the AI will settle in them.

[CarnalCanaan]

Originally posted by khearn

If you've got most of your cities in place, but have one or two holes that are pretty much surrounded by your cities, it might be interesting to open your borders and see if the AI will plop a city down in your midst.

Oh yeah. They most certainly will. Culture flipping seems to be harder now and they WILL drop a culture bomb right in the middle of your realm. The AI does not seem so culturally passive as it once was.

As for the Offene Grenze question: In my current game I tried limiting my agreements to those I deemed necessary. Let's just say I'm not having as easy a time at it as I should. Remember that the spread of foreign faiths in your empire is only an indirect negative. The AI will get the sight advantage in your cities which *should* only remind them of how awesomely powerful your military is, right? If they get their religious wonder then they'll get a bit of extra cash - but you won't lose any. However, in return, you get to build a whole new set of Temples/Cathedrals in your empire, increasing your capacity for growth.

The advantages of early Open Borders is a boost in positive relations. Needless to say, this will break down eventually, but why limit your options right out of the gate? Denying Open Borders only seems to irritate your neighbors and make unnecessary enemies.

Basically, opening your borders with everyone early gives you greater freedom of movement diplomatically because not everyone will have an outright grudge against you and you'll have multiple religions which allows some degree of choice as to which lager, or "camp" you'll join.

Look at it this way: If someone denied an offered treaty of mutual trust on its face, you'd be immediately suspicious, too.

[Blake]

I've never really found a reason to decline open borders. I actually wish the AI would spread religion around my empire MORE, as it is I always seem to found a religion before the AI tries "converting" me.

And an advantage of open borders is the AI will send in their military and kill barb cities.

[SirSebastian]

For the theocratically minded, Open Borders has even fewer negatives...

[Nacht]

Closing borders is generally my subtile hint to other civs that i'm gonna wage war against them

[V3nom]

it depends. Early on I'll usually identify the warlike and the non-warlike empires on my continent. I will open borders with the peaceful ones because they'll be the ones that are more likely to end up with profitable relations for me, so I want to keep them on my good side.

[joncnunn]

I love open boarders.

If a war breaks out, they get forciably relocated outside your terrority anyway.

And with open boarders, you can build missonaries to covert them to your religion and establish foreign trade routes, which are both money makers.