Not so wide open borders

[thrunch]

Has anyone built a modification to adjust the open borders? It seems to me that nation's tend to be very picky about what they'll let other nation's do within their borders (if they have a choice)!

How about a tiered permission something like:

1. Open borders for trade and exploration. Only non-combatants such as settlers, scouts, workers can move within my nation's territory.

2. Safe harbor (troops or ships can "run away" from opponents by going into your nation - but combat is forbidden. Troops/ships must remain for the duration of the conflict or upon request.

3. Safe transit. Troops/ships can pass through but they are forbidden to initiate combat from within my nation's borders. This means they cannot move from my nation's border to an enemy combatant's territory, neither can they attack across the border. They can pass to a neutral or foreign square and then attack, but cannot attack out of a square within my nation.

4. Allied effort. Troops/ships have free access to my nation's borders. They can only attack from within my border's against another nation that we are both at war with.

5. Free reign. Your troops can do as they please.

I think this would be much better than the all or nothing we have now.

 

[GeoModder]

Essentially, your 5 points can be boiled down to 3 points: non-combatant access, transit only, and allies with full access. The rest is unnecesary micro-managing.

If some coder would be willing to make this, only the first 2 need specific coding then. The last option (allies with full access) could be what exists today, but perhaps only available between empires with a permanent alliance agreement.

My 2

 

[The Fishman]

What about a millitary only option? I don't mind people marching their troops through my land (as long as I'm not at war with them!), but as for settlers going across to pinch those city spots I just haven't bothered to claim yet, that gets me very angry and likely to war-dec the jerk who's responsible!

 

[Shiggs713]

I think GeoModder basically meant the "transit only" to be the military only option. Or at least it could be like that.

I could picture it working like this;

Once you discover the technology, "Writing" you will be allowed to negotiate 2 types of open borders agreements. The "non-combat access" could be restricted to scouts, explorers, settlers, workers, great people, and perhaps galleys, galleons, caravels, transports, airships, and maybe even defensive only units or groups, maybe archery units. This would also improve trading revenues for trade routes between the two nations.

The other one, "Transit only" would be for all other units, basically all the offensive military units. This would still not allow for 2 nations to fight wars on foreign neutral territory.

Then later on once you discover Military Tradition (or whatever the tech that allows defensive pacts), then you could negotiate the 3rd open borders option, "Full Access", to allow them to initiate battle from within your territory. This would be the equivalent to the open borders now.

Simple and sweet, that would be an excellent addition, however getting the AI's to learn strategies for these would be by far and away the hardest part.

Shiggs