Diplomacy Wishlist Regarding Open Borders

[Flexmaster]

It would be nice when you are negotiating right of passage (open borders) with an AI or other human player to give the choice of which types of units you would allow the opposing civ to move through your territory. For example you can choose to allow;

A. All units (military and civilian)
B. All Military units only
C. Defensive military units only (spearmen, riflemen, infantry)
D. Offensive military units only (swordsmen, tanks, etc...)
E. Civilian units only (workers, settlers, explorers...)

This would make things interesting especially if there is a warmongering civ that you don't care to let his huge army pass through your territory but don't mind keeping the borders open for trade or civilian units. Plus I know if you are playing a smart human you don't trust fully you can limit his movements through your territory to only defensive unit if you wish. In the late stage of the game you may even negotiate use of airspace through your territory.

Comment? Questions? Concerns?

 

[Hans Lemurson]

With one-unit-per-tile, I can see "open borders" as being problematic, since even friendly peaceful military units can clog the highways. At least you can walk through them if you have enough movement points unlike previous versions of Civ. However with hexagons, it is MUCH harder to go around obstacles.

 

[epicivfreak]

I hope they separated open borders into at least two treaties, one for open trade and another for military, I didn't like to be forced to allow another civ's units through my territory just to get bonuses from trade.

 

[Ahriman]

For example you can choose to allow;

Why?

Allowing some units to pass but not others will just confuse the AI. [Eg; they could move a settler through your lands.... but not any units to protect it? They can move half their army through their lands, but not the other half, so their army gets chewed up piecemeal?]

Defensive vs offensive also doesn't really make sense.

This seems like needless complexity.

 

[Perfxion]

With 1 unit per tile, it isn't hard to break it down Military vs Civilian. What would be good is to have it to three levels.

1: Open boarders trade only.
Gives the smallest bonus for trade(ie: only Capital)

2: Open boarders civilian units only.
Gives half the civ cities open for trade(smallest ones only and capital).

3: Open boarders all units.
Allows trading with all cites and largest bonus for trade

Then you have to weight the option of more trade/money vs securing your boarders from other armies.

 

[Earthling]

I've always felt that in cIV and previous versions there should already have been different versions of open borders, so I agree. I'd let the first option be equivalent to trade + civilian units + a small handful of military units, say 5-10 at a time. Then there would be an option that's essentially full access to all units, which would be rather reluctant to be signed by any AI not extremely friendly/under duress and war alliance or something.

Absolutely essential though is the following - closing borders or declaring war does NOT kick units out of territory magically.

 

[Flexmaster]

Absolutely essential though is the following - closing borders or declaring war does NOT kick units out of territory magically.

I find this essential too. This is why I was suggesting various types of open borders for different types of military units in case you are dealing with a back stabbing AI you can atleast limi9t his movements before he attacks you to possibly defensive units only.

 

[Flexmaster]

Why?

Allowing some units to pass but not others will just confuse the AI. [Eg; they could move a settler through your lands.... but not any units to protect it? They can move half their army through their lands, but not the other half, so their army gets chewed up piecemeal?]

Defensive vs offensive also doesn't really make sense.

This seems like needless complexity.

I would want to limit some AIs to defensive units only if they are crossing my territory to go clobber another Civ I am friends with but don't want to help out militarily because I am not ready. Of course the AI can choose to go to war with me first if he wants to be smacked.

 

[Ahriman]

I would want to limit some AIs to defensive units only if they are crossing my territory to go clobber another Civ I am friends with but don't want to help out militarily because I am not ready. Of course the AI can choose to go to war with me first if he wants to be smacked.

It makes no sense to say "sure, you can send soldiers through my borders if they carry a spear... but not if they carry a sword".

This is an AI exploit. The only purpose of having this is for you to take advantage of bad AI. Why would they want to send a small invasion force off without any offensive units?

And how do we assign offensive/defensive status? Is a knight an offensive or defensive unit? How about an axeman? How about a musketman, or a rifleman? How about longbowmen (a ranged bombardment support unit)? How about artillery?

Even if we could hypothetically assign any given unit to offensive or defensive status in a limited way, offensive vs defensive units still don't make sense at a strategic level. Even if you are invading, you will want some defensive units. Even if you are defending, you will want some attack units.

