Political Borders treaty

[Gdown94]

This is just an idea, but I suppose this is the "Ideas" section of the forum...

Anyway, I think it would be a great idea to be able to establish Political borders through treaties once you hit the reniassance era. It could be a dashed line the color of your civ or something. I think this would make the game a good bit more realistic. It would stop civs from founding cities in between your own late-game too... You could either have to sign an open borders treaty to cross the political borders, or there could be a similar set up to the way that is handled with city states, with a violation of a civ's borders upsetting them and leading to diplomatic ramifications. In the latter case, open borders would only be needed to cross into a city's definite (controlled) territory.

Take Russia, for instance. The real Russia, not Civ V Russia. They have controlled Siberia for centuries, but have hardly settled it at all, even today. Yet you don't see China founding cities there. I think Civ V should have a similar mechanic. Just an idea, though...

 

[ArnoldI]

I too though about it, and putting in the count that we can too buy tiles, some kind of "land commerce" would be inserted in the game.

 

[jozef57]

another excelent idear

 

[Terran Empress]

I like this, this should be included in the game and probably wouldn't take too long to include.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Yeah, that's a problem I already thought about. Especially in Civ5 where the fact that there's still unoccupied land in future era is highly unrealistic.

I suggested in the past that all explored land should become our immediately. That would emphasis the importance of scouts. But it's a kinda hard measure I believe, and may change the game in unexpected ways. Plus, in order to keep it all realistic, they should be misunderstanding and conflicts just from this mechanic : unless the scouts paint the land out of a giant paint jar, there would be no mean to know if an enemy scout already went through a particular place, except if we map it in the game, but that would be kinda unrealistic and "cheating", and beside forbid all kind of misunderstanding out of war, which is not the goal. After all, Civ5 puts it the perfect way : land around is considered ours, and if we settle too much close of a civ, it will hate us. That's already a little this kind of things.

But, It's not perfect, as your suggestion indicates. It still lacks something.
I think there should be an investment between the mere presence (past and present) and the built of a city (future). (especially when we know how the building of a new city implicates a lot of empire elements in the game)
Like a colony.

Colonies should be mere possession beacons. You would have to build them (costing you something, plus the time needed to move them around), and spread them in the land. Once you implant a colony, the land around it becomes your. Additionnally, maybe they would cost you a sum of gold on founding, or a sum of gold per turn, or both. All in all it may be more expensive than a simple settler, but the benefits of planting colonies instead of cities would still be kept, being finally a cheaper investment. Tips : colonists should not be more long to build than settlers. In fact, colonists should be settlers, settlers having two diffent actions like Build City and Build Colony. The differences between a colony and a city would be that a colony does not grow, but assure the terrain possession with constant scouting, scouts who would alert the main country in case of invasion. Therefore, the working of those different entities would be different, and the goal also. Colony couldn't build anything or only some basic buildings. You could turn a colony into a city at any time, but the benefits of the one would be lost in the process. (increasing civics threeshold and unhappiness)

EDIT : in fact I don't think colonies should cost gold, they should instead cost 1 pop of the nearest city on founding. Thoughts ?

EDIT II : the first sign of a rebellion of colony would be its transformation into a city without your consent. It wouldn't impact your culture or happiness, still constitute your territory, but may rebel soon or later.

 

[Bechhold]

also give us visual areas of influence/spheres regarding city states.

 

[iamdanno]

Perhaps political borders could extend 10 or 12 hexes from your city tile (or split the distance between close neighbors). Then, when other civ units pass through your political borders, war would start like culture borders now. I would love to be able to buy/sell/trade land with other players.

 

[Matches]

Here is my idea for this. I like the idea of "possession beacons" but I don't like the idea of a colony being something that doesn't grow. For "New World" situations, which basically become available after the discovery of a tech representing the beginning of the Age of Exploration, there develop 3 options for "political" border expansion besides settling new cities.

1.) Build Colony. This can only be done by a Settler (or a "Colonist" unit, if you prefer). A colony functions pretty much just like a Puppet City, only it's called a Colony, and has a shelf life of a number of turns based on the game speed. As the colony gets older, it begins to incur a happiness penalty. When it becomes out of hand, the parent civ can either "Grant Rights", which turns it into a regular city, and the regular happiness and civic downsides of that come into play, or "Grant Independence", wherein the colony becomes either a new city state or a new civilization. Ideally a "revolution" mechanism would come into play but the above is the simplest form of the idea.

2.) Claim land. Any land unit may use its turn to perform this function. When doing so, it establishes a radius of limited ownership for the civ of 3 hexes. The limits are:

-Opposing units may pass through claimed land without declaring war and with no diplomatic penalty, as long as they are not detected by the civ which claimed the land.

-If a unit is detected within the borders of a claim, it incurs a diplomatic penalty with the civ, and through diplomacy, a negotiation option is available stating "Your units are trespassing in our lands!" The offending civ may either apologize, "We will remove our troops immediately" (which expels the unit) or declare war. Of course if you don't want to risk a war you can let them wander around.

-If a trespassing civ allows its units to be expelled, and is later detected again within a land claim, they incur another diplomatic penalty, this time among all civs which are neutral/friendly to the claimant ("Your military units ignored the land claims of our friend!"). The claimant then has a choice, either declare war (with no warmonger penalty) or lose the claim. The idea being if you cannot back up your claim of land with a show of force, you have no real claim to the land.

