Pathfinders and Scouts ignore borders

[ryanmusante]

The purpose of Open Borders is to prevent unlawful entry of units into nation's borders. I feel that disallowing Pathfinders and Scouts is in letter with the law but against the spirit of the law. These are just a few of the reasons I submit.

• Pathfinder/Scout becomes land-locked in tiles(s) between sea and nation with no Open Borders agreement causing units to idle indefinitely.
  
  
• Pathfinder/Scout becomes land-locked in tiles(s) between two nations and or same nation causing untis to idle at their border.
  
  
• Pathfinder/Scout on Epic and Marathon speed games cannot explore and becomes useless if and until Open Borders agreement.
  
  
• Players can choose to never open borders thus cutting off any advances by scouting units causing a veritable blackhole of tiles explored.
  
  
• Pathfinder/Scout is not particularly useful as an attacking unit therfore even in numbers cannot be used as exploit.
  
  
• New players, the inability to scout will lead to frustration and cause the player to feel that war is inevitable when there are other options.

Per Civ 5 Wiki in Diplomacy Section:

"Open Borders (a treaty) requires an embassy with the other civilization (that is, civ A must Accept Embassy to be able to subsequently ask civ B for Open Borders). When signed, you and/or the other civ agree to allow free passage through your/their territory. From there on, military and civilian units will actually be able to use it as their own territory, which means you/they can use the road network for fast movement, and that your/their units may heal in that territory as if it were your own."

Edit: Link to @adan_eslavo "Free Recon Units" aka Scouts Ignore Borders
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/free-recon-units.636589/

 

[adan_eslavo]

I met such situations so many times... This should be base feature of VP.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I agree completely. If necessary, there could be a slight diplomatic penalty for sending these units through another nation's borders.

 

[adan_eslavo]

I think diplo penalty is not good thing. What we want is to put Recon unit on auto and let it explore. If you set penalty then AI ill not know that it does something bad, and human player will know that, making him moving his recons manually to avoid that.

 

[tu_79]

The biggest issue to solve here is what would stop the player from capturing workers and pillaging tiles from an unaware AI. If declaring war on a civ pushed your units outside the enemy territory, maybe this exploit cannot be done. Maybe this can be used as an exploit for faster movement (declaring war so the pathfinder comes back a few turns earlier).

 

[ryanmusante]

The biggest issue to solve here is what would stop the player from capturing workers and pillaging tiles from an unaware AI. If declaring war on a civ pushed your units outside the enemy territory, maybe this exploit cannot be done. Maybe this can be used as an exploit for faster movement (declaring war so the pathfinder comes back a few turns earlier).

Interesting, so you mean if the units are able to grab these workers and exit safely in a number of turns after war is declared? This could be tested with IGE.

Even if that was the case, would the AI ever do it against a human? I think it's a small price to pay for open exploration.

 

[adan_eslavo]

I played with such mod for a long time and saw many recon units. They've never (AI) grabbed any of my workers or settlers. Such action probably requires declaring war. What's the point of declaring war only for one worker?

Pushing units after declaring war still exist I suppose.

@ryanmusante can you check those things?

 

[ElliotS]

The biggest issue to solve here is what would stop the player from capturing workers and pillaging tiles from an unaware AI. If declaring war on a civ pushed your units outside the enemy territory, maybe this exploit cannot be done. Maybe this can be used as an exploit for faster movement (declaring war so the pathfinder comes back a few turns earlier).

It already pushed units out of borders on DoW, and the push is unpredictable enough that it wouldn't be much use to exploit.

I'm in favor of this because it's just a really annoying facet of VP that scouting units are kind bad at scouting because of pesky borders.

 

[CppMaster]

What's the point of declaring war only for one worker?

Are you kidding? You get a slave worker and AI lose 1 full worker. That can give you huge advantage if it's done really enough.

 

[crdvis16]

I always hated that recon units had to return to my lands in order to gain the ability to embark too. I get that logically it makes some sense since how would the scout know how to suddenly sail if they are across the continent but clearly they are communicating with the empire in order to give updates on the map. It would be a real quality of life improvement if they could embark without returning.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I wouldn't mind no embark without returning if they could pass through borders.

 

[adan_eslavo]

@CppMaster That's human way of thinking. AI would never be so barbaric to do so.
@crdvis16 Yay, that's the most annoying thing.

 

[Zarggg]

Would it be a reasonable compromise to make exploration units unable to capture/kill civilian units? Is that even a feasible programming change?

Personally, I think that would be a worthy tradeoff.

 

[Omen of Peace]

Since 1 or 2 months, pathfinders don't need to return to the homeland to get Embarcation.

Also, even if they can't capture civilian units, scouts behind enemy lines could still pillage key improvements / roads and make conquest easier, so I think it's too exploitable by humans as long as troops are not expelled upon DoW. And since they're currently not expelled when one has Open Borders, I don't expect it to change this late in the process. (It was debated recently in another thread; personally I like that it adds some danger to opening your borders.)

 

[ryanmusante]

Also, even if they can't capture civilian units, scouts behind enemy lines could still pillage key improvements / roads and make conquest easier, so I think it's too exploitable by humans as long as troops are not expelled upon DoW. And since they're currently not expelled when one has Open Borders, I don't expect it to change this late in the process. (It was debated recently in another thread; personally I like that it adds some danger to opening your borders.)

But, that's the whole idea, they don't have Open Borders agreement which is why they're traversing through to explore and why they would be kicked out with a DOW (with the mod).

 

[tu_79]

Another exploitable thing:
Send your upgraded by a goody hut scout to the backyard of the civ you want to attack, then show your big army in the front door, declare war. While AI's main army is distracted by your army, steal and pillage with the scout from behind.

 

[ElliotS]

Another exploitable thing:
Send your upgraded by a goody hut scout to the backyard of the civ you want to attack, then show your big army in the front door, declare war. While AI's main army is distracted by your army, steal and pillage with the scout from behind.

You can already do that, and I do regularly. This might make it a tad easier, but I wouldn't say it has any real impact on the strategy.

 

[Workerspam]

Another exploitable thing:
Send your upgraded by a goody hut scout to the backyard of the civ you want to attack, then show your big army in the front door, declare war. While AI's main army is distracted by your army, steal and pillage with the scout from behind.

AI already does this as well with both scouting and military units. I've resorted to keeping a mobile unit in my interior to hunt down unexpected interlopers.

 

[tu_79]

You can already do that, and I do regularly. This might make it a tad easier, but I wouldn't say it has any real impact on the strategy.

Then, I can't see any other caveat.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Of course, we should make sure scouts/pathfinder cannot pillage in foreign lands without open border or war.
=> It would make Morroco's UA OP, and would be exploitable by human player with other civs too.