Move Troops From My Borders! (Uh, they're in my territory)

[Bleser]

v1.0.0.26

As I write this I'm not sure if everyone will agree it is a bug, but Spain told me to get lost after I parked a lone swordsman in my territory on a hill that touches Spain's territory. I would think it would be OK to put my own troops in my own territory?

 

[tmarcl]

Arguably, your troops are near their borders. You can attack them from there, thus, they want you to move.

 

[Agent327]

Hence the handy "Ignore this request" button.

 

[Sascha77]

Hence the handy "Ignore this request" button.

.. which gives you a diplomacy-hit with the civ in question.

IMO, the AI is incapable of "analyzing" the military/diplomatic situation. It doesn't seem to take things like your previous behavior, your current form of government or how many troops *they* have stationed on your border or any of that into account when they make that complaint. I think they more or less just get triggered by the proximity of your troops. Which, in Civ VI's case, seems to be two units or more, stationed within two tiles from their border. Plus even a single scout or knight you send *through* their territory on an exploration mission seems to count towards their "freak-out" threshold.

Thing is: The AI loves to park a whole bunch of units on the player's borders for no real reason, but then complains when the player puts a couple of defensive units into the city that has 6, 7 or 8 of *their* units facing it on the other side of the border. Best case scenario: The AI really plans to go to war with you and tries to bring about a situation where they can get pissed off "legally". Worst case (and much more probable IMO) scenario: The AI isn't smart enough to be subtle about anything and lacks the ability to look at the bigger picture.

Check out quill18's Russia Let's Play for a perfect example. In video 7 or 8, Tomyris has a crapload of horsemen parked right outside his border-city to her, but then complains that he actually dares to put a crossbow and a spearman into that town as a garrison.

S.

 

[Bleser]

Thanks for the discussion. I agree this one is more of a tweak than a straight-out bug, and more of a frustration since I had a couple of troops essentially preparing for their attack.

 

[Agent327]

.. which gives you a diplomacy-hit with the civ in question.

I can't see anybody being bothered by that, seeing as the AI will regularly sneak attack anyway.

 

[tmarcl]

I can't see anybody being bothered by that, seeing as the AI will regularly sneak attack anyway.

It's really the same old same old. We're affected by diplomacy hits, while the AI is not. True, you can technically denounce an AI civ for not moving their troops or for settling too close to you, and you can certainly declare war on them, but the effect is not the same. I'm not sure they really can give it the same level of seriousness. After all, by definition, the AI is your opponent in a single player game. All of them. Just as if you were playing with all humans and a bloc of you decided to gang up on one or two other humans, you'd ignore their requests, etc...

 

[Budgiesmugla]

I'm having the same issue I have no troop near the borders of the other nation yet they keep complaining the only unit i have in their territory at the time they complain is traders.

 

[Sascha77]

I have no troop near the borders of the other nation yet they keep complaining the only unit i have in their territory at the time they complain is traders.

Have you moved any units through their territory (say, to get to an unexplored area of the map)? I *think* they even count a single unit you move through their lands (when you have open borders of course) towards the "move your stuff away from my borders"-freak-out-threshold. I'm pretty certain that I broke a diplomatic promise that way in one game. AI complained about my border-city's garrison, I pulled it back. Then after a few turns I sent a knight through their lands to explore someplace else on the map and that instantly gave me the "broken promise"-hit.

S.

 

[Ghost_Dancer]

I find this to be a huge problem too, especially for cities with small borders where its impossible to put units within your own borders without angering neighbouring civs. One single unit unit can trigger this response which is just stupid.

 

[zerg987]

My problem is that I declared friendship with Greece and now they have surrounded my Capitol and I cannot move troops out or tell them to move. I know we are friends but you cannot stay on my couch indefinitely

 

[PyroGnome]

I was friends and had open borders with China. I told them not to settle new cities near me when I saw that they had a settler right on my borders. He apologised and promised he wouldn't. THE VERY NEXT TURN that settler builds a city LITERALLY on my border. It gets worse.

I had a SINGLE unit move through that new territory (which should not have been there) to get home. They gave me a warning to remove my troops (why? we're friends with open borders, and you just f--ked me), which I did. Several turns later he denounces me for breaking that promise, which I didn't, WHILE HE HAS 4 UNITS CLUSTERED AROUND MY GODDAMN CITY?!

So not only does the AI ignore requests, it lies, AND is a disgusting hypocrite with no sense of logic at all. I was really enjoying this entry into the series but holy ****, it's ruined. Can't play this garbage.

 

[Agent327]

Well, I wouldn't go a far as that, but I did get a request about troops hovering near France's border, while they weren't. I purposely kept troops at least 1 tile away from the French border (which I felt was very polite, considering they had previously declared formal war on me, and peace had just been agreed). My troops were in fact in the exact same position as before the war. They had given me the same warning at least twice then - and I'd ignored that as well.

 

[Sascha77]

I just realized that I took a screenshot that illustrates the AI's silliness pretty well - even though I didn't take it for that purpose..

Check out Corinth's location. Gorgo plopped that city down when my capital was already a pretty big/well developed town with lots of culture. She also plopped it down right next to my holy site (why is it even possible to found a city *right on* another civ's border?). She was going for religious conversions of CS and (even before settling Corinth) had constantly been moving apostles/missionaries past my capital and its holy-site - and those always got their butts kicked by my two inquisitors stationed there.

Once she had settled Corinth, she would move her apostles/missionaries to that city's center. And then - because AI apostles will almost always try to engage other religious units in combat, even when they have no chance of winning - she would always attack my inquisitors who were standing on my holy site. Both units lost a lot of health, but my inquisitor (sitting on home ground *and* on a holy site) would always get all his lost HP back before the turn was over.

The one thing that Corinth's placement didn't trigger was "move your troops"-whines. Probably because we're talking about Gorgo and because, by that point, she was pretty weak (having lost her capital to Kongo) and she was more or less in love with me due to all my warmongering and my rather large .... army ..

S.

 

[BF Bullpup]

I experienced an AI Civ bordering mine complaining about my troops being nearby as well. It is annoying but I can imagine how it would be like in real life if the U.S. moved troops right at the U.S.-Mexico border out of the blue. I don't view it as a bug.

 

[Bleser]

With the 1.0.0.38 patch they attempted to address this. I haven't played it enough to confirm, but good to see they acknowledged the issue/annoyance.

 

[ferenginar]

I had a request from Egypt to remove my troops from their border, when I had 1 mech infantry in unclaimed territory next to them, killing off a barb, who had been terrorising them. What's more, we were allies, with open borders, and Egypt had about 20 units inside my borders.