A new system for determining national borders. One that makes sense!
Recently I've been debating what changes should be made to forts in Civ 4, but I realised some of the best ideas for making them useful again were hindered by Civ4's border system. Since Civ3, I thought it a bit weird that borders should depend on culture alone. Many of us have probably forgotten how flawed the concept is, or gotten used to it and so don't ask for anything better. I know the idea of negotiable borders has been around on the forums for a long time though. Is Firaxis listening?
Below I propose a new system for how borders are determined. My apologies if these ideas are the same as former suggestions, and I'm sure they will be similar to some. These suggestions are mainly for the development of Civ5 but also for modders of Civ4. I would love if someone took this idea further and made it into a mod. However, I suspect the changes needed, especially to diplomacy, would be too great to do in Civ4's framework.
The system I propose is, of course, not perfect and to demonstrate this I have already noted some issues and concerns I believe would hold back this idea. Most of these concerns would be because of the nature of the game changing, but if Civ didn't change between each title, it'd get a bit boring. In my opinion a change to borders is overdue - it should have been done for Civ4. I would be disappointed if borders were not reworked for Civ5.
I'd like to know what you think of the idea. I'm sure there'll be critical things I've overlooked or forgotten to mention. Perhaps my whole idea'll be shot down! Other people will have even better ideas about borders which don't depend on just culture.
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Overview
First, an overview of the changes I'd like:
Roughly speaking, borders should be able to be renegotiated through diplomacy, where the stronger nation has more power to dictate the borders, be that through intimidation or by trade. Failed negotiations could result in war. Once at war, the aggressor would need to push back the border by occupying the territory he wants. If he's able to hold the territory, the borders will be redefined so that he owns the territory he has successfully invaded. You wouldn't be able to hold an empire the size of Russia, for example, unless you had a mighty military to defend its borders. Through diplomatic negotiations, the leader proposing the change would need to draw out the new border, or "highlight" the contested tiles he would like to have.
Basically the whole premise of this system is that ownership of a tile will be taken away only if you allow it or it is forcefully taken from you. It's that simple. No more of these weird "steam roller" scenarios. If you want to steam roll, you must do it with culture and force!
THE PROPOSED BORDER SYSTEM
I would like to disassemble the whole idea of borders depending solely on culture as they do in Civ 3 and 4, and rebuild a more sensible and realistic system for borders. I believe borders should depend on 3 things, all being critical in some way. They are:
- Culture
- Military occupation, and
- Diplomacy
I believe the changes below do not depart far from the civilization game we already know and love yet at the same time would add a lot more strategy to the game.
I will do my best to explain in detail the changes I propose. Bear with me, for some of the detail is a bit wordy but that is because the current culture system is very complicated and I would like to try and keep it as similar as possible to Civ4 while introducing the new ideas.
In the beginning, borders will still depend mainly on culture. An infant city will not be able to claim territory any more than the 8 tiles adjacent to it, just like in Civ4 now. However, as it matures and its cultural influence on the surrounding region increases, it can claim more territory. In particular, it can now work the tiles that are in the traditional "fat cross" or more technically the 2-tile radius. Borders will continue to expand by culture in the usual way until a border attempts to expand across an existing border of a rival. At this point, whoever claimed the tile first keeps control of it. "Finders keepers" if you will, or "I called it first!". Culture alone will NEVER cause a tile to flip from one civ to another. However, as in Civ4, for the purpose of calculations culture of the various civs who have influence over that tile will accumulate (and be stored) on the tile. This will be important later for when I describe how military occupation can flip territory. The old "culture bomb" from Civ4 will be mostly useless now, except for claiming unowned territory or making it easier for military occupation to flip tiles.
Border dynamics will be most exciting when two civs go to war. An aggressor will be able to take territory by invading and occupying for a sufficient time. However, he will only be able to take territory which he has some influence on already ie. some culture of his is on the tile. So he can't just make his territory as big as he likes but he's only likely to be fighting for territory that is close to him so this is not a great concern.
