National borders

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Pooh

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One thing I would dearly like to see changed (or added...) in the current incarnation of Civ is how borders are defined. CivIII broke some serious ground by introducing borders and they're pretty well what kept me playing it instead of CivII. That said, I do think there is significant scope for improvement.

The current system is flawed in two ways. One, I don't believe that having more churches in a city should allow a civ to push back another civ's borders. This just doesn't seem very reasonable. Secondly, the current system has resulted in a system of warfare that is essentially a monotony of seiges. This gets rather dull from a gameplay perspective and doesn't reflect history all too well.

What I propose is that beyond a city's "fat cross", it be left to a civ's military units to claim territory. This could be accomplished either through an action, or occur implicitly as they walk over the territory. Clearly limitations to this would need to be introduced; units like helicopters shouldn't be able to claim territory and some form of balancing against the extreme advantage of expansionist civs early game would need to be introduced. One idea I particularly like is that national borders could be a technology, prior to which discovery cities exist as city-states, somewhat as they did in Ancient Greek civilization.

Claiming territory like this would add some interesting nuance to the game. Wars, rather than being an endless string of seiges, could be fought over strategic resources. Suppose, for example, that there is an oil resource just across the border. Rather than hope to outculture your foe or waste resources attacking a city, it would be possible to march soldiers onto the desired square and claim it. This makes it necessary to defend and garrison strategic areas, rather than just cities. Long, undefended borders between hostile civilizations would be a thing of the past and battles would be fought in the field as well as for cities. Forts would finally become important structures, rather than pseudo useless. New options in the diplomatic interface could be added to negotiate for lost territory when peace is made.

That's about it for now. Any critiques, suggestions are welcome. And of course, if any modders are reading, please consider taking this on as a project!!! :)
 
I think the reason you need borders like they have in CivIII and cIV is to keep out the stupid AI. It really bothered me that in Civ II, a rival country could build cities all around your cities. The only way to claim ground was to station soldiers all over the field, or put up so many cities that there were no more holes left. Now, I can have a border that keeps enemy cities away from me. I like your idea about having a border by having troops (no matter how much the US's culture grows and how much other citizens flock to our country, you don't see whole cities simply changing countries.), but I do think you should be able to create borders between your cities. I think culture should grow one beyond the fat cross, and then have the military claim it from there. I just don't see how smart the AI would be to use that system, or how unbalanced the game would become.
 
the borders as they are now are the cultural influence, however, history shows that cultural influence doesn't care about national borders (see the different culture-style, for example in architecture) grew from Firenze and others to France and up north to the united provinces. those regions didn't suddenly become Italian

national borders are in a lot of cases established through natural borders, so a systems where at first it grows with the fat cross, then one or two tiles with culture and afterwards it "floats" up to the coast, a river, a mountain-edge would be more realistic. in addition to this you could have "forts" occupy parts of another country (as in: when you build + GARRISON!! a fort, the resources just around can be used by your civilization)
 
I like the idea of using military units to expand boarders...I wonder how this would play out with the current culture system if both were used. It may lead to more interesting tactics.
 
Pooh said:
One thing I would dearly like to see changed (or added...) in the current incarnation of Civ is how borders are defined. CivIII broke some serious ground by introducing borders and they're pretty well what kept me playing it instead of CivII. That said, I do think there is significant scope for improvement.

The current system is flawed in two ways. One, I don't believe that having more churches in a city should allow a civ to push back another civ's borders. This just doesn't seem very reasonable. Secondly, the current system has resulted in a system of warfare that is essentially a monotony of seiges. This gets rather dull from a gameplay perspective and doesn't reflect history all too well.

What I propose is that beyond a city's "fat cross", it be left to a civ's military units to claim territory. This could be accomplished either through an action, or occur implicitly as they walk over the territory. Clearly limitations to this would need to be introduced; units like helicopters shouldn't be able to claim territory and some form of balancing against the extreme advantage of expansionist civs early game would need to be introduced. One idea I particularly like is that national borders could be a technology, prior to which discovery cities exist as city-states, somewhat as they did in Ancient Greek civilization.

Claiming territory like this would add some interesting nuance to the game. Wars, rather than being an endless string of seiges, could be fought over strategic resources. Suppose, for example, that there is an oil resource just across the border. Rather than hope to outculture your foe or waste resources attacking a city, it would be possible to march soldiers onto the desired square and claim it. This makes it necessary to defend and garrison strategic areas, rather than just cities. Long, undefended borders between hostile civilizations would be a thing of the past and battles would be fought in the field as well as for cities. Forts would finally become important structures, rather than pseudo useless. New options in the diplomatic interface could be added to negotiate for lost territory when peace is made.

That's about it for now. Any critiques, suggestions are welcome. And of course, if any modders are reading, please consider taking this on as a project!!! :)
Click to expand...

