Open borders

[V. Soma]

I play 093 and I believe the latest build, and still I find open border way too easy to get.
Giving a tech for free gives me open border and "pleased" level of diplomacy attitude in most cases.

 

[Bolleque]

I also have not felt any difference playing 093.

 

[Elhoim]

Just check the patch Rhye posted.

 

[Blasphemous]

Giving a tech for free gives me open border and "pleased" level of diplomacy attitude in most cases.

Fair enough. A tech is a valuable thing. Give them gifts, and they will like you better. Before you could normally get Open Borders with everyone immediately and for free, except for the pissy leaders (Izzy, Monty, Tokie, and Genghis). I haven't tried the new version much yet, sadly, but if you need to give gifts to get them to let you in, that's an improvement. This what kind of relations two real-life countries have if they give eachother important technological discoveries freely.

 

[Vishaing]

I've tried that model, and I can tell you I know it works beautifully. Realism has it, or something similar to the point of being identical, in its mod. I find it is much more realistic, also, since you can no longer trade techs directly, you can't gift techs to people to make them like you for a simple thing or a short period of time.

 

[Arkaeyn]

As an addendum to the Open Borders discussion...

In an effort to continue to fiddle with diplomacy using my pathetic, XML-only modding skills, I decided to make Defensive Pacts appear earlier, with Writing. I had two reasons for this. First of all, I wanted to have more lopsided wars, which might cause more civs to fall. Second, I wanted the friendly civs, mainly India and Egypt, to be more likely to be drawn into wars. I decided to play as a fairly isolationist China, so I could watch.

The idea, on one playthrough, appears to be a failure. Every Civ still survives, into the 19th century, and I haven't noticed any significant changes in territory.

 

[Blasphemous]

I still like the idea Arkaeyn. Are there good historical examples of something like a defensive pact that early on?

 

[jbfballrb]

england and portugal signed one in the 12th century, thats the earliest i know of

 

[HÄI]

I still like the idea Arkaeyn. Are there good historical examples of something like a defensive pact that early on?

Countries/cities of the antique signed defensive pacts all the time. For example the alliance between Lydia, Lacaedaemon, Babylon and Egypt when Persia attacked Lydia.

 

[Rhye]

thank you for the test, Vishaing.

So, did you all feel patched 093 and 096 improved or open borders are still too easy?

 

[Blasphemous]

I think they could do with being a little bit harder to achieve. Just a tiny little bit more. If it's too much more, they will be too hard to get. Right now the situation is a little too comfortable (though not outright easy).

 

[Rhye]

raising the threshold for most of the civs would cut the differences and make all the leaders like Tokugawa

 

[Blasphemous]

How exactly does it work? Does each leader have a relations threshold for agreeing to Open Borders? What is the threshold for most? Can't it be raised universally so that Tokugawa is a bigger ass and everyone else is too but not quite as big as he is?

 

[SilverKnight]

Very funny and accurate description of Japanese foreign policy in Civ. Sorry I can't contribute more, I am neutral in opinion. I'll wait and see on this one.

SilverKnight

 

[Arkaeyn]

Right now, the Open Borders raised threshold seems to be preventing civs from traveling through other territory to found colonies, like Rome in the Ukraine or Latvia. So I think it's okay. But on the other hand, India and Egypt still just will not fight and gain or lose any significant amounts of territory!

As for the Defensive Pacts, I'm not certain of any specific ancient-world documents, however, I tend to view it more as a general, lowest-level alliance that Civ offers, so I felt it could be abstracted to ANY alliance. Warlords' Vassalage system may do the trick much better, though. We'll see.

 

[Elhoim]

But on the other hand, India and Egypt still just will not fight and gain or lose any significant amounts of territory!

That´s not too bad, as they weren´t very expansionist civs. But the problem is that Rome doesn´t! I think that some more barbarian cities would help (and a more agressive AI for them!).