Border expansion points

[masda_gib]

I don't think the border expansion in Civ5/6 is perfect, but it makes at least some sense and it works, so I wouldn't make huge changes to the system. The problem is - can this be made more realistic? How were borders formed in the real life in the past? When conquering an "empty" land (like Australia, America etc. - the areas that didn't belong to native people), how did this work?
The most typical way of border shaping is by war or diplomacy (+ economy). In the game you cannot buy a land from other player and you cannot directly acquire tiles by war (only all tiles around one city). Maybe this ability would be nice, but I cannot really imagine a good implementation.

For claiming truly empty lands the game mechanics is settlers. Because as a nation you can claim some lands all you want on paper - but without some human presence at least in the form of patrols it is just an empty claim. I would even say it would be a strange option to claim land tiles far away from your cities without serious restrictions... because how... and why?
When I think of means of border shaping, there is war, diplomacy, police/enforcement presence, ability to give some benefits to the people (protection, social welfare) and also culture and religion.
In game terms apart from war only economy (producing settlers), culture (in direct form and I think a policy card that accelerates growth) and religion (religious settlements) contribute to border growth. Theoreticly you also can buy cities in trade deals but apart from peace deals that isn't really possible.

I would like some later, stronger policy cards that help border growth or even tile flipping. Policies that symbolise police/patrols or state welfare.
Also encampments and maybe forts claiming unclaimed tiles would be nice.

If far off tiles can be claimed easier then I think the claim on unprotected tiles should also be able to weaken. So if I somehow gain tiles far away from my cities they are only mine until some other civ establishes a stronger presence there e.g. by settling a city.

I see "culture" more as a general "things people do", which is unaligned with a specific civilization; otherwise, you should give each civ it's unique culture tree with their special cultural developments. If you just think about the civics you have, like Political Philosophy, Feudalism, Opera And Ballet, Social Media, etc, they're advancements in culture, but have nothing to do with which nation someone feels like he belongs to.

Okay. I won't derail the thread with a philosophical discussion about what national identity is. XD

 

[Olleus]

But then what would the point of culture be? It would be a purely global currency (like science). There would be no incentive to build a monument in a brand new city to pop the borders faster.

Now you could make a new "border expansion points" system that would be culture plus a few other things. But what would be the point? Unless it gives you new ways of interacting in the game that are significant enough to change player behaviour, there's no need for it. Paradox does this all the time, constantly adding new counters that measure some or other abstract part of the game. 90% of the time it's a stat I completely ignore, and the the other 10% of the time I have to press +/- on some slider. The result is tons of clutter and an even steeper learning curve for the game (with EU4 I feel like having a massive learning curve after every patch, always adding yet another screen with yet another irrelevant stat).

 

[TomKQT]

But then what would the point of culture be? It would be a purely global currency (like science). There would be no incentive to build a monument in a brand new city to pop the borders faster.

Now you could make a new "border expansion points" system that would be culture plus a few other things. But what would be the point? Unless it gives you new ways of interacting in the game that are significant enough to change player behaviour, there's no need for it. Paradox does this all the time, constantly adding new counters that measure some or other abstract part of the game. 90% of the time it's a stat I completely ignore, and the the other 10% of the time I have to press +/- on some slider. The result is tons of clutter and an even steeper learning curve for the game (with EU4 I feel like having a massive learning curve after every patch, always adding yet another screen with yet another irrelevant stat).

I agree with this. I don't think the game needs more "counters" or "points" or "currencies". Making a new one and giving it a part of the current functions of culture would just make culture less interesting and as you said, it would becore a purely global number.
Having too many quite similar factors was one of the things I didn't like in Civ4 with all the datadiscs. Things like health and happiness per city were almost identical, in both cases you were dealing with them by buildings, tile improvements, wonders and policies (or how was the system called in that game).

 

[dagriggstar]

I would honestly go the other way - remove the civics tree, try to implement a border expansion system similar to IV, and maybe link government legacy bonuses to amount of culture generated.

Ultimately I would love for some way of negotiating borders with other civs. Something like culture influences the % of population of each individual tile. If you acquire (by force or negotiation) tiles where you don't have the majority you take an amenity hit. This is probably unrealistic for VI though....