I really like this idea. It would make much more sense from a Historical Perspective and I agree that it would make the game more interesting. Forts and Castles could be incorporated into this system (currently I just walk around them), but it would also be a fight for the land.

Nice idea.
 
Rainlife said:
national borders are in a lot of cases established through natural borders, so a systems where at first it grows with the fat cross, then one or two tiles with culture and afterwards it "floats" up to the coast, a river, a mountain-edge would be more realistic. in addition to this you could have "forts" occupy parts of another country (as in: when you build + GARRISON!! a fort, the resources just around can be used by your civilization)
Click to expand...

Some interesting ideas there... I'm not sure about culture "floating" out from the cities, I would still tend to prefer military units claiming territory for their homeland (imagine how this would be on a New World-type map). Going to forts claiming territory by having a small sphere of influence (surrounding 8 squares maybe...) is an interesting compromise, but would beg the question, why not plunk a city? I suppose under the current system you wouldn't want to place a suboptimal city, since each one costs, whereas forts could be maintenance free after unit costs. Nonetheless, I think (wo)men on the ground should be the defining characteristic of ownership so I still prefer claiming the territory as I described above.

@ GeorgeOP: Borders are what got me into CivIII and I think the new rules in terms of closing them them in CivIV are great. That is the definitive improvement over CivII. But what I propose doesn't take that away, it just creates what I believe to be a more interesting way to build your civilization and addresses a warfare issue that irritates me a lot (the necessity of seiges).

P.S. Does anyone know whether this would actually be possible to implement?
 
I like the idea too, but i have something to add.

Only from middleages and onwards territory can be claimed military.
When resources are being claimed outside your originally borders you also need to have contact to your originally borders to the resource.

resource - your territory - your city

But then when you reach the modern eras you can just claim the resource and the resource will be transported to your city by airtransport, as long as there is a military defender on the resource.

resource - enemy territory - your territory - your city
 
I don't think this is such a good idea. My main concern is the possible cost for the military units.

If you need to not only put troops in your cities to defend them, but also on your resources you will pay a rather large upkeep, or use a civic that limits you in other ways.
 
I have an idea of how something like this could be done. Lets stay with how cultural borders are established currently. They grow and grow based on culture threasholds or until they butt up against another civ's borders.

Lets say that borders that have been established never shrink like they do in the game. They grow until they can't grow anymore but never shrink. Currently the game uses the culture ratio of two cities to determine who's borders shrink and who's grows. Rather than doing that what it should do is use the culture ratio to determine hoe many tiles into which civ's borders are disputable. Disputable means that diplomacy options are available for demanding those tiles or gifting those tiles, etc..

Of course those disputed tiles could also be taken by military means. For example the disputed tiles will remain within civ A's borders until units from civ B occupies them with military units. Of course this would start a war but the tiles would belong to Civ B until the culture ratio placed them into dispute again in favor or Civ A at which point Civ A could reoccupy them and take them back..

Anyway, it would ensure that borders were contiguous and that a city couldn't have all of its tile's taken and would also prevent taking of tiles from enhancing ones movement rate etc.. (aka tiles you own you can use railroads etc. Tiles you don't own apply a movement penalty)..
 
I would definitely like to see more advanced border dynamics that are not purely city based. The idea obviously needs further development for its implementation, but I'm all for the concept. :)
 
Pooh said:
(...)Suppose, for example, that there is an oil resource just across the border. Rather than hope to outculture your foe or waste resources attacking a city, it would be possible to march soldiers onto the desired square and claim it. This makes it necessary to defend and garrison strategic areas, rather than just cities. Long, undefended borders between hostile civilizations would be a thing of the past and battles would be fought in the field as well as for cities. Forts would finally become important structures, rather than pseudo useless. New options in the diplomatic interface could be added to negotiate for lost territory when peace is made.(...)
Click to expand...

Agreed. This is essencial to the way Civ 4 currently works. :)

Cheers,

Mad Hab
 
Some additional thoughts (some based on comments above, others fresh):

- Unclaimed territory is claimed implicitly as you pass over it with your units, saving early game micromanagement
- Rival territory must be claimed through a unit action
- Border remain impenetrable unless at war or open borders, as currently
- Another civ's territory cannot be claimed unless it is contiguous to your own. I.E. One cannot march into the middle of another civ to claim a tile.
- The exception to this is building forts in enemy territory. The fort tile is claimed, but only it. This may need to be activated by a certain technology and would be useful for beach-heads
- A diplomacy option the negotiate for territory.
- Diplomacy options for forts too - they should be named and tradable
- Unit costs may need to be adjusted to account for possibly needing more units to adequately defend borders. Note, however, that you don't need them all along you border, or at all, even. Just in areas you deem strategic

That's it for now. Does anyone know if the AI would be smart enough to work under this system?

