17th Century Outposts

This is just an idea.

When looking at a map of North America in the 1600's, one notices the existence of forts built by colonial powers, like France in particular, but also England and Spain. These forts stood out there, basically in the wilderness, outside areas effectively controlled by these colonial powers.

They built these forts for several reasons:

• It helped them "claim" land (without necessarily controlling it per se -- in Civ4 terms, they don't actually have a city there).
• It established trade posts where valuables, like fur, could be stored until transported out toward the settled areas or the metropolitan capital.

How do we convey this in Civ4 terms?

For this we need a unit that can build this "special fort" (let's call it an Outpost). It can be built within someone else's borders. If there was an open border, the outpost either provokes a diplo penalty with the land's owner (they really dislike the idea of foreign forts on their lands), or a diplo bonus if there was goodwill between the two Civs in the first place (thank you so much for helping us defend our land, and by the way we like the extra trade your fort brings us). If there wasn't an open border, we're therefore already in a state of war, so we just have one additional diplo penalty. If it was built in unclaimed wilderness, the outpost could later end up in another Civ's expanding empire, with the same result as above.

When building the outpost, the unit loses its ablity to move and becomes a permament garrison in the outpost. The outpost is removed by its owner by disbanding its garrison, or if an enemy "kills" the garrison unit.

What are the benefits of such an outpost?

It reveals tiles within a two-square radius. It also gives both its owner and the local Civ a trade route (one for the outpost's owner, and one extra route for the host Civ's capital city). The outpost also gives its owner access to any resource bonus in the outpost's space (like the old CivIII colony). If the two Civs are at war, the trade routes are cancelled. The fort's does provide a defensive bonus to other troops belonging to the owner.

The owner of the land, unfortunately, cannot work the land (or build a city) underneath the fort, lest he plants turnips there, causing the hapless edifice to collapse.

If the outpost ends up within the borders of its owner's empire, it is immediately converted to a regular fort. Obviously, you can't build it within your own borders.

That sounds like a cool idea and something I would implement if I knew how in a second.
This thread here is somewhat like it.
What if there is a small (Very chance that it might spawn a city there? There is quite a few instances where that has happened (Halifax for one) but it wasn't every where.
It would have to be in an ideal location where it would attract settlers and immigrants. Otherwise they wouldn't want to come. And if it was a government funded project to send settlers to some far off wasteland, you would just have to build a settler..

Sounds really cool!

GeneralMatt said:

That sounds like a cool idea and something I would implement if I knew how in a second.
This thread here is somewhat like it.
What if there is a small (Very chance that it might spawn a city there? There is quite a few instances where that has happened (Halifax for one) but it wasn't every where.
It would have to be in an ideal location where it would attract settlers and immigrants. Otherwise they wouldn't want to come. And if it was a government funded project to send settlers to some far off wasteland, you would just have to build a settler..

Sounds really cool!

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Thanks for the kudos!

This does require at least Python, something that I'm not skilled with alas... so we're in the same galleon.

I looked at the other thread, and I had a problem with the concept (not that I think it's wrong), because of the subject matter that I am working on now. Historically in the Americas, Europeans "encroached" upon lands owned by local indian tribes. In the other thread, the concept is to own the land around the fort, just like with a Civ4 city. That's the exact opposite of what I'm advocating. I don't want to control adjacent spaces (at least initially). What I do want is to establish a presence in an area, possibily within the borders of another Civ, influence them on a diplomatic level, and definitely trade with them. Very different approach.

Yes, there should be a chance for the outpost to become a city. This was in fact common in American history. In a Civ4 environment, this could happen only under certain conditions. The first factor has to do with time itself. If the outpost survives long enough, every so often it may spawn a settler or a merchant GP. The outpost cannot spawn any settler if it lies within another Civ's borders. The chances the outpost spawns any settler vary with how attractive the outpost's vicinity is.

I think we're in total agreement here!

I see, what I would like would be that the culture just affects the square that the fort is on, and I though that was what the other one was (But maybe I read wrong).
I agree that they definitely did encroach on the Natives territory, and that would make a really cool addition. The thing is though, in Civ terms most Native (Discounting the Aztecs, Incas' etc) did not really build cities. They were nomadic or had small almost settlements (I think of them as Population 1, 0 culture cities). So there would be space between the cities culture, room to build forts.
Also it would be hard to define where, in real life, the Natives borders were. They (Mostly rightfully) claimed it all.
This is were the whole non-culture borders would be cool.
But ah well, that would make it too complicated, and your idea would work just as well.

Maybe these forts should take an amount of time to build? That would force you for a couple turns to defend the unit so you could not go building strews of forts in enemy territory Ie England land 10 of these things in France and builds forts all through French territory while at war.

