The instant return of troops paradox

[Captain]

So far so good!
The window of turns to leave is much better than an instant return

BUT what happens if the AI gives me 5 turns to pull my troops out and instead I use those 5 turns to pour tons of troops in before they declare war? I think they should AUTOMATICALLY declare war on me if I add any units when told to pull out.

Also, is it common to be able to be able to get a unit deep into enemy territory before they tell me to get out? I would think I'd only get 1 tile into their territory before they told me to leave - so we should only have 1 turn to pull out.

The only exception might be a cancelled alliance (then you could have 5-10 turns to pull out), or where you unit goes deep in along a railroad but then has the tracks pillaged behind it (but I think pillaging land should count as an act of war anyways)

Other diplomacy options are always good!

[Bereta_Eder]

Emm, if you start pillaging they propably will get suspicious that something is going awfully wrong

I think it can be easy to program the AI to detect if you are adding troops during the period that you sre supposed to leave the area.

I can't help but belive that there are some serious drawbacks with the plan that Firaxis discovered and they decided to opt for the immideate return.

Still they should surprise us and find a nice solution to the problem

[Kevin Ar18]

BUT what happens if the AI gives me 5 turns to pull my troops out and instead I use those 5 turns to pour tons of troops in before they declare war? I think they should AUTOMATICALLY declare war on me if I add any units when told to pull out.

That's a good idea.
However, I don't think they should declare war automatically every time, but if you, say move a unit in there they should contact you RIGHT away (and give you just one more chance).

But if you move another unit in then its war.
Or if you move the unit to another tile in their territory.
Or if you hit space bar to waste it's turn without starting to move it out.
Even sneakier, the comp would wait till it's his turn and then declare war!

[colossus]

quote:

BUT what happens if the AI gives me 5 turns to pull my troops out and instead I use those 5 turns to pour tons of troops in before they declare war? I think they should AUTOMATICALLY declare war on me if I add any units when told to pull out.

To prevent such stuff, we really need a border between civ to delimit the extent of military activity. Incursion to no-allied civ's border should trigger war immediately. Then the pulling back of troops are restricted to cancellation of alliance.

In civ2, representative governemnts(for human player) often suufer in ceasefire when enemy civ's units coming near the gates of cities without means of declaring war(they refuse peace and we have no option to insist armies leave). Consider how ridicolous it is when we have to maintain the peace when we see enemy's canons are pointing to our city gate.

[Kevin Ar18]

That makes me think colossus...

Somewhere in CivIII diplomacy there should be an option when making treaties to let them know that if they even enter your territory that war will automatically be declared.

This will of course hurt your friendship with whatever civ you make that agreement with (even if you agreed not to come into each others territory), so you might only do it to people you dislike.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Its no more ridiculous than the airlift order which could transport a unit half-way round the globe in one turn. Are they getting rid of that too?

If you have an automatic path, the units shouldn't be sent all the way home, just out of the other civs territory.

I somewhat agree.

The offending unit should be given the option of retreating out of the other civs territory. This should be accomplished by having a goto order executed having the unit being ordered to move in the direction in which he entered the area to an area just outside the other civs territory. The civ whose territory was offended would allow the unit to take this course and would not consider his actions as a threat or a breach of treaty unless the units goto order was cancelled. The unit would have the option at the beginning of each turn to either continue with the goto order or to belay those orders with new ones that may cause the other civ to declar war or whatever. This would give semblence to the unit actually being escorted out of their territory in accordance to their predescribed movement rate, no matter how many turns it took to obey the goto order.

This would seem like an actual occurance in real life, rather than magically transporting the unit all the way back in only one turn, which is ridiculous

[Kevin Ar18]

The unit would have the option at the beginning of each turn to either continue with the goto order or to belay those orders

Good idea