Regards,

Pooh
 
If anyone's played Rise of Nations they do borders for an RTS games. Cities spread your borders, but Castles/Forts can also spread your borders.

They offer you a realistic version of using a military option to enforce borders against a culture push. I'd like to see that implemented in some sort of way. Maybe it becomes a zone with no border for either civ?

I'm not quite sure what can be done, without making the current culture border push obsolete.
 
zarakand said:
I'm not quite sure what can be done, without making the current culture border push obsolete.
Click to expand...

What to do with the current culture system of extending borders has been one of the big questions dogging me, since it wouldn't be compatible the suggested land claim technique... maybe it could factor into some kind of diplomatic bonus depending on culture ratio? Other ideas are welcome
 
How about allowing military units to "claim" unclaimed territory. Initially, only the square they are standing on would be yours. Over time, the boarder would spread, maybe at a faster rate depending on the number of units and how close it is to your capitol. If your unit leaves the square, the boarder disappears. This way, you wouldn't have to worry about someone taking your territory with units unless they declaired war. If the boarder grows enough over time, you might decide to plop a city there. In my opinion, this seems like the most balanced solution.

Maybe this could be implemented by creating a new command "claim territory" which generates X culture per turn per unit. If the unit is destroyed, the culture is gone just like if your city is destroyed.
 
I think that there should be four levels of tiles: unclaimed, claimed, improved, and city/worked. An unclaimed tile is claimed by clicking it on the map after it is reveal and the tile does have to be connected to your other claimed tiles but the further away the tile is from your cities the more likely it is that the AI will ignore your claim. The claimed tiles are your border and other civs can't enter them. However, they can dispute your claim by also claiming the tile thus allowing their units to enter tile. Improved tiles are tiles that have an improvement on them (roads/railroads don't count). Improved tiles work similarly to claimed tiles, the AI will ignore that you improved(and claimed) the tile if its far from your cities. City/worked tiles can't be claimed by another without being at war. Cities cant work a tile outside of the fat hex. Thus the distance a tile is from your city is important. Also, forts (which are mostly useless now) if occupied and connected to a city by trade route can work the adjacent tiles. As stated in another post a tile claim trading/demanding diplomacy menu is needed. From this culture is regulate to social policies (as it should be) and gold doesn't buy tiles but can be used to get another civ to remove its claim on the tile. Also you get to use your best tiles in the fat hex quicker instead of waiting 20+ turns to get resources in the third ring of hexs. So those are my thoughts on the concept, take what you like from it, hopefully it at least gives you some ideas.
 
I can’t see them taking culture out of it (no matter how much it makes senses to do so)

So atm we have

1. Unclaimed land. Where anyone can move, build road and found cities

2. Land within your cultural control. Where the person who controls can build improvements can build cities can move and grant other people the rights to move

Idea for claimed land

1. Unclaimed land. Where anyone can move and found cities.(can no longerbuild road you need to claim the land 1st)

2. Land within your cultural control. Where the person, who controls can build improvements, can build cities, can move and grant other people the rights to move.

3. Claimed. Where the person who has claimed can build improvements, can build cities, can move and grant other people the rights to move.

Any unit can claim land (as long as it is next to land you already control or claim)
You pay a maintenance cost to claimed land.
If you cannot pay the maintenance the land goes back to its Unclaimed state one tile ata ime untill you can afored to pay forthem again any improvements are destroyed (starting with witht he latest claim)
By default you citys culture fills in over land you have claimed
 
Well, concernig land claims I would suggest that neutral tiles in the middle of your territory that are surrounded by your own land become automatically part of your empire or, at least, these tiles should be much cheaper to buy.
Maybe there should be two types of claimed territory: (i) claimed by a city and (ii) claimed by the empire
Tiles claimed by the empire are tiles that are annexed by military means and tiles that are automatically added to your empire because they are surrounded by your own land (first sentence in this post).
To be able to work a tile it must be claimed by a city (buy or cultural growth), taking into account that tiles already claimed by the empire should be much cheaper.
 
No Civ has really simulated the transition from the imperial borders and the transition to national borders (under self determination and a culturual/ethnic identify)

It actually sort of skirts this very tricky issue, which has caused millions of death via wars and genocide, by assuming each civ is 1 ethnicity and as soon as you take over a city, they become part of your 'nation'. I use nation and empire interchangeably here even when you're in the medieval era and nationalism hasn't been invented yet.

There is a mechanic in Civ3 to track nationalities, and this game certainly does track who was the previous owner, but to model it would require layered borders. You'd have your cultural borders of your ethnic Civilization, your political borders (borders you claim to control). So a key gameplay element and something that would slow expansion would then be to try to assimilate conquered lands as fast as possible and make then produce the same culture as yours.

This of course would lead to the scale of genocide not seen since the 'starving a foreign city' mechanisn of Civ3.

Sounds like a concept for Civ6. :)
 
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