 

[agonistes]

I feel like this whole thread perfectly mimics a conversation the devs had at some point in the early development phase.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I want to remind you that with new expansion(s) each of the vanilla games of civ 4, civ 5 and beyond earth added a new currency type, respectivally espionage points (BTS), faith (G&K) and diplomatic capital (BERT). So the discussion about adding a new currency type seems a bit redundant, because it seems highly likely that in a new expansion for civ6 new mechanics will be introduced with some based upon a new currency type.
So the question is (at least for me) whether border growth should be evolved around a new currency type. It doesn't have to be. But I would like to see that besides culture border growth would be affected also by city strength and population, whether it would be done with modifiers or a new currency. If it would be done with a new currency then it should not be limited to border growth only, because that would be verry dull. As in @Cerilis example new mechanics can be developed around the new currency type.

 

[TomKQT]

I want to remind you that with new expansion(s) each of the vanilla games of civ 4, civ 5 and beyond earth added a new currency type, respectivally espionage points (BTS), faith (G&K) and diplomatic capital (BERT). So the discussion about adding a new currency type seems a bit redundant, because it seems highly likely that in a new expansion for civ6 new mechanics will be introduced with some based upon a new currency type.
So the question is (at least for me) whether border growth should be evolved around a new currency type. It doesn't have to be. But I would like to see that besides culture border growth would be affected also by city strength and population, whether it would be done with modifiers or a new currency. If it would be done with a new currency then it should not be limited to border growth only, because that would be verry dull. As in @Cerilis example new mechanics can be developed around the new currency type.

Yes, the expansions added NEW currencies for completely new mechanics. In this thread some of us are against adding a new currency for a feature that already is in the game and just shares its currency with something else.

 

[agonistes]

I want to pipe in here, but tourism keeps catching my eye.

Tourism has a yech factor of offering nothing except points towards a victory... which is a backwards way of saying it is a score indicating how successful you have been in doing X. Most VCs have side benefits. Some of tourisms biggest guns give nothing else. Is this a trade off for being a juggernaut of a victory /path/? Probably not, and tourism should either be expanded on (tied in to other things/have secondary benefits), or just be wholly absorbed back into culture.

Now you want to take influence points out of culture too?

If tourism became diplomacy, and value towards the diplomatic victory came from envoys, liberations, and brokering peace, we had diplo districts, and seaside resorts offered gold instead of tourism, maybe then I would look at influence points.

And then I would say culture does that already, and quite well, it doesn't need a boost - but a true cultural victory isn't about tourism, its about the spread of culture... so culture should spread like a religion, and that is where your influence points should be - the sharp edge of cultural expansion. And when your culture is dominant in most civs, you win.

 

[Manifold]

Culture has become more and more important in Civilization and Civilization VI now has its own Civics-Tree.
So i think it makes sense to introduce new points, which are only for the border expansion:
> Border expansion points

Cultural and military buildings would provide these point.

But it lost its original function: Happiness and Religion

I think this three things should have to be more related.

 

[Art Morte]

an over complication that removes one of the few reasons to push culture

This right here, culture is already often ignored in Civ6 if you're not going for that victory type, making it less meaningful would be bad.

That said, I wish there were buildings other than those in Theater district that would provide a little bit of culture, for border expansion reasons.

I often have cities in areas where I'd like faster border expansion than just what the monument gives you, but not so much that I'd sacrifice a district slot for that purpose only. Sure, there are some policy cards and trade routes and pantheons that can give small culture boosts, but they never seem worth it. I wish there was some middle ground between "building just the monument" and "building a theater district and its buildings".

 

[Depravo]

This right here, culture is already often ignored in Civ6 if you're not going for that victory type, making it less meaningful would be bad.

That said, I wish there were buildings other than those in Theater district that would provide a little bit of culture, for border expansion reasons.

I often have cities in areas where I'd like faster border expansion than just what the monument gives you, but not so much that I'd sacrifice a district slot for that purpose only. Sure, there are some policy cards and trade routes and pantheons that can give small culture boosts, but they never seem worth it. I wish there was some middle ground between "building just the monument" and "building a theater district and its buildings".

Aren't you basically agreeing using a different form of words?

 

[Art Morte]

Aren't you basically agreeing using a different form of words?

I don't want border expansion be separate from culture, but I'd like to have a little more culture available without building a theater district.

It could even be a project. Spend x amount of production to get one free tile expansion.

 

[miltu]

I think the only problem with border growth now is the useless tiles it automatically chooses.

I would love if there was an option to spend hammers into growing to a specific tile. Obviously, it would be more and more expensive as time passes.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I didn't voted, because I don't want specific points for borders growth, and I don't like either border growth with culture... see the thread https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/symbolic-annexation.625191/

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Something I'd like to see would be to have Food generate border expansion, and city growth be caused by a measurement of health vs. "disease", where disease includes a mortality rate.