Troops on border - what are the rules?

[ShunNakamura]

Bleh. Removal of the ignore option on this is not a good thing at all. I got the request and went ahead and selected just passing through. Mongolia was on another continent and I certainly had little interest in them I just figured an auto explore scout was lingering around them a bit too long and that I would have to go and manually move it away. I always ignored in the past just incase an auto explore scout could set it off. I am too lazy to scout manually past the first couple dozen turns so all my scouts get switched to auto at some point.

I was right and wrong. It was one of my scouts. One who managed to do this to himself.

This thing should really be triggered by a strength comparison. If your units on the border are powerful enough to register as a threat to their army then they get antsy. A lone scout really shouldn't be causing diplo penalties. Well at least this was a laid back 1st game to get used to the new features. On this difficulty level it doesn't really matter if I make enemies with any given civilization, even with suboptimal play due to experimenting.


Anyways the real point of this thread is what are the exact rules on this? How many tiles away, how many units, etc. It isn't uncommon for me to have garrisoned encampments or even cities 1 or 2 tiles away from a shared border. In the past I just ignored it rather than risk a penalty due to not spotting a place where I was breaking the rules. Now I apparently need an encyclopedic knowledge of what is or isn't too close. Be nice if the game came with a promise overlay that would tell you where the limits of any given promise was.

 

[Aristos]

Hardcoded inside the dll, so until we see the source code, we can only speculate from observations.

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's a load of crap.

 

[Disgustipated]

One scout should not trigger it, it never has in my game. Most likely you had a ship on auto explore also near the borders at the same time as the scout.

So far I haven't had an issue with troops on the border in GS. Only time I got the message is when I was planning to attack. And of course I just took the grievance hit for breaking the promise. Actually, I take that back, I got the message one other time I believe, I moved troops and got an easy 30 diplo favor. Lately I've been manually exploring rather than auto exploring. Auto explore bites me in the rear too many times, usually regarding barbarians.

 

[Victoria]

what are the exact rules on this?

It is thngs like this that annoy me... even when they changed the border rule 2 years ago in a patch they were not specific enough.
I did some testing and did not get precise answer however....
Military units are what counts and as scouts are rightly military (they are great pillagers) they do count.
If I put 20 military units 4 tiles away the AI does not blink, 3 and they complain.
If I put 5 units 3 away they do not complain but 2 away they do.
It seems like 3 units within 2 tiles of border or 2 within 1 seem to do it but it gets messy... because
If I put 3 units within 2 tiles but inside my borders they do not complain... but 5 they will.

Therefore I surmise there is a formula and above is enough to give you an idea. I imagine unit strength is tricky to use unless they also include era. To test this properly with firetuner would take a few hours and quite frankly I get rather annoyed at all the testing when Firaxis should just publish on a website like this... but I guess it just opens up the nit pickers that will always complain while if they do not publish people cannot be too picky.

Bottom line is a unit passing their border will not trigger but 2 at the same time adjacent probably will. However... the old diplomacy is still in place and that promise you have to make does give you diplomacy points ... and if you keep the promise also (eventually after 50 turns) gives you a couple of positive diplomacy points for about 20 turns.

 

[Piranga]

I could see why they would be pissed about that scout. He's got perfect view of all the land between their major cities.

It drives me crazy that I can't get the option to request the same thing of the AI. I can ask them not to settle or not to send missionaries, but I can't ask them to move the 10 military units sitting on my border. Yet my units 2/3 tiles deep sets them off.

 

[ShunNakamura]

One scout should not trigger it, it never has in my game. Most likely you had a ship on auto explore also near the borders at the same time as the scout.

So far I haven't had an issue with troops on the border in GS. Only time I got the message is when I was planning to attack. And of course I just took the grievance hit for breaking the promise. Actually, I take that back, I got the message one other time I believe, I moved troops and got an easy 30 diplo favor. Lately I've been manually exploring rather than auto exploring. Auto explore bites me in the rear too many times, usually regarding barbarians.

Hmm. . . I know when I failed the promise the only thing near them was that scout, but I don't know if the initial request was made due to ships also being on the border. I wonder if the number of cities threatened plays a role. That scout was basically threatening 5 of his cities as Piranga pointed out .


To add to border woes my recent Maori game I had an issue with good old Peter. Mr. "City State Protector" kept wanting to conquer Mohenjo-Daro, which was the one city state I wanted. I had rather limited water access for at least 1/3 to 1/2 of my cities so I went all in on this guy and saved back envoys just incase I got envoy bombed by someone. Anyways Daro was nearly half a map away from me and next to old Peter. The first time I just barely made it in time to save my ally. I went back and old Peter declared war on Daro AGAIN before my units ever even got back home. After that I just went and parked two of my melees beside Daro's City center on the side closest to him. Due to terrain it was a REAL pain to declare and fight him after he got next to Daro. Anyways by the time infantry came online his borders finally touched Daro's border and at that point on I had a troops on the border pop up from him on a regular basis. One where my only options were to declare war on someone half the world away or deal with constant 'promise breaking'. Where is my "I can't move my troops because your dumb*bleep* self will immediately declare war on my ally if I so much as take two steps away" option. Actually thinking about I also had a couple frigates patrolling Daro's seaside since he also liked to raid it with ships. However they were on the far side of Daro from his borders so shouldn't have triggered border warnings. I wonder if them being Armies and Armadas played a role? Do those count as 'extra' units? Anyways they would never have stood up to him for a whole war but they would buy me time mobilize. Settling beside Daro wasn't an option since Loyalty wouldn't have been possible to maintain(there was some open space north of Daro that nobody was using).

