Vote for squatting

[Deego3]

We should bring it back. Having a Indian Netherlands is great fun...

 

[MrPopov]

... then use world builder

 

[Lone Wolf]

Having a Indian Netherlands is great fun...

How it's possible to do that by squatting?!?

 

[Ekolite]

A long walk?

 

[-Perceval-]

squatting is cheat

 

[archontophoenix]

It seems reasonable to me that there should be some kind of switch. There's no real historical meaning to squatting or not squatting; there's never been a way to say "such and such a civilization will be appear in this area at this time". However, some of the most interesting strategies for this game have been developed around squatting, and I think it would be nice to preserve them.

Squatting has come at a cost, at least in previous versions, if you did it more than once; a palace move had a fairly significant stability penalty. I understand that penalty has been reduced in this version. Could that be changed back?

 

[kairob]

Moving your palace shouldn't have too large a stability penalty. Capitals were often moved to stabilise empires rather than causing instability.

 

[Fanaza]

Let Pacifist leave. If he finds it necessary to take advantage of exploits to win some of his games, then why are you giving him any validity here?

 

[blizzrd]

Moving your palace shouldn't have too large a stability penalty. Capitals were often moved to stabilise empires rather than causing instability.

Hence the Summer Palace national wonder was implemented.

 

[Rhye]

It's a very controversial decision.
You provide good points.
Squatting is cheating. Squatting brings new creative strategies.
They're both true.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Let me make one final argument for squatting. There's historical precedent in all the possible squats that have been done so far, in fact I've tried to label each position with the appropriate name (Ragnar the Varangian, the Norman, etc) and with the appropriate historical context (Lisboa being considered a possible capital for the Spanish/Portuguese crown during the short time it was conjoined by marriage). Even the French have a legal precedent--the Frankish kingdom under Charlemagne was centered at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), and it's only a matter of game play that the French spawn first rather than the Germans (it could have been easily the other way round if the Franks were considered more Germanic than Latin). The Greeks or Romans could have stayed in Asia Minor, but one historical accident or two later, they were evicted. Imagine the Colossus of Rhodes still standing tall today, or Hagia Sophia being still a Christian cathedral rather than a mosque.

As somebody pointed out, the Phoenicians were of more ancient origin than the Romans, and if it weren't for the Etruscans they could have settled there rather than Carthage.

Granted, the New World ones are pushing a little far, but it's not out of the realm of impossibility that the Mayans, Aztecs and Incans would have expanded outside their domain. If Kon-tiki could reach the South Sea islands, so could the Incans reach North America.

The fun about history is that little things change a lot in hindsight. Where you settle in real life may be the difference between a flourishing history (like the Romans) or defeat. Carthage could have never summoned the manpower that Italy provided--the battle of Cannae saw 50-75 thousand Roman soldiers killed, and yet the next year they fielded several armies in Italy and Spain.

Think of squatting not as an exploit in this particular mod, but of what could have happened in real life.

 

[kairob]

That argument has half convinced me. But only half, as it does still distort the balance of the game and give and unfair advantage.

 

[star15389]

How is the advantage unfair? Every civ except America can do it, and America has no need to squat. Unless you mean it's unfair for the human player to be able to while the AI cannot, in which case I would agree, but point out that foreknowledge of the map, understanding of spawn dates, flip zones and UHVs, and the ability to fight a war competently are rather unfair advantages as well.

 

[Lone Wolf]

How is the advantage unfair?

It's unfair to the civs you squat upon. One of the points of the mod is historical civ spawning instead of evereyone in 4000 BC, like in classical civ. Not historical civs collapsing soon after the spawn because of squatting.

And someone should start an Indian squat on Netherlands SG...

 

[blizzrd]

Think of squatting not as an exploit in this particular mod, but of what could have happened in real life.

I think of squatting as an exploit that was allowed under 1.181 and is not under 1.182. Whether it is allowed or not under 1.183 doesn't change the nature of the exploit.

 

[onedreamer]

I don't think that squatting equals to strategy, even in the most remote of possibilities. This is just an excuse used to win a game more easily than it's supposed to be. Sorry for the brutality but it's as simple as this. Squatting is not different than signing open borders with England and cutting it to teleport your galleys in Greenland. This exploit has been fixed, why not squatting ? Incidentally, both exploits have posts of bragging about them. For this reason, I don't even think it should be an option if we want at least a little bit of standards... otherwise we might as well shut down the wiki.
What could be done though is, if Rhye is willing, he could include in the mod files one that allows squatting and if a player wants to use it, (s)he can overwrite the regular files. However I really don't understand why one would want to bother overwriting these files when you could just enter worldbuilder and delete all units of the civ that has to be squatted. You know when they spawn, you know where they spawn and with which forces, all you have to do is send your units there, open world builder, delete a random number of your units as you see fit, and delete the AI's units. Fun, ain't it ?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Squatting is not different than signing open borders with England and cutting it to teleport your galleys in Greenland. This exploit has been fixed, why not squatting ?

Was that the one that required building a city in Iceland and gifting it to England? I throught that this was actually not fixed, because it comes with a cost that might very well outweight the benefit?

when you could just enter worldbuilder and delete all units of the civ that has to be squatted. You know when they spawn, you know where they spawn and with which forces

Squatting is not destroying a civ's units at the start, which I consider borderline, but ultimately not exploitive. Squatting is building your capital at the spawn site, so that it will not flip to the spawning civ, usually condemning it. (e.g. Thetford-London as a Viking capital).

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

Squatting is not different than signing open borders with England and cutting it to teleport your galleys in Greenland. This exploit has been fixed, why not squatting ?

Speaking of which, I just test drove a Japanese game to 1400 ish.
My conquerors in Mexico, upon not declaring war, next turn got teleported not just merely outside Mexican territory, but all the way into South America, presumably as a result of not actually having seen any land in North America yet, but having seen a bit of South America from my other caravel coming from the other direction. Felt... odd.

Cheers, Luke

 

[AnotherPacifist]

No, Luke, it's probably because you haven't seen any land in NAm that's not Aztec and not jungle, and your units got flipped to the closest non-jungle tile you know of.

This is just an excuse used to win a game more easily than it's supposed to be.

Sorry, I and others who squat have won the game many times, squatting is just another way of winning victories other than UHV. And squatting doesn't necessarily condemn that civ (like the English)--it's the AI's particular idiosyncracies that condemn it (it could very well have decimated Thetford if it declared war soon, and in the end it's economic stagnation that kills it).

Maybe we should allow the AI to squat too and encourage them to do it, other than settling in their "settler maps."

 

[LukeUeda-Sarson]

No, Luke, it's probably because you haven't seen any land in NAm that's not Aztec and not jungle, and your units got flipped to the closest non-jungle tile you know of.

Sorry for the thread hi-jack...

So if had delayed my approach from the other direction, they might have got flipped all the way back to Japan?

Cheers, Luke