If the aggressor invades a tile which he does not own but has at least some cultural influence over, he will be given the option to absorb that tile into his territory. (I have not decided yet whether or not it should be a requirement that the tile be adjacent to the aggressor's territory.) To do this, there will be an action for the unit to choose. Something like "Absorb territory" or "Repossess land". Just like a worker takes a number of turns to complete a tile improvement, a military unit will take a number of turns occupying the tile before it flips. Stacking units and giving them the same order will speed up the process, just as it does with workers. You might already have guessed where I'm going with this. Well, the number of turns it will take to absorb the territory will depend on both the tile culture of the occupying civ and the civ who owns the tile. Exactly what this dependency will be is something that will need to be given careful thought. But as an example, stealing territory from a civ who has a stronger influence on the tile may take 10 turns, but then it may only take the owner 1 or 2 turns to get it back when the invader is removed. Of course, this dependency on both the civ's cultures need not (and probably should not) be linear.
I would allow the occupying unit/s to fortify on the tile, while they work on repossessing it. So perhaps the "Absorb territory" action should be removed and the action made automatic instead, like how naval units in Civ4 automatically blockade cities and force citizens off working water tiles. A coloured number (inside some fancy graphic) could hover over the tile to indicate the number of turns it will take for the flip. However, with the automatic method, it would be confusing how this number would change as units moved off of the tile so even better would be 2 numbers; one being the raw number of unit-turns remaining, and the other being the effective number of turns remaining given the number of units present ie. (raw#turns)/(#units).
But why should you need to invade to get the land? Wouldn't it be nicer to just ask the owner nicely? ... Well yes, and now you can.
In the following let's assume the two bordering nations are lead by Bismark and Napolean. Suppose Bismarck wants some of the land that Napolean controls, but he does not want to go to war and invade. If he has some cultural influence over the land in question, he may enter negotiations with Napolean regarding ownership of the land. He must highlight the land he wants to claim. If Bismarck is the human player, this would be done at the interface (something which obviously isn't in Civ4 at the moment) by highlighting the land by physically mousing over it, or perhaps by drawing the new border-line if there is a lot of land. Other things can be put on the table, to make the deal fair. Napolean might ask, for example, that he be given 100 gold in return. If an agreement is reached, the territory would change hands, and if they didn't have an open border agreement, any units now in foreign territory will be moved out. That is all there is to the diplomatic method. So we are now almost done describing the new system entirely.
Essentially, diplomacy and military occupation are the two methods one uses to claim contested territory.
Now for a technicality...
One thing left is to describe how cities change hands. This is in a box because it is not really important but it needs mentioning nonetheless.
Suppose a city has been successfully captured by an attacker from a defender. First the city is given to the successful attacker and set to radius 1 (or whatever its maximum radius has been under previous ownership by the capturing civ ie. there's a dependence on the history of the city if it was previously owned by the attacking civ).
Now consider each tile that was inside the radius of the city and owned by the defender, before the defender lost it.
Each tile is distributed as follows:
1) If the tile is inside the radius of any of the defender's cities, the defender keeps it.
2) If the tile is not inside the radius of ANY cities, then it becomes neutral.
3) If the tile is not inside the radius of any of the defender's cities and it is inside the radius of one of the attacker's cities, then the attacking civ who has the highest culture on the tile gets it.
4) If the tile is not inside the radius of any of the defender's cities and is also outside the radius of all the attacker cities and has culture from a third party civ, then the third party civ with the highest culture on the tile gets it.
In one of the posts below I put an example (using pictures) of how territory changes hands.
An extra rule should be necessary for while the city is in resistance. This still needs more thought. I'd need to study the current culture model for the capture of cities before I can make this more precise.
Under these rules, you would still not be able to use military conquest of civA to push into the borders of civ B. Its benefit is that territory that may be of use to the attacker goes to the attacker even if outside the attacker's current cultural influence, while the rest goes to civ B.
