'The other' issue with civ5&6. Cultural borders.

[TehJumpingJawa]

Civ 4 had cultural borders that initially defined the workable tiles of the city, but soon after extend beyond to represent the land influenced (claimed) by the civ.

The civ 5/6's inability to control an area unless you have a city near it leads to lots of annoying problems:

• Strategic/luxury resources that pop-up between your cities, or in inhospitable areas are uncollectible(in civ 4 you could collect anything in your cultural borders)
• AI settles within your future city limits (while this could happen in civ4 too, the window of opportunity was a dozen turns or so, not nearly the entire game)
• Or between your cities
• No national borders is unrealistic and unimmersive

Think of the US, Canada, Russia, or China; huge tracts of land where you could easily fit cities.
Obviously this doesn't happen because nations have borders; land that is claimed but not necessarily developed.
Civ 5/6 is utterly incapable of representing this; it behaves more like your Civilisation is nothing more than a collection of disconnected city states, not a cohesive nation.

Besides 1upt, I feel this is the biggest regression in the franchise post-civ4, and I'm disappointed civ6 didn't do anything to rectify it.

 

[isau]

I don't know about Civ 6 because border pops are so slow, but in Civ 5 borders do extend larger than the workable area. I can't remember if it's 1 tile or 2.

EDIT: Just checked. It's 2 tiles in Civ 5.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Borders extend further than the 3-tile radius of workable tiles in Civ V and VI too.

Apologies if I'm missing the point here.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

He wants the colony mechanic so you can go get that Iron just outside your city's range. Or get working benefits from it I should say.

 

[Menzies]

One thing that could be interesting is a difference between area controlled and area claimed. That is, a city could have two sets of borders attached, the area it physically has control of (the one we see now) and one of an area claimed. It provides no line of sight of it's own, and other Civ wouldn't have to recognise it as yours, but there could be some diplomatic actions attached to breaking it (e.g. walking through, forward settling, etc.). If it were defined as say an extra two tiles further than controlled territory, it would be an interesting mechanic, and fill in dead space so to speak, while giving more direct meaning to not settling near someone's borders (i.e. not settling a city such that your claims would overlap).

This all said, that's pretty much irrelevant to the initial point. Cities in both V and VI can have borders extend beyond the workable area, and you shouldn't be able to work resources outside of your area of control. Equally, you can get the resource itself (e.g. luxury or strategic resource) if it's within your borders, even if not workable.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Really?!
Do I simply not generate enough culture?

Perhaps my complaint should be that it's many orders of magnitude slower then, not impossible.

In Civ 4 your capital's borders will exceed its workable tiles within the first 50 turns; by endgame it'd influence a huge area.
I've gone entire games of civ 6 with my capital's borders not extending beyond the workable tile area.

 

[isau]

It's slower because in Civ 5 and 6, unlike 4, border pops are per tile and not per tier. What I greatly dislike about Civ 4 is the "radial" borders that are a perfect circle (well, a square at first). Altho I do quite like the way tiles are contested in Civ 4 based on who has more culture. That system was fun and caused a lot of tension.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't reached the late game of Civ VI yet, so I can't speak to that, but I think I know what the OP is talking about. In the early game, the answer to the AI settling near you is twofold:

First, don't settle every new city so far from your existing cities. There's a temptation to settle far away and then build inward; when you can do that, it's great, but sometimes it's just the wrong choice.

Second, much of this game is about chewing bubblegum and kicking [butt]. If someone takes land you want, kill them and take it from them. This is both how the game is supposed to work and historically accurate.

If you're in a crowded area, you either need to take up less space or start throwing elbows. In real life, I tend to choose the former.

In Civ V, neglecting your Culture was a mistake, not least because your borders would be so anemic for so long. I don't know yet how it plays out in Civ VI, but it seems like purchasing land with gold is both easier and more important than it was in V.

 

[Plus Ultra]

I've gone entire games of civ 6 with my capital's borders not extending beyond the workable tile area.

Me too. The only exception was a Culture-focused game with Pericles.

I do feel I'm buying significantly more tiles than in Civ V.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Me too. The only exception was a Culture-focused game with Pericles.

I do feel I'm buying significantly more tiles than in Civ V.