Edit- oops forgot to thank Victoria, that is certainly some interesting info and I concur that is annoying when they don't bother to tell you the rules you are playing by. Makes it hard to follow them.

 

[JosephC]

These few troops had to pass south through Canada, while most of my army took a different northern route past Germany on their way to liberate city states from the Zulu. These were the only troops I had anywhere near the Canadian Borders, and still I received a message about my broken promise.

 

[Victoria]

These were the only troops I had anywhere near the Canadian Borders, and still I received a message about my broken promise

A Ram does not count but the other 3 are enough, likely you hit a 2 with 1 tile trigger.

 

[JosephC]

A Ram does not count but the other 3 are enough, likely you hit a 2 with 1 tile trigger.

The quantity of troops might be enough but how far away do they have to be? I thought the scout being 6 tiles away would be enough to not count. I assumed the Swordsmen (Ram) and Archer is what still triggered it, but 4 tiles away is apparently still to close?

Just a thought, Could it have anything to do with relative military strength between Civs?

 

[Victoria]

Just a thought, Could it have anything to do with relative military strength between Civs?

Your pic indicates they walked past the civ a couple of turns before and closer. The promise is not based on this turns moves but moves over 3-4 turns. The mechanic is not clear despite testing as said before but relative strength is unlikely. I think it was the spring 2016 map they made this mechanic less sensitive than it was but all they said in the change was along the lines of troops within your own borders not being so sensitive.... before that in the very early days just a scout would trigger this promise.

 

[JosephC]

Gottcha, thanks. That makes more sense; I didn't think they cared about previous turns moves, I thought they only looked at where your troops are at the start of their turn. Indeed, previous few turns I was caught in the mountain pass fighting barbarians only a few tiles away from the Canadian border.

 

[Victoria]

Gottcha, thanks. That makes more sense; I didn't think they cared about previous turns moves, I thought they only looked at where your troops are at the start of their turn. Indeed, previous few turns I was caught in the mountain pass fighting barbarians only a few tiles away from the Canadian border.

It is this time and location combo that makes it hard, they really should just tell us rather than relying on what testing we can do. Anecdotal is not enough, but I did enough to know it has some memory. Thanks for confirming that or I would have to see how it is changed.
I think you have 3 turns to get out of trigger quantity/range or you are breaking your promise.
The nice thing now is a promise gives you 30 diplomatic favour.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm loving that lime green color for Canada though. I wish I could choose that color.

 

[ShunNakamura]

Like Joseph I was not aware of the memory part. Man that makes it really confusing since that means me knowing the scout was the only thing near Mongolia on the turn I was notified of the broken promise not mean much.

 

[Banazir864]

IMO, the promise should be a promise not to declare war, not a promise to move your troops away. That would remove the annoyance of being forced to make a promise that you don't know the terms of, and would still remove the possibility that you were amassing troops to attack.

Also, the "Declare War" option should let you use your best CB, if you have one.

 

[ShunNakamura]

IMO, the promise should be a promise not to declare war, not a promise to move your troops away. That would remove the annoyance of being forced to make a promise that you don't know the terms of, and would still remove the possibility that you were amassing troops to attack.

Also, the "Declare War" option should let you use your best CB, if you have one.

Yup, I could totally go for this. Though some might think that being able to use CB to be a bit much. But it also wouldn't be much of a 'surprise war' so letting it be a formal war if applicable would be a middle ground if folks think best CB is too much.

 

[UWHabs]

IMO, the promise should be a promise not to declare war, not a promise to move your troops away. That would remove the annoyance of being forced to make a promise that you don't know the terms of, and would still remove the possibility that you were amassing troops to attack.

Also, the "Declare War" option should let you use your best CB, if you have one.

Yeah, this would make a lot of sense. Although I discovered in my current game that you can just hit escape on the screen and it goes away, so, bug?

But yeah, definitely annoying to see that pop up while all I'm doing is moving around them to get somewhere else. Although more than once, they've popped up with it while I was prepping for war, and most of the time I just sheepishly say, "Yeah, you got me. Bang bang bang."

 

[LoneDragon]

I don't know if it's still a problem in GS, but what bothered me most is the AI liked to find my troops in unclaimed territory and settle next to them on the very last turn of the promise and then get mad at me.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Lately, I had a batch of Military Engineers laying railroad track everywhere they could, connecting ALL the cities of the pangaea land mass. As far as I know, ME units have no _offensive_ combat value. And if I am putting in RR tracks in another civ's borders, they should be thanking me rather than file grievances for trespassing. Especially if those other civs are allies. [Which I am with ALL of the other civs. Six kinds of alliances, six other civs. One great big dysfunctional family.]

Somebody needs to think this situation through and make a more logical approach patch.