On the actually mechanics, maybe we could start with the mechanics from the Mongolian scenario's camp unit?

GeneralMatt said:

I see, what I would like would be that the culture just affects the square that the fort is on, and I though that was what the other one was (But maybe I read wrong).

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In effect, the fort controls the space it stands on. In this case, I think culture is irrelevant. I don't understand why this would be an issue.

I agree that they definitely did encroach on the Natives territory, and that would make a really cool addition. The thing is though, in Civ terms most Native (Discounting the Aztecs, Incas' etc) did not really build cities. They were nomadic or had small almost settlements (I think of them as Population 1, 0 culture cities). So there would be space between the cities culture, room to build forts.
Also it would be hard to define where, in real life, the Natives borders were. They (Mostly rightfully) claimed it all.
This is were the whole non-culture borders would be cool.
But ah well, that would make it too complicated, and your idea would work just as well.

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I didn't know where you were going with that one. What you're describing is an entirely different issue. Either way, it makes no difference to the use of the outpost.

Maybe these forts should take an amount of time to build? That would force you for a couple turns to defend the unit so you could not go building strews of forts in enemy territory Ie England land 10 of these things in France and builds forts all through French territory while at war.

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Yes, they could take longer than normal forts. With an unfriendly neighbor, this begs for trouble -- which is OK. The problem I have is the habit of the AI of spamming the game when it finds something it "likes". That's why there should be restrictions on building outposts (perhaps a nasty initial investment and a chance of an outpost dying out in the first several years of its existence, especially if its location is badly chosen). Some setting inside the Python coding should allow the user to specify how close to each other these outposts can be built.

On the actually mechanics, maybe we could start with the mechanics from the Mongolian scenario's camp unit?

Click to expand...

Perhaps...

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EDIT #1

I just thought of something. I would further restrict the building of an outpost within the "fat cross" of a foreign city, especially if that particular space is actually used by that city. In other words a city with a POP of 1 is not going to be a big problem to build an outpost nearby. On the other hand, a city with a POP of 20 almost guarantees that a foreign outpost cannot be buit within its fat cross. Makes sense?

EDIT #2

You cannot build an outpost on a space that qualifies as "worked land" (a mine, a farm, a town, etc) -- otherwise this would qualify as pillaging and as an instant Cassus Belli. The outpost, as the name implies, can only be built in an as of yet unworked space. That seems like a given!

Forgive me, I think I was half asleep, I was tired when I posted that.
Forget my last post.

EDIT #1

I just thought of something. I would further restrict the building of an outpost within the "fat cross" of a foreign city, especially if that particular space is actually used by that city. In other words a city with a POP of 1 is not going to be a big problem to build an outpost nearby. On the other hand, a city with a POP of 20 almost guarantees that a foreign outpost cannot be buit within its fat cross. Makes sense?

EDIT #2

You cannot build an outpost on a space that qualifies as "worked land" (a mine, a farm, a town, etc) -- otherwise this would qualify as pillaging and as an instant Cassus Belli. The outpost, as the name implies, can only be built in an as of yet unworked space. That seems like a given!

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Those both make a ton of sense. That would keep you from going in and sitting on there iron resource, effectively blocking a counter attack with iron units.

I do wish though, you could build forts on your tiles that are already developed, I mean, they didn't really take up that much countryside to not allow any other development. Maybe though, not being able to build forts on already developed tiles within is supposed to symbolize that they use those extra resources (From farming say) for the upkeep of the fort.

GeneralMatt said:

I do wish though, you could build forts on your tiles that are already developed, I mean, they didn't really take up that much countryside to not allow any other development. Maybe though, not being able to build forts on already developed tiles within is supposed to symbolize that they use those extra resources (From farming say) for the upkeep of the fort.

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Not at all. You'll notice perhaps that I have restrained myself from using the term "fort", replacing it with "outpost" instead. There's a reason for that... it's called "Canada Dry!"

Like in the old Canada Dry ads of the 80's, that outpost looks like a fort, smells like a fort, but ain't a fort!

Although the outpost uses the same graphics and provides the same defensive bonus, the similarity stops here. You can still build the plain vanilla fort as always, since it's not the same type of build at all. There... problem solved!

Yes, I realized they were different, I just thought I might post that off topic a little..

Though at the moment you cannot build forts on tiles that have farms and stuff, at least not that I know of (Maybe with BTS you will be able to).

I think the reason that you cannot build current forts on improved tiles is because it protects the improvement too well.

For one thing, in real life the improvement (farm, mine, plantation) would not be able to fit within the fort's walls, so it shouldn't receive any protection from the fort. But if you could build a fort on a mine and garrison troops in it, it would be like the mine was inside the fort -- very difficult to pillage.

