National borders - away from cities.

[LordGrey]

Neat that you guys brought up James Clavell's Shogun in this here topic. I have been reading the book for about the last month and am now about 30 pages from the end. The book has given me a new found fascination for feudal Japanese culture and society. As for other names that are changed as the characters are fictionalized, here are some I am pretty sure of, my spelling may well be wrong. Goroda from the book is Oda Nobunaga, the Taiko is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Toranaga is none other than Tokagawa Ieyasu. and Toranaga's capital of Yedo is clearly Tokyo (Edo).

[LordGrey]

Oh, yeah, this thread is originally about borders... as for borders, I do think that claimed borders should be a part of Civ3. It does seem pretty clear that they will be a part, and any logical use of borders at all would almost definitely be an improvement over Civ2.

[MidKnight Lament]

Good work, Lord Grey. We've got some cluey people here on Apolyton. I'm no history student, but I found Japanese history in that book a good read.

Sorry, we'll go back to borders now

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- MKL

[Youngsun]

Oh Lord !

Thanks for informing that! It's good to hear there are more people who actually read that book.

Midknight Lament

I'm sorry about being unable to tell who was the author but my "Shogun" was not written by James Clavell and it was Japanese author so there is no fictionalisation of characters. I also read other books which describes only Toyotomi Hideyoshi,Tokugawa Ieyasu,Takeda Shingen,Uesugi Genshin and Mori Motonari so my description about Japanese feudal history can come from many sources which can be multi-directional approach. Sorry anyway

[MidKnight Lament]

Haha. Yeah, the one I read was James Clavell. I'm sure you're cluey anyway, Youngsun

And we managed to keep talking about two separate things without anyone knowing we obviously had no idea what each other was referring to.

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- MKL

[Sir Shiva]

Borders is an interesting concept.. I didn't like the way SMAC did it though...

Borders don't change each time u build a city.. There should be a degree of permanence.. One way of agreeing on borders is through diplomacy.. The could be a mini map under the 'Negotiate Borders' option, and u could submit proposals to the other guy.. Of course, naming of landmarks would prove VERY helpful here...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@mailops.com
Web: http://www.crosswinds.net/india/~shiva
ICQ: 17719980

[Slingshot]

How about simply being able to drag your border over explored territory? If the border is exceedingly far from a city, then there should be a good chance that enemy units can cross over without detection. Nonetheless, it allows a player to expand as he or she sees fit - provided they have the ability to monitor those borders.

And what about being able to put down markers? There have been times I wanted to place a future city, and it would have been great to mark the tile.

[Deathwalker]

Personally I think that the whole idea of borders is great. SMAC touched on this with the automatic borders and I also liked the idea in the very first civ when at the end it showed your countries territories. So this would make a great part of Civ3. I also think the idea of having military units claim land is also good, you could have a way to mark the land and also when two countries claim it, it is shown as in dispute. I do not think you could have international land simply that any unclaimed land is free to everyone. Also you could have an option that when you make peace you can recognise a persons borders and either settle disputed land or leave it disputed like no mans land that was in Europe. One last point when after peace a country claims land how about the people they are peace with have to option to recognise the claim or ignore it, this way if they want they can claim it later? So in peace you can have recognised claims and unrecognised claims.

[Urban Ranger]

The idea of border is relatively new, and the ability to map out where the border should be is even newer.

In the old days nations tended to just grab land when they feel like it. If somebody was already there then the parties involved settled the differences by violence.

The only way to guard a border is to build forts and stick units in them. Putting sticks in empty places wouldn't work.

There was no such thing as internationally recognised borders for the longest time. Nothing of that sort until the League of Nations came about. Before that, when even a few countries recognised some sort of border, nothing gauranteed other countries would follow suite.
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited March 18, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

Urban Ranger

I don't think the border will be some sort of guarantee for preventing outside invasion.

And I agree with you about that many nations will try to ignore the borders when the situation is right.

The border should be working as a intended line of your civ's territorial ambition to be recognised and when this very intention is somewhat threatened or ignored by some civs for some reasons then you can at least prepare oncoming invasion by mobilising your army.

But there are lots of examples of borders nowadays which have no significant fortresses or military forces on the duty of guarding these lines.

And are you saying that if we want to creat a border, we have to build forts to be recognised all the time? Then how do you explain many borders drawn in Europe today which have no forts?

I'm not saying the border things were around since mankind knew about creating a nation. I'm just asking "Do we have to build forts every time if we want to declare our territorial integrity to be recognised?" or Are forts and garrisons absolute neccesities to create a border?"

[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited March 18, 2000).]

[Dobermann]

Perhaps forts wouldn´t be necessary to keep a 'claim' after..say nationalism. Or something like that.

[S. Kroeze]

Though its a new phenomenon, in this discussion I completely agree with Urban Ranger. The idea of precise, fixed borders before ~1800AD is very anachronistic. In peace treaties only a list of towns or feudal rights changing sovereignty was made and ratified. The actual situation in the countryside remained a puzzle, with several powers having different rights thwarting one another in the same area.

Often there was a great difference between official claims of sovereignty and actual control of a region. Without support of the local elite control of a region was next to impossible. As a rule the outlying provinces of an empire paid less taxes and didn't contribute much in other ways. On the steppe and in the colonies the political situation was even more fleeting.

[S. Kroeze]

I don't think I'll become popular because of it, but it seems imperative to repost this thread.

The anachronistic idea of borders existing in 2000BC is back again!

[Grier]

I agree with Youngsun, even if borders were not official until the 20th century, they have certainly existed before then. Also due to the scale of the civ map the exact location of a border would not be recognised anyway, only a rough estimation.

The best part about borders is that they are a workable game mechanic that will make the game more interesting to play and create more diplomacy options.

[UltraSonix]

Perhaps the anachronistic problems of borders could be addressed by having the early government/social engineering choices having small or even no borders, but as the game progresses, have borders that have important diplomatic meanings.

Border ideas:
1. A unit inside its own borders could fight better (does SMAC already do that?).

2. If two civs are hotly contesting an areas with cities built close to each other, the borders could be 'loosely defined' ala India and Pakistan over Kashmia.