Borders and Exploration Suggestions

[UrbanDozer]

I'm a new member but have been reading the boards for years and have been a Civ addict since the early 90's with Civ I. I wanted to pass along some recent brain storms that I've had, and get other member's opinions.

Personally, I do not like the cultural border system that is currently the standard in the Civ series. I think in real life, military and exploration are more important to physical borders than culture, though I am not dismissing culture completely.

I think that borders should expand with the movement of military units, even from the very beginning. If I build a city, and immediately build a warrior, then whatever land parcel my unit marches on, automatically gets included in to my country's border.

Right away, people are going to think "Well, what's to stop a country from taking military units and immediately bisecting a continent and cutting off civilizations from each other?" Well, there's another aspect of Civ I think is a bit unrealistic, and that is the movement radius of military units in the beginning of the game. Most military units are limited in real life to how far they can travel. Most require supply lines or need to be within a close range of a friendly city or fortification.

So, I think beginning units (like Warriors and Phlanx) should only be allowed to wander say 5 spaces away from a friendly city. If there is a road, then the road will only deduct 1/3 of that allotment, much as it does with movement points. A railroad will deduct no spaces. If there is a fortress built 5 spaces away from the city, then this will expand the distance allowed for the unit to travel by another 5 spaces, because the fortress will serve as a supply depot for the passing military.

Of course, more advanced units will have greater travel distances.

I think this will also greatly expand the usefulness of a couple game concepts. One is the fortress itself, because it can now be used as a tool to expand national borders and military influence more so than now. Also, I would give Explorers and Scouts exemptions from this movement limit. However, a SCOUT will NOT expand the borders no matter where or how far he goes - it can only unveil map tiles. EXPLORERS on the other hand, much in real life, can not only go anywhere without limit, but will expand the borders of your country to include anywhere they go as well (basically, claiming any unclaimed land in the name of your country).

Cultural borders can still be used, but as an overlay to the military border. Basically, the game will have two borders, military border, which is the political border of the country, and cultural border, which, though not defined by a line on a map, can be defined by land tiles that are brighter than surrounding tiles (you know when you explore distant land tiles and once you leave them, they darken?) In advanced civilizations, cultural borders can catch up to military (political) borders, and even expand them just as is the case now. This will allow your civ to grow in size, without using military force. So, even if another civilization early on claims large land claims, another nation can still use culture to chop away at it, and even take it over, just as in real life.

I am hoping this is not as confusing as it may sound to some. Anyone have further ideas? Input?

-Bob

[Supr49er]

Welcome to posting at Apolyton UrbanDozer.

[Ming]

While I kind of like the concept of having the military claim territory, this would put the civs that start with a military unit vs a scout at a strong advantage.

It would also bring the "race to construction", something we see in MP games to SP games

[UrbanDozer]

Originally posted by Ming
While I kind of like the concept of having the military claim territory, this would put the civs that start with a military unit vs a scout at a strong advantage.

It would also bring the "race to construction", something we see in MP games to SP games

I understand your concern, but because of the limitation based on the supply line aspect that I would like to see implemented, even if a civ started with a military unit, they would be limited as to how far they could go. A civ that invests in roads and fortresses early in the game will then have an advantage over a civ that does not.

I am sure that there can be a way to work out problems like this, which is why I want people to poke holes in my idea, so I DO appreciate the comments! I just find it a glaring fault of Civ that if you're going to have any kind of border system, how is it that military occupation and exploration basically has absolutely NOTHING to do with it? Plus, in the real long-term, I would like to see different aspects of the bordering system, such as "occupied" territory and "colonial" territory, but I have not even begun to work that out in my head yet.. :-(

[UrbanDozer]

Originally posted by Supr49er
Welcome to posting at Apolyton UrbanDozer.

Thanks! Happy to finally be a member..

[Theben]

I liked and have argued for supply lines before (Civ III List), but the notion of claiming territory is pointless unless you can back it up. That would normally include a large and permanent army and/or settlement, which for the most part you can do. Now I would say that if you build a fort outside your borders you would claim that tile alone, and if it was sufficiently garrisoned you could extend 1 tile out from the fort max. It would generate 1 /turn, so that a city settled nearby would eventually overrun the land with it's culture. I also think that after Nationalism cultural boundaries would be fixed without conquest.

