Claiming land

[Dagenham Dave]

One of the annoyances for me and many others in this game is the amount of land that remains outside cultural borders in the late game (this was also present in Civ V to an even greater extent). What if, aside from borders expanding due to culture or buying tiles, you could claim land as part of your empire. Say, within x amount of tiles from your borders. Maybe you'd have to spend faith or culture or an amount of gold. This land wouldn't be workable by a city. It could still be bought or included within your actual borders through culture, obviously. Then after researching some civic you could "legally" include that land within your borders.

This could also have interesting diplomacy effects, if you for example claim land near another civ or even the same land as that civ. Or if you settle near or in tiles that have been claimed by someone. You could then have wars as well as negotiation over border disputes.

What do you think

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

You can already do this by planting a city in that spot. You can secure the resource or just be a spot for another Commerical hub.

 

[RealAntithesis]

I think the OP is not wanting to stick cities in every single nook and cranny of the terrain - which I can understand. It's a little ridiculous to place a little city that has no hope of being anything in a spot with access to only a few tiles just to prevent the AI from squeezing one there. The AI should be building their empire more cohesively rather than the scatter gun approach which just becomes annoying.

 

[TheGreatSleepyOne]

Why shouldn't the AI build annoying cities that can serve as MILITARY BASES for healing and unit buying. I use this tactic to prepare for invasions.
Not every city needs to be a thriving metropolis.