Another way to set borders

[gdr10]

In CiV, the way borders are determined has been a result of culture or war. Historically, though, a lot of borders have been determined by agreements between two countries. I think there should be an option to select who gets which tiles for borders after a war. You wouldn't be able to gain new territory, just change existing territory. What do you think?

 

[Camikaze]

This is a very intriguing idea; one that always has the potential for great discussion. That's because it involves a dilemma between realism and gameplay. On the one hand, it is entirely realistic to allow for borders to be adjusted by political agreement, especially given that you can already buy tiles in the game. But on the other hand, allowing you to reshape borders in the aftermath of a war would inevitably lead to a greater disparity in peace agreements and a higher importance given to war. That's because the winner of a war can essentially dictate terms. They can demand whatever they want. If they can just demand tiles, they can permanently take your strategic resources away from you, depriving you of any opportunity to get back into the game. That's quite an unbalancing factor.

But then you go back to the realism aspect. It's something that really should be in the game to some extent. So how do you implement it in such a way that you aren't creating that unbalance?

 

[Tee Kay]

In CiV, the way borders are determined has been a result of culture or war. Historically, though, a lot of borders have been determined by agreements between two countries. I think there should be an option to select who gets which tiles for borders after a war. You wouldn't be able to gain new territory, just change existing territory. What do you think?

Actually, that's for the most part a modern (or at least early modern) phenomenon. Throughout most of history in most places borders did change by right of conquest or cultural influence.

If I could throw in my ¥0.02, though, perhaps there could be a separate diplomacy screen for peace negotiations, and you could click on individual tiles or cities on the game map you want to annex/cede. To prevent it from being too unbalanced, AI should be more reluctant to let go of tiles that are more valuable (ie with a resource, a road or city) or which are far from border areas.

 

[Glak]

> That's because the winner of a war can essentially dictate terms.

Well the loser can always keep fighting. Meanwhile prolonged war would mean that other civs would attack you. Fear that everyone will attack you should be the mechanism that keeps wars short. If militaries were stronger, units fewer, empires smaller, rebellions were common, etc... it would create a better balance of power situation. Basically Rhye's mod is what we need standard.

 

[gdr10]

If I could throw in my ¥0.02, though, perhaps there could be a separate diplomacy screen for peace negotiations, and you could click on individual tiles or cities on the game map you want to annex/cede. To prevent it from being too unbalanced, AI should be more reluctant to let go of tiles that are more valuable (ie with a resource, a road or city) or which are far from border areas.

That was actually what I was getting at. I was thinking that maybe only a certain amount of tiles could be reassigned, and cities belonging to another civilization that had been conquered could be liberated.

 

[Scios]

This seems easily doable. You get thumbs up! 

 

[Camikaze]

> That's because the winner of a war can essentially dictate terms.

Well the loser can always keep fighting. Meanwhile prolonged war would mean that other civs would attack you. Fear that everyone will attack you should be the mechanism that keeps wars short. If militaries were stronger, units fewer, empires smaller, rebellions were common, etc... it would create a better balance of power situation. Basically Rhye's mod is what we need standard.

It doesn't really translate well to reality because as much as it would be possible for a losing side to continue in a war, they'd be utterly annihilated as a consequence a lot of the time. Conflicts in Civ, unlike in real life, often result in the complete destruction of one of the sides. So the power balance is more disparate in any peace negotiation. There is not enough incentive to continue with the war for the losing side; giving up tiles is a far better option for them than losing more cities, but it would effectively force them out of the game.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

We already have entire cities shifting hands during peace nagotiations, so why not tiles, I like it.

I would also love to be able to buy a tile. Granted the AI should be very suspicious if the player has just revealed a resource that it does not know.

 

[Glak]

> Conflicts in Civ, unlike in real life, often result in the complete destruction of one of the sides

This needs to be fixed

 

[Camikaze]

Yeah, it does need to be fixed. In one way, trading tiles could do that, if it incentivised peace over continued war. I'm sceptical as to whether it would, though.

We already have entire cities shifting hands during peace nagotiations, so why not tiles, I like it.

I think the point is that it would be fine if the valuation is done well, but that that would seem unlikely. Some tiles would be almost as good as an entire city (a city gives you unhappiness after all), yet there going price in the game at the moment is very affordable. If you translate that price to the diplomatic setting, it would be abusable.