Realistic borders

[Mattastic]

I've been thinking that it might be cool to have more non-straight cultural borders. I always like seeing borders against rivers, because they look a lot more natural than anywhere else. Real national borders are usually not straight at all.

I'd like to be able to make borders follow the shapes of geographic features. Rivers, I suppose, are easier because they actually follow the grid lines, but I'm sure it must be possible to apply it to non-river tiles too. I've found all the border image files, and the XML file that controls how they apply to rivers. However, I can't find any files that control non-river borders. Does anyone have any idea how they're done, or is that complex SDK work?

 

[NikNaks]

Sounds like a really good idea. No idea how it would work though...

 

[Good Sauce]

actually, most national borders that aren't along rivers are straight (ie. the US-canadian border) it's just that over the course of history as nations argue over borders they tend to stabilize over natural lines such as rivers or mountain ranges. it still might be cool to work in somewhere though.

 

[Mattastic]

I'd dispute that straight borders usually only feature on very new countries, like the US, most of Africa, and the Middle East. Certainly any nation that's existed as long as Civ4 nations do (or succeeded older nations) will have uneven borders.

Still, anyone know how to impliment this?