Open Border, why?

[Ortega]

hi guys,
i usually go for a domination victory and not cultre but i cant stop wondering what are the open borders agreement good for?
the only thing happening from open borders is that AI sends settlers through my borders and builds cities that become a big PITA (pain in the a**).
what am i missing???


btw, i think it would be much more realistic that if you grant open borders and AI backstabs you and declares war his units will not automatically be pushed out of your borders, this way you will think twice if to give him open borders, on the other hand what is the real motivation to give them in the first place?

 

[Mahnogard]

Though the immediate benefit is for a Cultural victory, because it increases the tourism modifier with that civ, having a high level of influence can benefit Domination, too, by improving conditions when taking cities in civs that you have influence with.

 

[cairnsy44]

I usually avoid open borders for the settler issue mentioned above and to hinder missionary spam.

 

[BenitoChavez]

For you having open borders allows you to gain more tourism for CV, use their roads for quick travel, missionaries don't get weaker when in their territory, etc.

I never allow another civ to have open borders with me with the possible exception that they declared war on a third civ and need to march through my borders to get to them. It does get annoying when they start asking for it every other turn.

 

[GKShaman]

Does denying open borders to a civ lead to war? I denied the aztecs thrice in 10 turns and then it was war. Although on another replay i bribed them into another war. But I guess my question is does DENYING open borders cause a hit?

 

[Human Crouton]

Does denying open borders to a civ lead to war? I denied the aztecs thrice in 10 turns and then it was war. Although on another replay i bribed them into another war. But I guess my question is does DENYING open borders cause a hit?

No. He had planned on going to war with you from the beginning. He just wanted open borders to scout and make certain that he could beat you. When you denied him, he just went into war without that information.

 

[BigChiefLizzy]

btw, i think it would be much more realistic that if you grant open borders and AI backstabs you and declares war his units will not automatically be pushed out of your borders, this way you will think twice if to give him open borders, on the other hand what is the real motivation to give them in the first place?

I *think* maybe mis-remembering here - it was 20+ years ago - that the early versions of civ (1&2) allowed you to attack a civ you had open borders with, without your troops being kicked out.

So the human player would carefully surround the target city(s) with units then attack and wipe out an AI in one turn.... I think this was why they changed it

 

[Teproc]

They were no cultural borders before Civ III IIRC, so Open Borders didn't even exist in the first two games.

It's been some time since I've played either, but I'm pretty sure Civ III introduced cultural borders.

 

[civ54lyfe]

Does denying open borders to a civ lead to war? I denied the aztecs thrice in 10 turns and then it was war. Although on another replay i bribed them into another war. But I guess my question is does DENYING open borders cause a hit?

No. He had planned on going to war with you from the beginning. He just wanted open borders to scout and make certain that he could beat you. When you denied him, he just went into war without that information.

this is not necessarily the case. i've watched an AI plan for a war to another AI while you the human happen to be the shortest distance. it's like Robocop II where the hot dog vendor sees all the cop cars racing off and says "they gonna kick somebody ass!!"

what i'm saying is that it was likely his units were trying to get to another AI real quick, then when a certain time condition wasn't met/expired/new bribe/whatever, he decided to just DoW you instead.

my advice in a situation like this where an AI has all these units needing to kick some ass, is to allow the OB if you think you would be ready for a possible backstab (especially in the pre-industrial era where any possible Musicians won't be a factor). even if this AI were to backstab you AND you were ready for this possibility, your units will get crazy promotions, the offending AI gets all the red diplo out of the deal, and you can even stay in a perpetual "Free war" (never accepting a peace deal) where you can continue to rack up promotions, raze the AI's stuff, and not take red diplo for all this.

 

[Scarpa]

my advice in a situation like this where an AI has all these units needing to kick some ass, is to allow the OB if you think you would be ready for a possible backstab

You can have some fun with this, because the AI is generally too stupid to account for getting tossed out of your territory when it DOWs. I remember playing a 3 city CV with Siam or something once (GnK), had huge cultural territory so that there was a 3 tile unimproved no-mans-land inside my borders. I only had newly upgraded 5 artillery and railroads between my cities. Persia flooded my territory with troops and then DOWed. His army, now in complete disarray and half in the water, got slowly destroyed as it tried to close in on my cities.

 

[Vitruvius]

When you buy other people's open borders, your tourism affect them more.
When you open your own borders, their tourism affect you more. Sometimes you may want to open to like ideologies. Thats the best reason I can think of for opening your own borders. Usually, you shouldn't be opening your own borders.

 

[aimlessgun]

Open Borders is worth what, 50 gold or something?

That's the motivation.

 

[mclericp]

one thing i realised is, great prophets from other civ still can cross into ur borders without any treaty.

 

[sendos]

I *think* maybe mis-remembering here - it was 20+ years ago - that the early versions of civ (1&2) allowed you to attack a civ you had open borders with, without your troops being kicked out.

So the human player would carefully surround the target city(s) with units then attack and wipe out an AI in one turn.... I think this was why they changed it

That applied to civ 4 too and that is also another reason why I hated civ 4. You try to arrange friendship with your neighbouring civ and then 10 turns later they send a stacked army to your capitol.

Open borders should have more effects rather than just sharing movement and tourism bonus. It should also provide a 50% revenue bonus on each trade route you have that civ. Land trade route then increases revenue from say 10 to 15 gpt whilst sea trade routes gain an additional 15gpt each with that civ.

 

[Grogs]

one thing i realised is, great prophets from other civ still can cross into ur borders without any treaty.

They can still come into your civ, but they lose 25% strength for every turn they finish in your borders. If you take a few units and actively block them, they'll lose strength and actually die before they can spam your cities with religion. Even if you do nothing, they can probably only get 1 city at half-strength before they die. If you have open borders, all you can do is ask them to stop, or DoW them and kill the prophet/missionary.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

They can still come into your civ, but they lose 25% strength for every turn they finish in your borders. If you take a few units and actively block them, they'll lose strength and actually die before they can spam your cities with religion. Even if you do nothing, they can probably only get 1 city at half-strength before they die. If you have open borders, all you can do is ask them to stop, or DoW them and kill the prophet/missionary.

Only Missionaries die from attrition, Prophets don't and make one of the most annoying units in the game for peace-mongers.

I mean seriously, imagine a 40 city religion that gets flipped by a prophet xD