-Land claims are not perpetual. A claiming civilization must keep a unit presence in the claimed land to maintain the claim. Claimed borders will disappear after 15 turns, however, this "clock" is reset any time a unit passes through each claim's area. So you can hold a 3-hex radius in perpetuity by leaving a unit inside it. There would need to be a new automated function for a unit called "patrol", which would instruct the unit to continuously "touch base" on any claims on a continent, in order to maintain the claim and detect intruders.

3.) Build Fort. These forts can be built by any military unit, and are kind of like toned down citadels. They do not need to be adjacent to existing borders, will take a few turns to build, establish a 1-hex border radius for the civilization that builds it, and provide a defensive bonus to a unit stationed inside. So why build a 1-hex radius fort when you can just claim the land and get 3 hexes?

-Borders established by a fort are permanent.

-Opposing units CAN pass through these borders without diplomatic penalty, but ONLY if the fort is not occupied by a unit. If the fort is occupied, entering the territory without open borders requires a declaration of war.

-The fort hex itself cannot be entered without a declaration of war, even if it is unoccupied.

-Forts can be converted into cities by a Colonist or Settler unit. Forts converted into cities start with free Walls.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

This is just an idea, but I suppose this is the "Ideas" section of the forum...

Anyway, I think it would be a great idea to be able to establish Political borders through treaties once you hit the reniassance era. It could be a dashed line the color of your civ or something. I think this would make the game a good bit more realistic. It would stop civs from founding cities in between your own late-game too... You could either have to sign an open borders treaty to cross the political borders, or there could be a similar set up to the way that is handled with city states, with a violation of a civ's borders upsetting them and leading to diplomatic ramifications. In the latter case, open borders would only be needed to cross into a city's definite (controlled) territory.

Take Russia, for instance. The real Russia, not Civ V Russia. They have controlled Siberia for centuries, but have hardly settled it at all, even today. Yet you don't see China founding cities there. I think Civ V should have a similar mechanic. Just an idea, though...

Love this idea, there is nothing uglier than controlling an entire continent, and having some jabroni settle in some forgotten worthless corner. You should be allowed to claim whole sections of land; violations would be an act of war. Moreover, imagine one could sell off these sections to other civs, i.e. the Louisiana Purchase.

There could still be a fog that prevents your from seeing what's going on in that particular section, giving a chance for goodie huts to spawn within them. Exploring you newly purchased land would always be as exciting as the first dozen turns of the game.

 

[alpha wolf 64]

I wish that there was more realistic way to claim land. S/he would explores it first, lays claim to it. So any unit would have 2 ways of moving, pass thru, or claim. to claim land, you have to end your turn it it, thu making each unit move only one hex per turn. just look at how much land that spain claimed just by getting here first.

 

[Genghis.Khan]

In terms of Avaible Mods about this concept I reccomend you the following:

- Cultural Diffusion (Gedemon) - Units can capture tiles, your culture spreads to unclaimed tiles.

- Colonies (Genghis.Khan) - Adds the Colony System

 

[killmeplease]

an outpost improvement should be avaible to build by scout/explorer
stackable with fort (like a road stacks with other improvements)
costing say 5 gold per turn
and creating an area of your culture of a certain radius
radius depends on era - 0 for anicent (1 plot), 1 for classical, 2 for medieval, 3 for renaissanse etc up to 7 in the informational era
plots of this area shouldnt be workable by cities - otherwise it would be cheaper to build outposts than to buy land.
tiles claimed by outposts should be bought by culture or gold to become workable

 

[Bechhold]

Or just allow merchants to be established inside the city state due to there being CS that are sometimes just islands.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

I like the idea of claiming empty land, but what if instead you can build a chain of forts in the desired area, with eash fort capable of extending your own borders, like with citadels now, but not allowing you to claim other Civ's territory?

 

[DudewiththeFood]

I've been thinking along these lines for a while now. In my mind, you could claim land around your cities. Land gets claimed twice as fast as it becomes controlled by culture. You can extend this through population dispersal of provinces with improvements.

Forts claim the land they are built on and if the tile is worked, claimed land can spread from here but only at a third of the rate of the city the workers come from.

Towns would also make a comeback in this system. They take twice as long for workers to build. They take -1 but +1 and if worked, claim land like forts.

A colonist (new unit discovered with civil service?) will be able to found a colony but they can only do so on a seperate continent to your capital and be coastal. These give ownership of that tile, a coastal on and one other decided by the player The player gets all gold, culture, faith, science produced by these and they claim land at a culture rate half of the average produced by cities. Each era and 3 food they produce in their tiles gives an extra unhappiness. The colony itself doesn't have population, they just have a combined yield of their 3 tiles.

Claimed land itself is like neutral territory. Anybody can cross it (unless you have the Great Wall or something) but it incurs diplomatic penalties (sometimes war). It can't be worked by populations but it is counted as friendly territory (eg healing rates) In wartime, if it is adjacent to enemy land and they move a unit there, they can claim it. Other than that, it is just an idea to rival civs where you plan on expanding to avoid war.