Border wall annoyance

[The Lardossen]

The problem with what you're suggesting is that people who decide to go for cultural domination tend to have a weaker military than a "militaristic" person.

By even having this option then the "cultural wars" of this game would pretty much become obsolete and it would revert back to who has the strongest military and can hence bully the other into giving back their borders.

Even in real life culture is something that converts people outside the control of the military.

Basically there are many levels which do NOT interact directly. Such as religion, culture, military, trade, diplomacy off the top of my head. As it is military is already dominant by having an effect on itself, along with trade and diplomacy.

In Civ4 having a large number of units in a city reduces the chance of revolt even upto nil so it has been half implemented.

There are borders and there are cultural borders. I'm not saying that culture and cultural borders should be thrown overboard, but there should be a moment in time where cultural borders 'freeze' and become real borders, maybe even with another type of line (dotted or something) to make clear it's a real border.

The cultural mechanism would still work, and cities (regions where most people speak a different language, race or culture in reality) could still flip to another state, reestablishing the borders or forcing the owner of that city to declare war to the civ it's flipping to that has accepted the flip if the losing civ doesn't accept the flip. Refusing the flipover could change it into a sort of barbarian city but not with the 'constant at war' option set. *

Real world example: Eastern Germany part of the Russian Empire flipping back to Western Germany after the culture from Moscow wasn't strong enough to counter the cultural influence of the West German cities.

-------

Edit:

* Maybe there should be an option to get it to act like a sort of Vassal State, but accepting that will cause a diplomatic penalty.

 

[homan1983]

Yes but by seperating actual borders and cultural [which doesn't make much sence anyway] you are making culture have extremely little impact on the game, reducing it to nothing but culture flipping.

One of the big changes from civ3 -> civ4 was in firaxis' own word that culture would be used much less for BIG changes like instant city swapping but more for gradual changes -> such that it would be much more important to have culture in your cities.

 

[Pantastic]

I can see where this is coming from. In the real world borders are more or less set since a few hundred years.

Did you miss WWI, WWII, the end of the colonial era, and the end of the Soviet Union just to name a few events from the past hundred that resulted in extreme border shifts? Please think before posting stuff like this. I don't think there is a major power that has had static borders for the past 200 years (as low as you can go and still have a few hundred); it's only 203 years since the US made the louisiana purchase, for example.

 

[Magic Cat]

Personally I like the way you can infringe on your neighbours borders using culture throughout the game. It has the effect of building tension. If Civs are close together, the tensions are much higher & build throughout the game.
Late on, when the only Oil resource yourself and neighbouring Civ has falls on a disputed square, that culture flip one way or the other is what really makes the game great for me. Variable borders make the game more dynamic. In this case, if you'd fixed the borders, one Civ would have the resource, the other wouldn't & might need to do something about it. With unfixed borders you don't really know which way it might go & makes for a more exciting game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, two things: First you make fixed border diplomacy option only available with nationhood (makes sense when you think about it). Second, if you use TheLopez's Immigrant mod, you can far better simulate the importance of 'Culture', in the modern age, by having 'Immigrant' units popping out of low culture cities and moving to cities with higher culture-adding to the new city's population in the progress. Of course, Lopez's mod incorporates factors other than culture-like health, happiness and wealth-but you get the picture.

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Merebimur]

Yes its the Great Wall I was referring to . My point is I want to be able to defend my border by giving some sort of response without the game "Giving" my land away that I've spent time producing a worker , then building what I like on that square . To me the game is giving my neighbours freebies without my permission .

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Those aren't Freebies, your neighbor paid for them... with culture

On the 'Fixed borders idea'
While reasonable, it would only work if there were a MUCH stronger rebellion/civil disorder dynamic

So that if a tile 'wanted to flip' you could stiop it by putting a Fort there with units in it... of course that would destroy any improvements, and the units posted there should suffer damage as long as there is enemy culture there.

(Now if it is largely peaceful between the two tile holders, than something like an Immigration model might be better, ie US+Canada... if the people in Detroit like Canadian culture, they move there, rather than rebel v. the US) [they rebel v. the US if they like Canadian Government more than the US]

 

[Zebra 9]

I like the idea of having National borders & Cultural borders. The National borders would be placed by either the human or an AI govenor, and of course the AI would use the govenor. Then Cultural borders would cause dislike of a cities true leader & thus cause a revalution.

 

[Wodan]

Unfortunately, the only way to establish your borders militarily is to capture every city whose cultural borders infringe upon what you see as your land.

Bwahaha! That's classic.

