Negotiating empire borders with AIs

[Snerk]

Theres something about the way empire borders are set in civ that dont appeal to me. The way where borders are strictly controlled by cultural outputs from a given city i kinda dislike. Not that i have a better alternative system but still I thinks there must be a better way. What i think should been added was some sort of way of negotiating land borders with other civs. So you could buy or claim land aereas from other civs, maybe with important resourses on it. I dont know about you but this is an aspect i miss in civ. I hope someone once can make a mod that incorporate this. Would be wicked!

Anyway what do you think?

 

[Crighton]

Sad to say, but Star Trek: Birth of the Federation (the Star Trek version of CIV II) had that function. Disputed areas would be a mishmash of the two conflicting team colors. And you could deman or you could cede the teritories to/from your rival. It wasn't tile specific though (which would have been nice).

ST:BOTF also had an Inteligence system for espionage and defense which could be incorporated into CIV nicely, IMHO.

 

[tombeef]

I agree with this. It would be more realistic and more interesting, countries bought and negotiated land all the time.

 

[Guerra]

I really wish they'd include border treaties, in diplomacy, players can agree to fixed borders to reduce border tension.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

I would like an "Establish Common Border" option, but I don't know the coding implications. This would basically freeze your border with your neighbor.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I really wish they'd include border treaties, in diplomacy, players can agree to fixed borders to reduce border tension.

That's a great idea. Sort of a declaration of truce in a culture war.

Borders could be based on the distance from cities, rather than on the culture. Culture would only be used in the case of a tie.

Not sure how it would work if there was a third civ thrown into the mix that didn't have a border agreement with the other two. Would the Civ with the lowest culture in the tower get the tile if the Civ with a border treaty would normally get the tile, because it has the most culture?

It would be interesting to see the results if two civs have border treaties with a third civ, but not with each other.

 

[Lord Gideon]

It would be more historically correct. I mean, remember the Louisiana Purchase? We got that, and neither Civs, France or America were exerting much culture. I think a lot of time borders are determined on can you pay for the land or can you kill anyone else who tries to trespass on it. Not, who's great artist has made a great work.

 

[tombeef]

Don't forget the purchase of Alaska, or negotiating the boundaires between Canada and the U.S. after the War of 1812.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Don't forget the purchase of Alaska, or negotiating the boundaires between Canada and the U.S. after the War of 1812.

Or the Louisiana Purchase.

 

[Nestorius]

I agree, but I've been able to justify the current way in my mind.

For most of history, there were no nation-states. Rulers ruled the cities while the countryside was decentralized and in flux. Actual borders were less important than the loyality of the area's local notables. So, culture flux just represents the influence you have on those disputed tiles.

By modern times it seems weird, but the borders do generally seem stable enough to me when there is peace.

 

[KabukiJo]

But wouldn't it be great if you could solidify borders somehow with your neighbors? That way, if you are trying to be friends with your neighbors (for the UN vote or something) you could get rid of the "-3 our borders are conflicting (or whatever it is)"

 

[HawkeyeGS]

It is a shame you don't have the UN setting boarders at the 38th paralell and the like. Oh Well

 

[Ranos]

I would like to see a combination of the two. Culture starts out determining borders but once the borders have met, they don't expand into the other civ's territory. The cultural influence still continues to exapand though. In this way, a city can still be influenced by another civ's culture. That city could flip, the same way it does now, but if the civ that it flipped to accepted it, the civ that originally owned it would get angry and could possibly start a war to reclaim it.

I would also like to see a percentage of the troops in flipped cities remain. Something like a 25% chance that a unit will flip with the city.

Wars would see the borders move back and forth as units moved onto the other civs tiles. So if Civ A moved a unit onto a tile belonging to Civ B, that tile would flip to Civ A until Civ B moved a unit there to reclaim it.

 

[Junichiro]

Well, Louisiana purchase can be justified in civ terms as selling of New Orleans city cast out by enterprising French settler to another continent...same for Alaska.

 

[mike p]

I would like an "Establish Common Border" option, but I don't know the coding implications. This would basically freeze your border with your neighbor.

I believe there is something similar already coded. Once I was bordering Mansa Musa and dropped a crappy little city that was surrounded on 3 sides by my civ. I eventually took over every tile surrounding it and got it to revolt. I went ahead and signed a permanent alliance with him and the borders of that city expanded as a result. And I never got it to go into revolt again.

Basically, the borders adjusted so that he got the tiles in his 'fat cross' that were closer to his city than any of mine. Not exactly what the OP was asking for, but it's probably a lot easier to implement!

 

[SilentDemon]

Well, Louisiana purchase can be justified in civ terms as selling of New Orleans city cast out by enterprising French settler to another continent...same for Alaska.

I'd somewhat like to see this idea implemented also but as the quote aboves begins to touch on, border agreements and purchases can almost always in some way correlate back to the original idea of culture. In the example of the Lousiana purchase this was a huge tract of land right next to fledgling America that was owned by the French whose empire was situated a few thousand miles away. It would have been almost impossible for the French to keep this piece of land seeing the distance from their homeland and proximity of it to the already expanding United States. In this idea, the cultural idea of civ would represent that a nearby nearly inactive state will inevitably be dominated by their neighbors borders and be consumed regardless of whether it be by anexation, purchase etc.

 

[vinstafresh]

I think this might be valuable if occupied tiles would have an effect on the expenses as well. This would give some extra counterweight to having a lot of culture (just like every unit costs an amount to maintain in order to halt the growth of an army)

 

[LordOfTheDrinks]

I think the easy way will be some kind of "accept foreign workers" so to speak...
In one recent game I was close to Isabella and some of my cities pushed her borders back while some of her cities were pushing mine -- we basically ended with cities unable to work precious tiles (not special resources, just regular ones, but still precious) without any bonus for the other party -- those tiles were anyway OUTSIDE the fat cross of the "cultural aggresor". There was no clear solution (war would have been stupid -- we were basically best friends and happily stomping together on everyone in sight... ) so I really wanted to be possible to give her some kind of "right" to work "my" tiles as long as they weren't worked by me -- and get something similar in return of course.

 

[Dusty Monkey]

Semi-Related, but:

There are still hundreds of border disputes all over the world while the countries in question are otherwise peaceful with each other.

See for yourself with the C.I.A. Fact Book. Just about every country has a dispute or two. Some have a dispute with everyone around them (China.)

I believe the -Modifier for cultural borders in Civ4 reflects this nicely. Sure the disputes in real life arent "cultural" .. but so what?

Also I like to view building cultural improvements as akin to fortifying a unit. +Culture improvements fortify a region.



As for a diplomatic/political mechanism for trading tiles.. this sounds like the perfect setting to abuse the A.I's stupidity.

 

[warpus]

Border negotiations wouldn't really make sense w/ the current culture-defines-borders model. It would be too complicated to combine the two ideas into some sort of a balanced framework.

Besides, the developers had to severely limit the already existing diplomacy because they were unable to make the AI smart enough to negotiate wisely. Considering this, I doubt they'd be able to give the AI good border-negotiating skills.