Please Fix Borders -- Negotiation

[Hurin]

Howdy,

I hope you'll all agree that fixing borders and how they are handled in negotiations should be a high priority.

It's pretty pointless to create a solid border when you can't always demand that your rivals stay out.

When the AI catches you within its borders, it always gives you one turn to get out on your own. After that, it gives you the choice between having your units (automatically) removed, or war (at the expense of your reputation).

Why is it that I rarely get the chance to threaten war? For several turns in a row, the most I can do is yell at them. . . and the AI responds that they will be removed "soon". Yet they continue on their way and manage to build cities within my borders (in the nooks and crannies).

Firaxis, if you're reading this (or the email I'm about to send), please look into this for the patch that we all await with excitment. And thanks for a great game worthy of the Civilization name.

What do the rest of you guys think?

Best Regards,

Hurin

[Robert]

I think (too lazy to check right now) that if you asked them to leave your territory once, and they're still in, you can declare war while their reputation will be gone.

[quinalla]

I had the Indians cut off in one of my games and they kept trying to send a settler and a warrior through my territory. What I did is go to diplomacy and tell them to get out once. Then immediately after that was done (ie the same turn) I went back into to diplomacy and my selection was usually "Get out or declare war." They always got out when I did this. I don't know if it will work all the time, but it did work everytime for me so far.

-quinalla

[Barnacle Bill]

I would prefer to see to following changes to how it works now:

HARD BORDERS - The game should not accept orders (player or AI) for any land unit to cross a border unless a state of war or a right of passage agreement exists. If you give such an order, the pop-up for you to confirm because it will start a war should occur just as if you ordered your unit to attack one of theirs. If the border moves, units on the wrong side of it should be moved automatically when the border moves. This applies to land only, not water or air, because territorial waters & air space have always been a looser concept than land borders. If Soviet ships/aircraft entered US territorial waters/air space during the cold war, out guys would meet them and escort them out and possibly a diplomatic incident occured. Had they landed a Red Army division on one of our beaches, I think that would have been an instant shooting war.

RIGHT OF PASSAGE AGREEMENTS: These should not automatically be 2-way. You should be able to negociate the right to enter another civ's territory in return for some other consideration (or just "accept this deal or suffer") without granting them the same rights in your territory. You should be able to grant them right of passage in your territory without necessarily receiving right of passage in theirs.

BORDER MOVES - Borders between nations should never move due to culture or the founding of new cities, only if an existing city changes hands. By "changes hands", I don't mean my border can move because a neighboring city changes hands from one foriegn nation to another. I mean my border moves relative to another civ only if that civ takes one of my cities or I take one of theirs. "Take" includes both military conquest and culture. Culture would still move your border vs unowned territory. In real life, the US could not grab a chunk of Canada just by building a big city just our side of the border, nor by building up the culture of North Dakota. However, entire cities changing civs because of culture is OK because a city in Civ3 is a major political subdivision, and there is historical precident for such rebelling against their original owner and defecting to a neighboring nation. That is how the US got Texas, for one case. Another note on that example - Mexico went to war over the annexation, but that was their choice (not automatic) and the Civ player has the same choice. I think the AI should consider it when they loose a city due to culture and, as in the example, the aggreived nation went to war with a stronger nation and lost even more territory as a result, so the AI should not rule out fighting over the culture-loss of a city solely because the benificiary is militarily stronger. THere should be a cost to not rebuffing the rebels - relations should worsen with the civ losing the city, and if that makes them bad enough they should demand that you give them the city back and attack if you don't. However, they should be the aggressor in terms of the diplomatic affect on third parties and war weariness effects on the involved parties.

ISLAND CLAIMS: If you have one or more cities on a land mass of any size, and no other civ has any cities or colonies on that land mass, and your borders enclose 3/4 or more of the squares of that land mass, you should be able to "claim" the rest. This would cause foriegn units to be unable to land anywhere on the island without a state of war or right of passage, and with a right of passage to be unable to found cities or colonies anywhere on it, even in the parts outside your cultural borders.

[Slax]

Side note - In the chat with Soren, I believe it was mentioned that they will look into keeping the AI civs from settling on tiles with little surrounding workable land in the patch. If so, they may do less wandering.