MrRadar
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2014
- Messages
- 2,327
This mindless forward settling by the AI just for the sake of it starts to tick me off more than I would like to care. In its present implementation, it is too cheap a way to create conflict.
Yes, I can declare war and capture the new city or the approaching settler but what if I wanted to be more delicate about it? Or what if I can’t declare war at the moment, because I just signed a DoF with that civ, and my new friend, in his great enthusiasm, sends a settler half a continent away, ignoring all those vast empty swathes of land he has nearby, just to pitch his tent four tiles away from my capital, for more cosiness? DoF ended, AI will lose that city anyway, but then all diplomacy with the rest of the world becomes too complicated for the most part of the game. I'd understand forward settling if we shared a very limited space, but not when entire landmasses tend to be left unclaimed forever or until very late.
I really wish there were some means to warn off potential forward settlers. 'Stake a claim' could be a builder action costing one charge, which would create a red area in the settler view (lens), as if it was a city. To limit abusing it, it should be contiguous with the red area of your actual city; the claim should only stay valid for a limited number of turns, for example 10-20; and there should be a limited number of claims you could have at any given moment, 2 should be enough.
Declared friends should automatically respect your claim, and other civs would be left to weigh pros and cons. An AI settling in the area claimed by you should risk an ultimatum; that could be another diplomacy option. Let's say, you'd be able to issue an ultimatum within ~20 turns as of the hostile settle, to hand over the city or go to war. War weariness and warmongering for such an action and capturing that city (but only that city) should be very small or none, or varied with different civs, depending of their peace loving factor, but still greatly reduced (I know, Gandhi will be frowning upon you for as little as building a pasture on cattle, but he's special). AI would need some clever algorithms for this process, to weigh the military might, possible gains or losses, and that would be the trickiest part to get right, but if implemented, such a feature could probably add some flavour here. That would create tensions in a more plausible way than the present boneheaded manner does.
Yes, I can declare war and capture the new city or the approaching settler but what if I wanted to be more delicate about it? Or what if I can’t declare war at the moment, because I just signed a DoF with that civ, and my new friend, in his great enthusiasm, sends a settler half a continent away, ignoring all those vast empty swathes of land he has nearby, just to pitch his tent four tiles away from my capital, for more cosiness? DoF ended, AI will lose that city anyway, but then all diplomacy with the rest of the world becomes too complicated for the most part of the game. I'd understand forward settling if we shared a very limited space, but not when entire landmasses tend to be left unclaimed forever or until very late.
I really wish there were some means to warn off potential forward settlers. 'Stake a claim' could be a builder action costing one charge, which would create a red area in the settler view (lens), as if it was a city. To limit abusing it, it should be contiguous with the red area of your actual city; the claim should only stay valid for a limited number of turns, for example 10-20; and there should be a limited number of claims you could have at any given moment, 2 should be enough.
Declared friends should automatically respect your claim, and other civs would be left to weigh pros and cons. An AI settling in the area claimed by you should risk an ultimatum; that could be another diplomacy option. Let's say, you'd be able to issue an ultimatum within ~20 turns as of the hostile settle, to hand over the city or go to war. War weariness and warmongering for such an action and capturing that city (but only that city) should be very small or none, or varied with different civs, depending of their peace loving factor, but still greatly reduced (I know, Gandhi will be frowning upon you for as little as building a pasture on cattle, but he's special). AI would need some clever algorithms for this process, to weigh the military might, possible gains or losses, and that would be the trickiest part to get right, but if implemented, such a feature could probably add some flavour here. That would create tensions in a more plausible way than the present boneheaded manner does.
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