Border, what you want to do with it?

I very much like these ideas for borders, although I wouldn't want border size to be different for different map sizes. If everything scaled with map size, then playing a huge map would be no different than playing a small one. I especially like the idea that borders would slowly grow towards each other, too, and I would also add that they should increase based on city population. A hamlet with 200 people should control a much smaller area than a thriving city of 20,000.

I'm not sure whether or not I like that you need to be in conflict for a bit before things turn to war. I see its advantages (makes it harder to take advantage of the AI), but it's also artificial. And I think that if supply caravans or supply lines in general are implemented it might even be unnecessary.

I don't love the toll idea. Military units should only be able to enter peaceful/neutral kingdoms with explicit diplomatic permission. This could be obtained in the form of general right-of-passage treaties, but I'd also love to see temporary and specific RoP possibilities. It should be much easier to get permission for a small dungeon-faring band to cross 'peaceful' territory than for an army. It would also be nice if you could say, "I want to attack this mutual enemy with my army from your territory." In any case, for specified RoP agreements, it should be possible to determine the route to be used ahead of time. Your troops should follow said route by default, and if you make them stray too far it should cause a major relations hit and precautionary defensive response.

Now, I do like a toll system for caravans, but I don't want players to actually pay the toll (toll might actually be the wrong word for what I want). There's a huge thread about international trade (NTJedi and I wrote such huge posts that one of the pages actually broke). I'd like foreign caravans passing through a kingdom's territory to generate income for that kingdom, but I don't want the originators of the caravans to have to pay it. Think of it more as trade-based income than as a toll.

It could just show the area under which that city has influence.   Its what keeps that place nice and green.   So I'm waiting to see what the alpha turns to have.

I agree the toll option is pretty cool.  Like allow all trade through your country, but at a price.

I hate borders. They made my life miserable in civ4, and I do not want to see them in elemental. I would like the red line to be the indicator of your essence-powered land.

Anyways, if the diplomacy system is good enough (By this, I mean you can offer such things as no tolls, etc.), then borders souldn't be a problem.

Borders in Civ IV were a pain in the ass, but no borders would be even worse, I think. With no borders there is nothing to prevent players from marching right up next to other players' cities with no consequences (except potentially having war declared on them). You can't say "get the hell off of my land!" if you don't have any borders.

I think borders have the potential to be good, you just need good diplomacy to go along with them. A powerful Right of Passage diplomatic option allowing you to specify when, where and who (as well as the standard 'everything goes'). The ability to cross another player's border without permission shouldn't immediately cause war, either - unless you're already on really bad terms. But if you are on pretty good terms with another player they should sometimes let your trespassing pass, sometimes demand that you remove your troops immediately (and if you don't, relations will quickly deteriorate or war will ensue immediately depending), or if they're in a bad mood or feel particularly threatened (or you have a bad reputation as untrustworthy) - war.

The problem with borders in Civ IV was that they were too binary. You could pass through completely freely, or not at all. There was also the problem of city tiling, resulting in a world where the entire world is covered, removing all neutral land. You can't go around anyone in Civ IV because you'd just run into the same problem. I'm hoping Elemental will have much more wild space than other 4X games.

I would be willing to accept a system in which borders exist, and crossing the border of an annoyed faction could irritate them further. I just don't want to start out with closed borders..... although an option to close them in-game would be nice.

But, as always, this could easily be resolved by pre-game settings switches.

I agree for the most part with pigeonpigeon's suggestions, although I'm not sure if I like the idea of them slowly growing towards eachother (unless the pop. of the city is increasing) Although maybe there could be some special unit that can claim currently un-used land. Kind of like how during the colonial ages if you planted a flag in the ground, you claimed that area for your country. You could use something like this to connect far off cities to the rest of your empire.

I like his idea for how military units should be handled. It helps get rid of the problem of clustering your army around their cities before you declare war, but at the same time isn't too restrictive.

For tolls, I think that for every turn a caravan is in someone else's territory, part of its income is "taxed" The player who owns it doesn't make quite as much, and the player whose territory it's in gains a little income. Although this might encourage really short caravan routes that only go to border towns/cities, so maybe it isn't the best idea...

Pigeon. I like how border should extend indefinitely btw your cities; but I might not like that being automatic & without govern by some rule.   High pop city should has a larger border, yes.  And how about, caravan spread influence/border?  And if the caravan has not travel that area for long time, the border dwindles? After all, caravan means trade route & trade route spread influences.

Another reason of the “Conflict” state is that nowadays there are many countries that have border skirmishes that aren’t a full fledge war yet.   I won’t consider that artificial. 

I like the Civilian Revolt (Resistance) idea a lot.  So if your opponent changes their dipo stance from Friendy to Conflict, AND has a large army waiting inside the border, it will be nice that your fellow countrymen have a chance (say 40%) to raise & fight for free.    These free units (say, is 10% to 30% strength of the opponent troop inside border) are willing to fight with this particular opponent only & be dismissed automatically after a period.

I do like the Right-of-Passage RoP treaties.   RoP be negotiated btw countries that is neutral (& above) to each other, with the asking party paying some kind of toll/treasure/etc.    The RoP should specify how many caravan and/or troops can pass, and only at a specific period of time.    Location specific RoP may be a bit difficult to do, in terms of UI.  Although I like location specific RoP, I don’t mind there isn’t one.  RoP is a very flexible way to deal with border.