I realise the rules on when cities change hands are imprecise as I've stated them, since this is where I'm most confused how borders should work. I suspect it will be the hardest thing to set down for this system.
Conclusion
The system I have proposed would be very similar to Civ4's for the first part of the game, when the civs do not experience much culture overlap. But as the civs attempt to expand into more land, they start to realise the world is a crowded place and they'll have to trade, bully or fight for more land.
Reiterating what I said earlier, the whole premise of this system is that ownership of a tile will be taken away only if you allow it or it is forcefully taken from you. It's that simple.
The system will make the change of borders more significant, unlike the hard-to-control and sort of random flow of culture borders in Civ4. No longer can civs who are supposed "friends" steal your territory and leave it up to you to declare war to take it back. This was always unfair in Civ4.
You can get tensions between nations who for some reason will not go to war. If I want your territory and you won't give it to me peacefully, then you can ask of me, "What are you gonna do about it, huh?" I could declare war on you to show you how serious I am. Maybe then you'll hand over the territory for peace because you don't want to lose even more. If not, we'll settle the dispute with our fists!
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AI Difficulties?
I don't believe it would be all that difficult for AIs to cope with such a system. This is an important consideration for implementation in a Civ game because if the AIs can't handle a game mechanic properly it feels wrong to utilise it as the human player. The bigger problem is the change in the interface for the human player, making it difficult (I suspect impossible) for a Civ4 mod. But please feel welcome to prove me wrong there.
An Aside - Ideas that could work well with this system
Note: Now that it has been revealed that in BtS, colonies and forts have been reworked/added, I will hold back on these ideas for the moment. For those interested they are still here if you want to look, but it may be they'll be obsolete now.
-FORTS:
Spoiler:
Forts would have a maximum culture radius of 1 tile. A fort would apply 1CPT (culture points per turn) onto the tile and the 8 surrounding tiles. So cities will have more influence on land than forts, but forts will not be completely culture-lacking. Forts could be built only in the owner's territory or neutral lands, and only on tiles with no jungle or forest. In either case, remember that ownership of a tile will not flip due to culture alone so a fort will not be destroyed or repossessed if another civ then builds a city or fort nearby. Forts could be built on the same tile as a colony (see below) or any other tile improvement. They would give 50% defense to units on the same tile. It would take 20 worker-turns to build, and would only be available after construction. If a fort is captured it will not flip any tiles to the nation of the capturer. The capturer will however get the defensive benefit of the fort. To own the land under the fort, the capturer must go through the usual method of claiming territory. That is, he must hold the tile for a certain number of turns. Then he will own the fort and start pouring culture onto the surrounding tiles. Note the surrounding tiles will not become his unless he claims them too. If a civ's fort is captured or destroyed (through pillaging), then a similar thing will happen as when a city is taken. The surrounding tiles that do not lie inside the radius of any other of the civ's forts or cities will be lost to the capturer.
-COLONIES:
Spoiler:
A colony could be built on a resource tile, like in Civ3 (I think). This colony would not produce ANY culture. The tile alone will be owned by the civ who built it. A colony can only be built in neutral land and only on a resource. A colony would take 10 worker-turns to build plus whatever it usually takes to build the resource-specific improvement and a road (alternative: consumes the worker), and would be available to workers very early, perhaps even from the game start or with a starting tech. A fort could be built on top of a colony to help protect it. A colony will not change ownership or automatically be destroyed if it is captured. As with the fort, to claim the colony, the attacker must hold the tile for the necessary number of turns. However remember that enemy occupation of a tile removes ones ability to use the resource, and since the fort produces no culture the number of turns needed to flip will usually be small - probably only one. In a way, a colony is a bit like a tiny blob of territory (not culture) you can throw out in the middle of nowhere. It's equivalent to having a worker spend 10 turns (alternative: consuming a worker) to "claim" a piece of land, except that the land has to have a resource under it, and then building the resource-specific improvement with a road. Forts might appear to do everything a colony does and more, since it gives actual culture and a defensive bonus, but a fort does not automatically provide access to a resource - the resource improvement and road must still be built. Also, forts are more expensive and are available later than colonies.