Wodan

 

[MacDeepBlue]

The way civ works does seem to incorperate a more 'primitive' way that national boundries work. If I remember my history correctly, after the treaty of Westphilia sometime in the 1600s national boundries became much more stable. After that there have not been too many times where a city or region upped up and joined another without a war or some type of government collapse. One exampe to the contrary might be Texas, but first it had to fight for its independence and years later the US allowed Texas to join it.

I think the game would be better off with some type of permanant (possibly negotiable in dipomacy) borders. I remeber long before Civ 4 came out advocating this as well as having some option to 'claim' land to simulate an era of colonization.

If I could mod better I would add colonist that could make a colony (as opposed to a city) that claimed a hunk of land for the owner, and such. And with all the rebelion mods there could be some fun wars as your colonies rebeled and possibly turned into a new civiliztio.

 

[Willowmound]

The way civ works does seem to incorperate a more 'primitive' way that national boundries work. If I remember my history correctly, after the treaty of Westphilia sometime in the 1600s national boundries became much more stable.

That's true. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) is usually considered the beginning of the nation state. The treaty ended the Thirty Years' War, and stated, basically, that any nation state has an inalienable right to govern its own affairs without intervention from others.

The first seed of nationalism was born here. It would make sense if a Civ4 tech like Nationalism changed how borders work -- making them negotiable and else static could be very interesting.

 

[homan1983]

Until they do install an alternative which rewards culture the current system is pretty much perfect in my opinion.

The same shields used to produce units could have captured many a cities. So I think its a fair tradeoff to have culture buildings at least give youa few squares peacefully.

 

[jimbob27]

Those aren't Freebies, your neighbor paid for them... with culture

On the 'Fixed borders idea'
While reasonable, it would only work if there were a MUCH stronger rebellion/civil disorder dynamic

You wouldn't really need to change the rebellion/civil disorder dynamic at all, if the option was only available if "no city flipping from culture" was already enabled. If the tiles simpley worked on a first come first served basis, it could work nicely. Each square wouldn't have a percentage or anything, just a black and white owner. Basically it'd just be "no tile flipping from culture".

I wouldn't use it in regular games (as I like the current system) but it'd be damn useful for scenario builders. Theres nothing more annoying when I build a scenario, and half of canada decides it wants to join america.

 

[Dearmad]

And this isn't as it should be?

Well, nevermind...





<snicker> love Canuck-Yankee flamewars..

 

[The Lardossen]

Did you miss WWI, WWII, the end of the colonial era, and the end of the Soviet Union just to name a few events from the past hundred that resulted in extreme border shifts? Please think before posting stuff like this. I don't think there is a major power that has had static borders for the past 200 years (as low as you can go and still have a few hundred); it's only 203 years since the US made the louisiana purchase, for example.

If you're responding to my post, you probably haven't read it till the end? I was talking about fixed borders unless war, trading or rebellion. We've seen Yugoslavia being torn apart in the past decade because of things like that. New borders were created inside the country, but the outside borders of former Yugoslavia haven't moved an inch.

You are telling the same as I did....

Yes its the Great Wall I was referring to . My point is I want to be able to defend my border by giving some sort of response without the game "Giving" my land away that I've spent time producing a worker , then building what I like on that square . To me the game is giving my neighbours freebies without my permission .

You're complaint isn't right. No such thing as fixed borders existed until a few hundred years ago. The cultural influence model is about 100% correct until the end of the middle ages and the beginning of the industrial age.

Play a cultural civ if you don't want that to happen, cultural is made for people like you.

 

[Zebra 9]

MacDeepBlue, I like the ideas of rebelions & colonies.

 

[Shigga]

@#1, it's those bugging little wallpecker babarian animals, they are very small and hard to see and they stick to your wall and start pecking holes in it. That's why the enemy's culture is leaking through. You have to build A LOT of archers and FAST, then fortify them around the wall perimeter. Be careful not to let spaces of more than 1 square between them. The archers will shoot the little buggers. If the enemy culture does not disappear, you haven't built and fortified enough archers. Be quick or you will lose the whole Wall!!

 

[William III]

@#1, it's those bugging little wallpecker babarian animals, they are very small and hard to see and they stick to your wall and start pecking holes in it. That's why the enemy's culture is leaking through. You have to build A LOT of archers and FAST, then fortify them around the wall perimeter. Be careful not to let spaces of more than 1 square between them. The archers will shoot the little buggers. If the enemy culture does not disappear, you haven't built and fortified enough archers. Be quick or you will lose the whole Wall!!

Hahahahaha!

 

[Zebra 9]

Shigga, you forgot about unit maintanace. You can build that big army but you can't keep it.

 

[Older than Dirt]

Without cultural borders Civ 4 would not be a fantasy game.