As for supply, perhaps it's possible to have units cost extra when out of your borders, or forts.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Theben
As for supply, perhaps it's possible to have units cost extra when out of your borders, or forts.

DUH! They DO cost outside your borders (after the first 4 units). Multiply that by inflation.

ADDENDUM: Check your F2 and hover over unit supply. You pay 1/2 per unit after those first 4 (per INITIAL_OUTSIDE_UNIT_GOLD_PERCENT in GlobalDefines.xml). The AI pays half of that all difficulty levels (per iAIUnitSupplyPercent in CIV4HandicapInfo.xml). In my games I pay one and the AI half that.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Jaybe
DUH! They DO cost outside your borders (after the first 4 units). Multiply that by inflation.

Well, now I know.

[MoonWolf]

If you look at it a bit differently, there are a sort of connection between borders and military strength. Your cities will never be allowed to grow their borders big time if you don't have units to defend them. And it's much harder to cultural flip a city with a lot of units in it then a city with few.

When it comes to support lines, I agree there should be something. Especially in the ancient days, units survived on what they found underways (but could also be cut off any supplies if they got stuck somewhere)- But a modern army which needs fuel, requires more. Nazi-Germany lost a few important battles because they didn't have fuel for their tanks. An easy way to implement it, is like making a rule that certain units will not survive for more than a few rounds if they don't have a trade route or if don't control a direct route to them (e.g. when you are outside an enemy city, you must have units in every tile between your SOD and to friendly/ neautral land where you could have a trade route to)

[rah]

It's not the connection when you're in enemy territory as much as having extra consumables. Have a SUPPLY unit that can support X number of units for Y number of turns outside you territory. X and Y gets reset every time the supply unit touches one of your cultural borders. If a tank has been out of your territory for Z number of days and it doesn't have a support unit along, it runs out of gas and can't move till you get a supply unit to it. etc.

But this type of extra micromanagement might suck some of the fun out of the game. I wouldn't want to over complicate the war aspect of civ since it's just one piece of it.

[Garth Vader]

Exactly. Some of my most enjoyable game experiences have been on games where there is a real supply aspect, but the management required is intense. Also, if you think AI's are bad at war now wait until they have to manage supply.

[rah]

yeah, that 200 unit SOD moves 2 squares into your territory and then runs out of supplies.

[Unimatrix11]

I have often pointed to it, but i shall do so again: ´Strategic Command II´ features a good supply system, which is easy to use, and the AI handles it pretty well.

[Blaupanzer]

The first forts should be available at Masonry, with a 10 percent defense bonus and doing the below. Full power for forts comes as it does now. I like the idea of having forts expand your borders, acting like tiny cities with an extra layer of expansion. In other words, as long as it is occupied by the building civ, the fort brings the tile it's built on into that civ. It generates one culture per turn and it's first expansion, to the same radius as a new city, occurs with the same amount of culture as that of a city going to its BFC (15 at epic). That's all the reach a fort has and all the expansion it can do. Of course you can build a city in its area and coopt the already claimed tiles immediately. Also you can exploit resources in the fort's radius after expansion although they only add to your national total and health or happiness totals. We had something called "colonies" in one of the iterations that did this and it worked fairly well, IIRC. If the fort is abandoned, the "light" goes out for that territory unless a city has coopted it. It can relight if another unit from the original civ occupies it. If either type of fort is taken by another civ, the fort disappears, although any previously earned culture points remains.

As to military units establishing borders without forts, bad idea and almost impossible to program for the AI such that they don't set up a sentry line they cannot support around every city. As to supply lines, having played many head to head board games where 15 to 30 minutes of each movement turn was devoted to which units were or were not in supply, we do not need that layer on this game.

I'm still in favor of being able to bribe barbarians and barb cities post CoL, using spies also. I do NOT think the barbs should be able to use forts at all.

[Lord Avalon]

If there's a restriction on how far military units can go, there could be a problem with early expansion if you don't have any good sites within that radius.

• *Warrior to settler: OK, this is as far as we go. You're on your own now.
  *Settler: OMG BEARS! Arrrrggghhh!

So either you'd have to settle a crappy intermediate site, or an outpost (early fort) would be needed. Or maybe settlers could have some defense against animals.