Potential gameply issues:
If two nearby rival cities both have very high culture and so have a lot of culture overlap, and a third party civ comes along and captures one of the cities, then the remaining city will engulf the captured city (except for the 1 tile radius). If the civ who lost the city recaptured it, he would not get any of the territory that the engulfing civ just stole. He would only get back the 1 tile radius and any territory which the other city didn't have influence on. This is a serious problem as I don't think this would be fair. Perhaps it could be fixed by only allowing the engulfing civ to take territory that he had more culture on than the defending civ. That way at least the defending civ, when he retakes his city, gets back the tiles he at least deserves but he may have lost some of the tiles he previously owned which he didn't really deserve.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anonymous
I like the culture dynamic, it shows that your not playing a "Nation" with a border, but an actual culture group containing many nations within itself.
Personally I have no qualms with ignoring the distinction between civilization and nation for the sake of the game. I would not be bothered if borders were more like national borders than cultural borders, since they are pretty much used in that way already. If a culture can attack and capture another culture's city and then claim it to be its own, then I see no difference in the taking of land as well. In fact I'd argue the taking of land is more realistic than the taking of cities (and assimilation of the population) anyway.
Culture flips (of cities) might no longer exist or need some modification for the proposed system. I'd be happy to leave culture flips in. As far as I can imagine, they could be much the same as in Civ4.
The changes could perhaps make the game more military focused, which I know will divide a lot of people. This is hard to tell actually and more likely the game being more military or not will depend on other changes to the game that would take place in a mod or for Civ5. It could make the game less military as well, since you no longer have to go to war to take territory. It'd probably give more variety to games instead of making it more or less military focused. You'd still need to weigh the consequences of going to war should a civ refuse the territory you want. If you wanted a game with less bullying then you could play a lower difficulty (perhaps the Settler difficulty could have rivals never go to war with you over a territory dispute).
It could be argued culture will become a bit less important in the game. However I don't believe so. It is easier to take territory you have a large influence over, and you can only claim territory you have an influence over in the first place. I think its dependence on culture is sensible but still ample.
It's possible that this system is unfair on the little guy. By that I mean if you are weak militarily then it'll be easy for stronger nations to bully you into giving them your territory. But this is perfect! It means that you must build enough military to look after your empire! Failing that, you'll be relegated by your larger neighbours to a piece of land more your size. And besides, the only way your land can be taken from you without your permission is if the aggressor proves he is more worthy than you by storming through your lands unopposed while you cower in a hole somwhere!
Technical issues:
-Since the aggressor can only steal territory he has some influence over, it would be required that somehow the game interface would show that he has some culture on the tile. I should be able to see at a glance how far I could push my borders if I were to go to war. The current Civ4 interface at least shows ratio of civs' cultural influences on a tile when it is moused-over, and while this would suffice technically it would be nicer to be able to see more clearly the precise tiles which are contested without the mouse-over. The new mouse-over could specify how many turns it would take to absorb the tile if you were to invade.
General Discussion
I believe the dependency on culture for onwership of a tile is a nice way to stop empires expanding militarily indefinitely.
One thing I haven't spoken about yet is perhaps making certain arrangements automatically between peaceful neighbours. For example, if a peaceful rival civ owns some of the territory from the fat cross of one of my cities, and that territory is not inside the fat cross of any of their cities, it would be nice if they'd let me have the territory. I would prefer not to make it automatic, but it's an idea nonetheless.
Another idea to think about:
If you are trying to take territory (through occupation) which is inside the fat cross of one of your cities, perhaps the number of turns to take the tile should be 1 regardless of how much culture you have on the tile (as long as it is at least nonzero).
way.