If you want to shield another Civ from war, then don't grant open borders to their enemy.

 

[Never]

But the thing is trade shouldn't be the same as military troops. I agree with the earlier poster, there should two choices: trade and 5 units at a time (any units), and open to military. You could pick the former or the latter depending on situation. The latter could also be used in trade for technology, gold, resources or could be demanded by the requesting Civ by authority of the sword.

 

[Flexmaster]

Even if you are invading, you will want some defensive units. Even if you are defending, you will want some attack units.

If you want to shield another Civ from war, then don't grant open borders to their enemy.

I'm looking at it from the angle that if you are a builder and not a warmonger you won't want to let a AI pass through your territory with offensive units that could destroy you or your ally. I'm assuming here that the AIs' units won't disappear back to their territory if they sneak attack you like it was possible in Civ II I think.

Plus you could get bonus points if you take the risk in allowing the AI pass offensive and defensive units through your territory. Or you could take a hit in diplomacy from rival Civs if you place offensive units onto your rival's most hated enemy that borders with their territory.

 

[Ahriman]

you won't want to let a AI pass through your territory with offensive units that could destroy you or your ally.

Then don't sign open borders.
If you want to protect another faction, don't let any military units through. Some kind of thing letting some military units through but not others doesn't make sense.

I can see a distinction between trade access and military passage access. It could work, though I'm not sure if its worth the complexity of having two separate agreements.
But there is a larger problem. The main problem is; military access needs are very situational; you only need access when at war. So if you separate military access from trade access, then we might not have enough military access agreements granted. Why would you bother allowing anyone military access to your land in most cases, if you could refuse to sign a military access agreement while still getting all the benefits of trade?
There are design goals in making military access fairly broad. We want factions to be able to effectively threaten and engage in war with factions who aren't just their immediate neighbors. We lose out if we don't have big blocs that happily grant each other military passage access.
There are some reasons to merge military passage and trade access, but there are also reasonable arguments for separating them.

But it makes no sense to start having separate treaties that limit the *kind* of of military units that get passage, allowing some but disallowing others.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Like Ahriman said, I think limits on types of Military units is a bad idea. There are too many units that would be impossible to classify and there is the fact that armies just do not operate that way.

It would be a headache to program an AI capable of dealing with it. The end result would be war, more often than not: if a civ feels it necessary to send "defensive" units through your territory, what will it do when those units get attacked? It will have to attack you in order to get "offensive" units to the front.

 

[DodgyDave]

just make it 2 options,

1) trade agreement, which allows trade, but no units, except spies, missionaries and such. You are opening up to a bit of trouble.

2) military access, opens up for all other things.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Maybe there should just be a limit to how many units you can have in another player's territory at any given time. It allows passage but still discourages camping, clogging, and backstabbing. In cIV, how many units do you usually have in the territory of another player when you're not planning wacky hi-jinks?

 

[lifelessgamer]

This makes me remember the Total War Series(well only Rome: Total War and Medieval 2 Total War).

In those game you could choose between "Trade Rights" which would only allow trade between your factions and "Military Access" which would allow the passage of military units through your regions.
N.B- They were two different options, as you could have Trade Rights but no Military Access and vice versa. Also, Military Access was only available via an alliance with the faction you want to have Military Access with. And you could choose between only 1 of you to have it. Ex. France might be able to go through Scotland's land while Scotland may not.

However it's interesting to note that you could STILL go through another factions land WITHOUT Military Access. However, your relations will slowly begin to deteriorate.

For Civ5, maybe it could implement Trade Rights which allow trade and Military Acess- permiting the ability for military units to go through yours/their borders.

I hope they do something like this, because this is a very important thing IMO; like if you need the commerce from trade but definitely don't want the guy/girl to go through your borders and attack a weaker civilization next to you who is your friend.

 

[Ahriman]

This makes me remember the Total War Series(well only Rome: Total War and Medieval 2 Total War).

In those game you could choose between "Trade Rights" which would only allow trade between your factions and "Military Access" which would allow the passage of military units through your regions.

And in these games military access was rare, and countries only really ended up having wars with their neighbors. This is the big design risk from separating these agreements.