"Ownership" of tiles

Hello!

I'm quite sure that the answer to my question is simply to point me to some FAQ document - but I can't find anything ...

With lua having opened up so many possibilities for scenario events, I've started to look through several details in the game mechanics I simply ignored until now. One of the most interesting is "ownership" of a tile.
Based on the save game format on Catfish's site (http://users.tpg.com.au/jpwbeest/jp_hex.htm), this can correspond to any of the tribes (incl barbarians).

Can someone tell me, how that ownership is defined in game? And what is being done with in in the usual game mechanics?
I don't think it's possible to actually create something like Civ4 culture domains from this, but still, it's a potentially very neat feature ... if only I can figure it out.

Thanks in advance and best, Grishnach

All your tile are belong to us!

Seriously, though, it's a concept I too have never really considered, nor knew much about (read: next to nothing about). It could have definite possibilities depending on what it actually means to the AI and the in-game mechanics. It COULD have been a very early iteration of unrealized code that grew into borders in SMAC and even further grew into culture domains in Civ's 3 and 4, I'm not really sure. Then again, it might be "empty code" that the AI and in-game mechanics just ignore (they certainly SEEM to). It'd be interesting if someone does know more.

I finally found at least some kind of reference - seems it does have some impact on game machanics: In a file commenting on hex-editing (a "hex-edit.rtf", seems like an old version of what Catfish finally posted on his terrific site), there is this reference:

The 6th byte actually encodes two things. The first 4 bits concern tile ownership. An indicator for this tile ownership is the color of an airbase. A funny effect that can be created with faulty ownership values is that a civilization attacks its own unit.

Click to expand...

And from what I found playing around a bit and using TNO's new lua feature to read the values ingame, ownership is defined by units entering the tile. So, perhaps it's used by the game mechanics to check, which tribe's units are currently present in a tile?

But it's still guesswork - if someone has a better idea ...