This forces troops to come out of their fort to defend the iron mine.

Back on topic, You might want to disallow outputs to be built on any tile with a resource. You said above to block them on improvements (e.g. an iron mine), but if the foreign civ hasn't researched Iron Working yet, they won't have a mine on that tile. If you research it first, you could go around and outputs everyone's iron.

Of course, if you do this, then you could go around and see which tiles won't allow an outpost to find future deposits of strategic resources (i.e. cheat). Maybe it only blocks you from building an outpost when you know about the resource. That way, if you accidentally build an outpost on an enemy's iron, it's just good luck and can't be exploited unless you build outposts everywhere.

EmperorFool said:

Back on topic, You might want to disallow outputs to be built on any tile with a resource. You said above to block them on improvements (e.g. an iron mine), but if the foreign civ hasn't researched Iron Working yet, they won't have a mine on that tile. If you research it first, you could go around and outputs everyone's iron.

Of course, if you do this, then you could go around and see which tiles won't allow an outpost to find future deposits of strategic resources (i.e. cheat). Maybe it only blocks you from building an outpost when you know about the resource. That way, if you accidentally build an outpost on an enemy's iron, it's just good luck and can't be exploited unless you build outposts everywhere.

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I'm a bit confused by your answer. What I meant was that you could not build an outpost in a space if it has any sort of land improvement on it (mine, farm, cottage, etc). The presence of a resource bonus there should not otherwise have a bearing on whether an outpost can be built. If you end up building an outpost, accidentally or deliberately, on someone else's strategic resources, at some point you'll probably get what you deserve -- a war.

My concern here is the ability of the AI to discern the lack of access to a vital bonus within its own borders. Will it know to declare war and destroy the outpost in order to gain access to this resource (or will it declare war only because it does not like the occupying Civ in general)? Worse, will it stay put because it does not have access to a vital resource, ignoring the fact it could seize that resource very easily if it did go to war. I have very little faith in the AI's ability to make these kinds of judgements.

EmperorFool said:

Back on topic, You might want to disallow outputs to be built on any tile with a resource. You said above to block them on improvements (e.g. an iron mine), but if the foreign civ hasn't researched Iron Working yet, they won't have a mine on that tile. If you research it first, you could go around and outputs everyone's iron.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the confusion -- I misread your post, the part about "outputs". You meant outposts no doubt.

With reasonable limitations upon building outposts (such as within a city's fat cross or possibly a minimum distance requirement between outposts, etc) you'll find that it would probably make it difficult to spam another Civ's land just to hog all of its strategic resources. The proliferation of outposts within a Civ's border would cause the accumulation of diplo penalties eventually provoking a war. On the other hand, if the hosting Civ is friendly, then it would make sense to treat it as an ally, and not weaken it inconsiderately. Use the outposts to help defend it against a common foe.

And, if you go around cheating, then you do get the game you deserve! Right?

Also, as you mentioned, if they cannot be built on used tiles, most of the time a city would be using the resources as they are the most profitable squares on the map.

I'm just thinking of ways people could game the system. Certainly, though, if that's what a player wants to do, then fine. As you say, they probably like to cheat in online games. They'll get what they deserve.

Note, however, that the AI will only know to do things that it has been programmed to do. Since the game wouldn't allow you to block a resource inside another civ's borders while not at war, it hasn't been programmed to know that it needs to declare war and destroy an outpost to gain access to Iron within its borders. With enough negative diplomatic points, it may declare war anyway. Once it has, it already knows to destroy enemy units on its Iron tile and build a mine there, so at least that's a start.

EmperorFool said:

As you say, they probably like to cheat in online games. They'll get what they deserve.

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*cough* Starkingdoms *cough*

EmperorFool said:

I'm just thinking of ways people could game the system. Certainly, though, if that's what a player wants to do, then fine. As you say, they probably like to cheat in online games. They'll get what they deserve.

Note, however, that the AI will only know to do things that it has been programmed to do. Since the game wouldn't allow you to block a resource inside another civ's borders while not at war, it hasn't been programmed to know that it needs to declare war and destroy an outpost to gain access to Iron within its borders. With enough negative diplomatic points, it may declare war anyway. Once it has, it already knows to destroy enemy units on its Iron tile and build a mine there, so at least that's a start.

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That's basically what I said in Post #10...

I think that you could have it wher the ai allows you or not to build a fort in a certain area, like the way sometimes it wont accept a 'gift' unit. Or else have a diplomatic option that you can agree if you have open borders.
THe outposts should also have a one limited ammount of culture eg 50 so that you can claim ownersip over unclaimed lands