Put zones of control back in

[Octavian X]

Historically, nations have claimed land by stationing their troops outside their borders.
Maybe Civ III can emulate this. If you put a troop in a square not occupied by a city, his zone of control would extend your borders with the nine square radius like that of a town. If he is in a fortress, it would extend to a 21 square radius.
Thoughts?

 

[Bamspeedy]

This would make the early expansion of every game so easy! Just send out a bunch of units to claim all the land possible, then latter bring in the settlers to actually make cities, since the land is already claimed by you.

 

[Troyens]

I'd prefer that to the current diarrhea of land-grabbing AI settlers flooding your territory, not leaving, and settling on every shred of land they can right next to your towns and colonies.

With Civ III, I have to waste my time physically blocking rivals settlers from entering my territory because if they do they won't leave, will settle next to my towns, but if I attack the settlers I'll get blamed. No good.

Anyway, borders ARE in fact determined more by military units than Sid's ideas about "culture borders".

 

[Dillo]

Originally posted by Troyens
I'd prefer that to the current diarrhea of land-grabbing AI settlers flooding your territory, not leaving, and settling on every shred of land they can right next to your towns and colonies.

With Civ III, I have to waste my time physically blocking rivals settlers from entering my territory because if they do they won't leave, will settle next to my towns, but if I attack the settlers I'll get blamed. No good.

Anyway, borders ARE in fact determined more by military units than Sid's ideas about "culture borders".

TRUE DAT!!!

 

[Woody]

The only problem I see with this is the AI would get to do this also. If you think that a few settlers are bad I dont want to know how fast the AI could pump out warriors and claim all the land.

 

[Bamspeedy]

The only problem I see with this is the AI would get to do this also. If you think that a few settlers are bad I dont want to know how fast the AI could pump out warriors and claim all the land.

That's what I was trying to say. It's the outward expansion that would be so easy to cheat (just mass produce warriors, or some other unit). If the rules were set up correctly it would solve cities from being smack dab in the middle of another civ, however.

 

[Quokka]

With those border sizes it would be way to easy for the AI to land grab especially at the higher levels. On a huge map that would mean that a lone warrior unit would control around 22,000 sq miles. That seems like a lot for a bunch of dudes with clubs and no roads.
Nations that extended their borders with troops didn't just camp them in the rough either they had to build forts, so that would have to be the minimum requirement and give the fort a border of the square its in. Foot troops would then extend the border to the 9 square size. Fast troops would be needed to extend the borders to 21 squares in flat terrain. Roads would be needed in hills and mountains. At least two units would be needed to extend to 21 in any event, the land area would be too large for just one unit.

 

[Umask077]

I use the assassin and spec ops team available in the units forum with hidden nationality. I make assassins available with the republic (think brutus). This is about the point when the idiot ai starts overrunning my terriritory. Its free workers.

The draw back is the AI uses them too. I see cities poping back and forth between civs all the time as assassins to take them. I think the way to fix this is to make it an act of war to protect a hidden nationality unit.

Also think that the "free trip" warning on crossing terriritory should be replaced with Your agreesion is taken as an act of war option virtually stating that they have declare the war not you. I asked them to leave. They refused, the war is there fault not mine. Or better, make it so after you have warned the unit you can kill it without declaring war.