The Louisiana Purchase (or its potential Civ counterpart)

[Common Sensei]

How viable in gameplay terms would it be for Explorers to be able to lay claim to an area of unsettled territory? It would visually show as cultural influence.

It could act similarly a Great Work, but only can be triggered a certain distance away from cities (like four tiles or more) or other territories and is unable to culturally impose on rival cities.

Name the territory, like a city, and it could show up as tradable in diplomacy.

[johnmcd]

Totally required, we absolutely need a way of claiming land.

[Virdrago]

Tell the Native Americans who lived in the Louisiana Purchase area that it was "unsettled".

Seriously though, it's an interesting thought. I don't know how it would work, though. The first person to build Explorers would just start finding any uncultured territory and claiming it, thus denying anyone else the chance to build new cities. Potential wars would be a nightmare, too:

"You entered my Louisiana Purchase territory!"

"Oh Yeah? How is it yours? It's unsettled and your nearest city is 15 squares away, on another continent!"

I'm not trying to make fun of the idea (honestly), but it might be hard to work into the game realistically, IMO.

[Dis]

I think it would work exactly like borders work now days.

If they have open borders they can pass through. Many americans passed through mexican territories. though in hindsight, maybe they shouldn't have let them in. . They saw how good the lands such as California were, and took them.

If not, then you have to declare war on them.

I need to brush up on my history though. i'm not sure if we had anything similar to an open borders arrangement with mexico or spain. And there were numerous problems with borders throughout the growth period of the U.S. But many of them could be labled as barbarian incursions.

[jbp26]

it would be complicated to implement for minimal benefit. theres no need to model every historical event that could possibly happen, especially since territory is already sufficiently covered. if you want to claim a territory, throw down an outpost.

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, I'd assume the explorer is destroyed in the process. And perhaps the culture would shrink in time. But there would be a chance of a city sprouting up inside the cultural territory, beside a river or a resource.

Would be a good way to stop AI from settling on that frozen peninsula where you really don't want to build a city...

Aye, colonies would be nice, it's annoying to build a city to some tundra...

And one other thing, it's stupid, that a civ can have a settlement on the other side of the globe in 100BC... They could never keep in touch with them, properly. A distance restriction to founding new cities would be grand, modified by things like rivers, mountains, and tech. X squares from your cultural borders.

[LordShiva]

But there already is a way to claim unsettled land - by building a city there.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
And one other thing, it's stupid, that a civ can have a settlement on the other side of the globe in 100BC... They could never keep in touch with them, properly. A distance restriction to founding new cities would be grand, modified by things like rivers, mountains, and tech.

QFT

[Tattila the Hun]

Originally posted by LordShiva
But there already is a way to claim unsettled land - by building a city there.

Ah, but you really would not build a city in Alaskan wilderness or something, or if there's a new oil find in Siberia. Russians would build a refinery complex there, essentially a colony. A small town/city might grow there, as more employees are needed... In civ, siberia would not have any cities, and it would not be russian. And Germany could plop a city in Canada, on some desolate area. While Canada might not have settlements in some parts of their territory, they still hold claim to places inside their borders.

Defined borders would be nice.

[LordShiva]

Size 1 cities would suffice in those cases.

[MasterDave]

Explorers as they are now are quite useless, and the only time I build them is on Terra maps.

Perhaps this idea of claiming lands could make explorers more useful. Lets say that if you can stack five explorers together you can use them to start a city like a settler would. This would allow you to (slowly and expensively) colonize over oceans with caravels. While waiting for five explorers to come together, they can explore the new land and try very hard to avoid being killed by barbs.

[Hobie819]

It's an interesting idea, there would have to be a drawback for it though. With settlers gaining new territory you have to pay maintenance costs for the small 1 size city. What drawbacks could be used? That I'm not sure but it doesn't seem very balanced to build one unit, put it on a ship and magically claim that territory with no penalty.

The only penalty I can think of is that maybe territory gained in this way is highly suceptable to flipping culturally. This would treat the land as 0% XXXX making it so that if another civ builds an actual city near there, the city's boundries would grow as normal.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Hobie819
It's an interesting idea, there would have to be a drawback for it though. With settlers gaining new territory you have to pay maintenance costs for the small 1 size city. What drawbacks could be used? That I'm not sure but it doesn't seem very balanced to build one unit, put it on a ship and magically claim that territory with no penalty.

The only penalty I can think of is that maybe territory gained in this way is highly suceptable to flipping culturally. This would treat the land as 0% XXXX making it so that if another civ builds an actual city near there, the city's boundries would grow as normal.

I would assume that a city built by a stack of explorers would follow the same rules as a normal city, including high maintenance costs. Also, the cost of five explorer units is quite a bit more expensive than one settler.

[LordShiva]

Then what's the point? Better to send a settler and a defender over instead.

[Kuciwalker]

Here's how you claim otherwise unused land: build praets, and conquer anyone who goes into that land.

And everyone else, for that matter.