I have skim thru that huge international trade thread.  My probably inaccurate understanding about it is that international merchant guild escort all caravans.  The more you pay them, better the troops are used to escort your caravans; and they also pay the sending and receiving party money (as insurance payout) if the caravan is destroyed during transit.    I also like your idea of “foreign caravans passing through a kingdom's territory to generate income for that kingdom, but I don't want the originators of the caravans to have to pay it”.  How about the international merchant guild pays the toll for every caravan that walks your land?  It'll be a portion of that escorting fee they receive.

Mind you the guild still obeys all RoP btw countries on behalf its customers.  If SD devs really fancy RoP or merchant guilds, I will definitely like them to smuggle stuff that violate RoP, if you pay them enough bribe.   Alas... this might be too off-topic.

I am generally against automatic tolling or rights of passage. I think that they should be implimented as optional and negotiable, but forcing people to put up with them in all circumstances excluding treaties: reminds me too much of civ4.

I'd like three different borders. One border that determines my channeler influence. Another one that determines my cultural influence, and one that determines my political influence (or claim thereof).

Most of the time, these would all more or less overlap. But the distinction between them is important.

seconded

Plus side of having borders:

Trade boundaries and troop access based on diplomatic relations.

Border centric spell options, for instance, curse enemy land spells, boost friendly land spells, heal troops in friendly territory, etcetera.

Negative side of having borders:

Gay influence mechanics.

I'm torn.

Really? I didn't realize that influence mechanics favored other mechanics of the same gender.

(sorry, pet peeve)

Borders extending outward as a town grows makes sense in this case, because the world was just shattered in a cataclysm. An effective border is going to be the area you can exert influence over, and larger populations create more areas of influence. It would have to be different then your magical casting range though, that can spread into enemy territory.

What was wrong with The GalCiv2 spheres of influence? They were just there. Anyone could fly thru them without it being a "declaration of war". You don't want me wandering around in your territory? Do something about it! I also liked how you could have islands of influence if a new settlement was too far outside your current area of influence.

Actually, GC2 spheres with a diplo-optional "get out" button and a few other features sounds like a pretty good idea.

That may or may not be relevant to Elemental, though (and I'm guessing no). I don't really see anything like GC2 trade showing up in Elemental - in other words, I don't think we'll be establishing random generic trade routes that will just generate income. I think trade routes in this game will be more functional - as in trading actual resources. Thus there isn't necessarily any 'profit' involved, and I wouldn't want to lose a percentage of my resources to kingdoms my caravans pass through. If there is GC2-style trading, though, then tolls would work. Otherwise I'd rather there be no tolls, just income generated when foreign caravans pass through your territory.

Caravans extending your borders would be awesome. However, it might be worthwhile to have caravans be really good at expanding your borders in wild space, but not so quickly in claimed territory. I don't really want major traders to slowly erode everyone's borders with profuse amounts of caravans... Or maybe having a military presence in the area can greatly curb border-expansion from caravans?

In the real world, you don't need to be in conflict with another state for X number of turns before you're allowed to declare full fledged war

I'm actually hoping to be able to draw routes on the map. For example, when making roads I'd like to be able to draw the route ahead of time and have my workers get to it. Another area where this could be handy is in custom trade routes (if the AI-picked route isn't satisfactory to you, or you want to do something strange). The ability to draw routes seems like a fairly simple way of giving the player a lot of effortless control in many areas of the game. Whether or not the AI could be made to consider such routes in a diplomatic treaty is where a location-specific RoP treaty might be difficult to implement.

This is a it off topic and the issue of borders deserves its own thread. That said, I can't help myself... I'd rather a 3rd Party Merchant's Guild in charge of international trade not have to deal with RoP (too much micromanagement). On the topic of what route international trade caravans take, refer to that thread if you dare :P 

I would prefer something more like Climber's OP and my replies, but I would be satisfied with this as well. This is somewhat off topic, but one thing Elemental definitely needs is the ability to threaten other players through diplomacy - and not just about getting off your land. 

Then I guess I misinterpreted how trade would work. My bad. In that case, I agree that there shouldn't be tolls.

Having borders in the game sounds like it would be a lot of diplomacy,  planning and such. Sounds boring

It mustn't prolong the game as I want fast games like Age of Wonders on small and medium maps. Some peoples border ideas make it sound like they plan to play X-Large Civilization & GalCiv 2 like games where things move sloooowlyyyy and the game takes 6 hours or so....

I'm after competetive short games where I defeat the enemy as fast as possible and this borderthings sound like they would prolong the game with all the planning and diplomacy it would result in.

Do many of you guys like Civilization and GalCiv and want the game to take like 100 hours..?

Indeed. Too big of a headache. I just don't want a civ 4 remake on our hands. Although, as always, pre-age settings are great.

I can't speak for anyone else, but yes, that is what I want. The longer the game, the better.

I don't see why a commodity-based trade system would make tolls a moot point. Wouldn't it work more or less like the real world, where shipping, say, a load of cars from one country to another entails a cash tariff and not a share of the cars?

I think at least a handful of us are actually very interested in the idea of a single game that could take hundreds of hours to finish. I, for one, am about your polar opposite in terms of this preference. With the exception of trying to learn the basic ropes, a TBS game that wrapped in just a few hours, much less in under an hour, would bore me to tears.

That said, I'm also pretty confident that the devs are building a very 'elastic' game engine. GC2 definitely has skirmish-loving players and long-game players. You can see evidence of that in the three map-size-based ladders at the AltMeta.

I am with the previous two posters. I would even like a game that was essentially a never ending sandbox, and certainly a single game that could take 100 or more hours would be great. For this type of game, anything short of a few hours, will be too short, even on a small map.

Eternal games are fun.... but I don't want tolls and frankly I don't think they will be there.