Sovereign Borders

one of the things that infuriates me about CIV is units of other civs trespassing on my territory

the classic combination of a spearman and settler wandering through my lands looking for a place to settle just makes for a fractious opening game

borders should be seen as sacred, crossing them without a right of passage agreement should automatically trigger a war

Me too!

This is a problem with the A.I. that will settle any open piece of land no matter how worthless that city will become. This needs to be corrected.

How would you deal with sea squares? It would be annoying if you had to stop exploring for a time because signing a ROP wasn't an option.

Exactly. How about it depends on the unit also.

Dell19 said:

How would you deal with sea squares? It would be annoying if you had to stop exploring for a time because signing a ROP wasn't an option.

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Lets just say that you initially do not get your border out at sea. The border stops where your land stops. Later in the game, you could have your border out at sea.

That would be a good idea. I would like to see curraghs being able to ignore sea borders in the early game since they cannot transport units.

krasny said:

one of the things that infuriates me about CIV is units of other civs trespassing on my territory

the classic combination of a spearman and settler wandering through my lands looking for a place to settle just makes for a fractious opening game

borders should be seen as sacred, crossing them without a right of passage agreement should automatically trigger a war

Click to expand...

yeah that definitly needs to be sorted out, coz its just so annoying when they do it all the time and if you do it just once they get pissed off. i dont think crossing a border should "automatically" trigger war but definiltly need reinforcing. or have the right to kill them without causing a war...?? (just an idea)

That is one of the best idea i´ve seen!!!

The "incident" idea - that you can kill a trespassing unit without necessarily causing war - has been suggested repeatedly, and I rather like it. Of course, the civ that got it's unit should have its attitude to you drasticalyl worsened, potentially to the point of declaring war.

Also, I think you only should be able to do such attacks after having first warned them and given them a turn to go home.

The Last Conformist said:

The "incident" idea - that you can kill a trespassing unit without necessarily causing war - has been suggested repeatedly, and I rather like it. Of course, the civ that got it's unit should have its attitude to you drasticalyl worsened, potentially to the point of declaring war.

Also, I think you only should be able to do such attacks after having first warned them and given them a turn to go home.

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what about dealt with by an "independent" organisation, ala U.N.? foe example if they keep doing it, their reputation will go down and/or impose sanctions...(limit their development) so you dont have to kill the trespasser but rather arrest him?

that or instead of capturing them for workers, be able to convert their settler to your culture and settle a town for you

Dell19 said:

That would be a good idea. I would like to see curraghs being able to ignore sea borders in the early game since they cannot transport units.

Click to expand...

Great idea.

AI units going into a players territory without a right of passage has been a problem from what I have seen. If one of my units goes into one of their territories, they complain right away and insist I remove them, with the second time they insist with the threat of warfare. I have no problem with that part as mistakes can be made so if I am wanting to be peaceful I remove them. What bugs me is the fact that when I ask the same thing of them its almost always instant warfare reguardless whether we are peaceful or not. That is not right. The AI needs to be corrected with this so that their attitude is taken into account when someone asks them to remove their units from a players territory, and if they are peaceful alowing the units to be recalled peacfuly.

I do agree with some of the above also, that the ability to capture other players, AI or Human, units that wander into anothers territory. I could also see the possibility in ransoming it back to the civilization that lost the unit, or of converting it into a unit belonging to the one that did the capturing. If kept though something simular to the conversion of captured cities I think should be used. That way the captured unit isnt 100% belonging to the captor untill a few turns have passed.

I wouldn't mind ignoring land borders if it was the same for human and AI players. The AI dislikes it if you ask them to leave yet if you are in their territory then they will ask you to leave. Its an annoying double standard which means that I tend to have to watch the AI units walk through my territory unless I am planning war.

How would killing wandering units actually work since if you can attack them can they also attack your workers whilst they are still in your territory? Even if only the defending civ can attack then it seems that it could be severely exploited, unless the AI changes its tactics of disregarding borders. If the AI was to respect borders then we wouldn't need to be able to attack them without actually being at war...

I would like to see something done about this as well, however:

1. The borders in the Ancient Age should be able to be violated a little (they were actually violated, quite often, in fact).

2. The water borders should only be one square. Current international law only recognizes a 12 mile coastal zone, so why does Civ allow 200 km?

3. Submarines should be allowed to violate that coastal zone (although if caught they should cause a minor attitude hit).

4. Units that get trapped in territory should be allowed to jump. Thus, the warning should have the options, "yeah, yeah, we're going" which leaves the units where they are, "Go to hell" which does the same thing except that the attitude hit is immediate, no answer which is only slightly less than "Go to hell", "War", and "My Bad!" which moves the units immediately.

Lets just say that you initially do not get your border out at sea. The border stops where your land stops. Later in the game, you could have your border out at sea. That's an excellent, as well as realistic idea. It was only in modern times (and I use the term loosely) that people began to talk about sea and air borders.


Also, though I hate to talk about strategy in a suggestion thread, what I do to prevent invasion is line my borders with single troops. In the ancient times people often violated borders because there was nothing to stop them from doing so (and the borders were awefully sketchy). Then people began lining their borders with troops to prevent enemies from just walking in. And in the verymodern times, some countries do just that, and let their buddies in (here i'm thinking of several EU countries).
So basically, the only time when it would be realistic to prevent ntry is when you can do that easily with troops. Which actually is the real way it goes. Maybe they didn't get it wrong after all.

@Dell19: Actually, the rules work identically for human and AI players. It's just that human ones tend to be less willing to enter suicidal wars to defend their terretorial integrity/their right to violate borders.

I'd like to see the AI less willing to risk destruction by violating borders.

I don't see what would be the problem with allowing attacks on your turf. If the AI attacks any of your units, incl workers, on your territory, it would remain an act of war.

I feel it doesn't work the same as if you let the AI walk through your territory then it will still be happy with you yet if you do the same to the AI it willl be annoyed straight away. I guess it is technically the same its just that the human player has the option to keep the AI happy by allowing them to move through the human's territory.

If you're sufficiently more powerful than the AI, and in its good books, it will tend not to protest if your units move thru its turf, esp if you avoid tiles next to cities.

I just think of the annoyance of making them leave every turn. Maybe you can tell them if they enter your territory in the next 20 turns, it is an act of war.