"Border clashes"

[cairnsy44]

I think if I tell them to get their prophets out of my country, and they don't, that it should be considered a DoW on their part.

Agreed. My most current game as Venice....Songhai and I were friends, but Askia was going hyper religious on the world. Spreading Islam all over to the continent I shared with Sweden, France, Assyria and the Huns...I had founded Judaism and everyone on my continent followed it. I asked him to stop and he refused. I waited until my DOF was up and then I DOW'd. Now his holy city is mine and he is a glorified city-state. I even got Sweden to DOW as my ally.

 

[dashwinner]

An early war, like when you see a settler coming your way, usually doesn't start for a while if you are the one who declared it, as the AI is unprepared. From then on, if you've then captured the settler and shot at any units he sends your way, you should fairly quickly get a peace deal out of it.

I do think there should be more work on the tiles. If you capture enemy tiles with a citadel during war time, I don't see why the enemy should still be mad at you. I do agree with posters that you should be able to conquer tiles, or gain them in a peace treaty. However, I'm guessing this wont be implemented, so instead I think that the penalty for using a citadel to capture tiles (during g war time only) shouldn't be penalized. If they made peace with you later on, then it should be agreed that the accept he new status of borders.

 

[Ascientist]

I definitely think that the murder of an AI's civilians in your domestic or nearby occupied territory should be an instant escalation to war....If the Canadian government decided to exterminate every fanatical protestant preacher heading north from Montana I highly doubt it would lead to anything other than violent conflict . When you or the AI commits an action in Civ, it represents the unified opinion of the parliament/monarch/high priest, not petty squabbles of townspeople on the borders. Regardless of this, the legal definition of war includes,

"War is not only an act, but a state or condition, for nations are said to be at war not only when their armies are engaged, so as to be in the very act of contention, but also when, they have any matter of controversy or dispute subsisting between them which they are determined to decide by the use of force, and have declared publicly, or by their acts, their determination so to decide it. "

I think that we can all agree that disposing of the AI's settler/GreatProphet/scout would consist of a controversy or dispute between you and the AI that you have decided to solve with the use of force.

If you want to replicate border clashes, simply destroy or enslave the offending unit, weather whatever force the AI decides to throw at you, make peace, accept the small Dilpo hit and move on. It would be unrealistic to have your militaristic actions go without retaliation.

A possible solution to the problem of the AI ignoring a threat/"don't settle near us" ect and then the player being suffering a diplo hit with other AI's is perhaps alter the AI so that if a promise/threat is broken or ignored by the AI, you receive 1/4 of the Warmonger Diplo hit with other civs in the gameb than you usually would.

Sorry for the lengthy post, I'm new to CivFanatics.

 

[CaptainPatch]

The scout example is out the window with No Trespassing. Its unclaimed territory, you have no right to say no trespassing.

Missionaries is still valid. Would you be ok with diplomatic penalties for killing civilians or do you want no repercussions to killing civilian units in your borders ?

Prior to @18th century when Surveying was perfected enough to create accurate maps, borders were generally quite "porous", being described as being "From geographic benchmark A to geographic benchmark B". It's why rivers were so popular as border demarcations: they were a hard line in the landscape that was hard to misinterpret. Absent rivers, borders tended to be rather vague -- especially to people on the ground with no clear benchmarks in sight. It's why there were so many frontier border clashes in the first place. But nations going to war over a border clash? Maybe 1 in 10, but very possibly only 1 in 50.

As for killing lone civilians in Civ V, it rarely happens. Usually the civilians are just captured by marching a Military unit onto them. If a Border Clash mechanic were instituted, just like you have the option to return civilian units to their civ of origin, just send them back to where they came from. Just have them appear at their civ's nearest city three or five turns later. (Like donating units to a CS.) The killing of another civ's units would apply almost entirely to military action against other Military units.

Border clashes are almost entirely about securing _your_ borders. Attacking someone else's city is obviously outside of your borders and inside theirs. That's an invasion/act of war in and of itself. Even if it's a city was established by sneaking a Settler through your frontier and setting up shop in your backyard. There, the usual diplomatic promise is to Demand that the other civ give you ownership of the trespassing city. (Don't hold your breath.) Once he says "No" then attacking the city is a defacto DoW. That is, the other civ WILL be attacking your units and cities, whether you say anything or not.

Basically, Border Clashes are about unit versus unit actions, while Wars involve attacking cities. [Has anyone _ever_ concluded a war without a city being attacked at some point? Honest question: I have no info on that particular demographic.]

Naturally, any kind of border clash would have some kind of negative diplomatic relationship hit for that civ and any of it's allies. (Including CS Allies.) That's the tradeoff: you maintain the integrity of your borders (out to as far as what _you_ think is reasonable [but most likely limited to some tile distance defined by the rules]), but at the cost of diplomatic tension with that civ. Build up enough tension and sooner or later somebody WILL declare war. Both sides arguing that their cause is Just and Righteous: "They declared war on us!" versus "They provoked us into declaring war!" More than likely Denouncements were exchanged some time prior to then, just adding more fuel on the fire.

But not always and not immediately. Which I think makes for a more accurate model than "It's declare war or nothing!"

Note: In regards to "natural" or "reasonable" frontiers, You start with the city center, surrounded by six hexes. Eventually, the city will grow to a radius of three workable hexes. However, secondarily, with enough years of Culture expansions, a _complete_ city encompasses a SIX hex radius. (You can see this best if you build an entirely land-locked Great Wall city with lots of elbow room.) To me, that 3-hex radius is a "reasonable" frontier. For the 6-hex radius, you better be playing on a Huge map to argue that it represents your "natural" frontier territory. Sort of equivalent to America's Manifest Destiny and "Fifty-four forty or fight!"