I think that's intentional. Makes all the tile buying and "make borders expand faster" abilities better.

 

[kaltorak]

I agree. And yes, in civ5 it happened too.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I do feel I'm buying significantly more tiles than in Civ V.

Same here. In addition, the gold cost of maintaining an army and the warmonger penalties in the early game have both been slashed. My early games if VI (all 2 of them) have been much more violent than my early games of V.

 

[Krajzen]

Regardless of gameplay and balance, I really hate the visual aspect of empires cities being so disconnected between vast amounts of empty land - even in late eras.
By the modern era, all or great majority of land (>90%) should be within cultural borders of nations (I'd also disable city razing after entering industrial era, as it is super unrealistic). It would look so much more like real world history.

Some mechanics greatly increasing late era border growth, or allowing on claiming the unoccupied land, or late cities grabbing much more land when they are founded, would be very nice.

 

[Lyoncet]

One thing that could be interesting is a difference between area controlled and area claimed. That is, a city could have two sets of borders attached, the area it physically has control of (the one we see now) and one of an area claimed. It provides no line of sight of it's own, and other Civ wouldn't have to recognise it as yours, but there could be some diplomatic actions attached to breaking it (e.g. walking through, forward settling, etc.). If it were defined as say an extra two tiles further than controlled territory, it would be an interesting mechanic, and fill in dead space so to speak, while giving more direct meaning to not settling near someone's borders (i.e. not settling a city such that your claims would overlap).

This is pretty much 100% what I've been hoping for (in any 4X game) since Civ IV. In vain, so far.

 

[Truronian]

Regardless of gameplay and balance, I really hate the visual aspect of empires cities being so disconnected between vast amounts of empty land - even in late eras.
By the modern era, all or great majority of land (>90%) should be within cultural borders of nations (I'd also disable city razing after entering industrial era, as it is super unrealistic). It would look so much more like real world history.

Some mechanics greatly increasing late era border growth, or allowing on claiming the unoccupied land, or late cities grabbing much more land when they are founded, would be very nice.

Yeah, this s one gripe I have with 6. Maybe a tech/civic could dramatically increase (like 5+ times as fast) border pops so that the map fills up some more. I don't like unclaimed and in the modern era.

 

[fatgordy]

I too greatly miss the Civ4 mechanic of competing for cultural control over tiles that both Civs could feasibly claim for their city. As it is now, if an AI plops a city down in the heart of your empire in a small border gap, there is basically no option to ever gain that land back except going to war with them.

It would be great if I could place a fort out in unclaimed territory and claim a small section of land as my own. It would make sense for a fort to be an expensive thing to maintain, but the pay back would be in filling in those gaps and claiming resources. The maintenance cost for forts could even scale the further they are from your core borders.

 

[Solitude]

It would be nice if you could choose your expansion. Maybe you want to go after a specific resource, maybe you want to secure a peninsula by only expanding in one direction to close it off from other civs etc.

 

[bbbt]

I too greatly miss the Civ4 mechanic of competing for cultural control over tiles that both Civs could feasibly claim for their city. As it is now, if an AI plops a city down in the heart of your empire in a small border gap, there is basically no option to ever gain that land back except going to war with them.

Yeah, I also miss the this mechanic (though I don't miss having to stack tons of units in a newly conquered city to stop it flipping back to the previous owner!). It seems like a good alternative use for a GWAM/spy (if there was already existing cultural pressure) or something.

 

[Takfloyd]

Even moreso than the old culture mechanics (conquering cities with culture shouldn't have been removed), what's missing is Civ III's colony mechanic, where you could claim resources outside your borders by building a road to them and a colony on top of them,

 

[UWHabs]

Even moreso than the old culture mechanics (conquering cities with culture shouldn't have been removed), what's missing is Civ III's colony mechanic, where you could claim resources outside your borders by building a road to them and a colony on top of them,

It would be cool if they could bring the colony mechanism back. Maybe something like you have to send a builder to a resource, construct a "colony fort" on it, and then send a trader to it to actually get a benefit from it? Obviously if another civ's culture expanded over it, you lose it (but then it would be cool to actually declare a war over oil). I think if they added this, they should have to add in the resource penalty to units, but it would be a nice way to establish a "colony" without having to build a city.