Climber Climber

Border, what you want to do with it?

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Border, what you want to do with it?

from Elemental Forums

There is Red Border surrounding a city in this dev posted picture. I always found border is important aspect of TBS games. I have no idea what the function of this ‘red border’ is whatsoever, but hopefully it is not just an eye candy. But anyways, if there is a ‘border’ concept, what do you want with them? In my previous post, I’ve proposed a crude suggestion for border (related to diplomacy, war and trade).  But in your mind, what type of border system will delight you most?

My crude suggestion:

Border is a circular 20/15/10 hexes surrounding a settlement (map size depending)
-    When two player borders overlap, the game determines the exact border location, it is somewhere close to their midpoint.
-    Border expands slowly but indefinitely towards its closest city the same player owns, even if the closest city is located beyond its default 20/15/10 hexes limit.
-    Border expands on any terrain, including the sea.

Diplomacy status related to Border and Trade
War: All units can trespass its border AND capture city; Needs to be in “Conflict” for a few turns before turning to “War”
Conflict: All units can trespass its border, but no city capture
Neutral: Caravan pays a toll to trespass; Other units cannot trespass border, except (spy or invisible units)
Peaceful: Caravan and other units pay a toll to trespass
Friendly: All units trespass for free; Allow road building within mutual border

99,853 views 39 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 18


Quoting Climber, reply 8And 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.
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?

Climber: I think allowing caravan expanding border within others’ claimed territory is a mistake.  That should be disallowed.   Caravan should only be able to expand border on wild spaces, or when dipo is in conflict and war.   I don’t want micro caravan.

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 18

Quoting Climber, reply 8Location 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.
….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. 

Climber: I’ll be happy if there is only empire-vs-empire level RoP.  Location specific RoP is a bonus, if devs has time to make it good.   Location specific RoP seem to be quote a different thing to rally points.

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 18
... 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 

Climber: I’ve no intention to spend my life in that huge thread.  I know there is good stuff there, but someone pls summarize it.   I’ve exactly the opposite opinion.   Caravan can trespass borders inappropriately even when they are using a merchant guild.  The only exceptions are if the caravan itself is invisible, bribing the merchant guild to smuggle stuff for you.

Quoting pigeonpigeon, reply 18
Quoting Scoutdog, reply 17Actually, GC2 spheres with a diplo-optional "get out" button and a few other features sounds like a pretty good idea.

Climber: Scoutdog, if you have to always push that button, you’ll be annoyed.  Why not make it automatically pushed?  In that case, it will be very similar to the Neutral diplo state.
Another use for the border.  If there is an event log, the log should keep track of all opponent units that get in/out of it, including caravans.
Quoting psychoak, reply 13
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.

Agreed there are lot of fun stuff can be done with border.  The question is how to draw the border elegantly.  What is the simplest & fair rule for your border?  Now we have a few choices, distance from your settlement, essence revitalized hexes, Civ4 style cultural influence, caravan routes, and population.   How the border is drawn should base on a combination of some these factors. 
Border can make cross border trade important.  Say if an empire happens to have 80% of Iron on map (maybe it is from RMG, maybe the map designer wants that), a proper border mechanism can make the iron trade interesting.  Say if that empire happens to be at one corner, its more central neighboring countries should get some trade route revenue.  But anyone who wants to rob these caravans has to be in conflict with these countries.
==

Border has little effect on prolonging the game.   If there is ‘conflict’ diplo status, it only delays your invasion a few turns.   Eternal game is something related to the birth, death & succession of the Soverign (or other characters) as I’ve mentioned in the “Dynamic History” thread.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Scoutdog, if you have to always push that button, you’ll be annoyed.

If I wanted to continually push that button, and had to continually push it, it might get annoying. However, if the AI was willing to play fair, I would only use it when it looked like the AI was causing trouble.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Campaigner, reply 20


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

Yes. That's what the big map settings are for.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, even Civ games can be over inside an hour.  All you do is play offensively on a small map.

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 23
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 see international trade functioning differently. I imagine foreign trade being accomplished by essentially commissioning an independent trader (a member of a 3rd party trading guild or whatnot) to carry my stuff to somewhere else. Any sensible trader would try to maximize his profits by filling his caravan with however many goods he can to sell along the way, thus generating trade income for nations he passes through. Even if a nation were to charge tolls, it'd be something paid by the trader, not your kingdom. Now, if trade is done by me building a caravan, filling it with stuff and sending it marching across other kingdoms' territory escorted by my own armed troops - then explicit tolls would be a little more sensible. But that kind of trading would sorta stink.

And honestly the prospect of setting toll rates seems a little daunting to me (especially if you want to set different tolls for different people). And having to keep track of which nations have what tolls would kinda suck. Too much blah for too little gain.

 

Quoting Climber, reply 1

I’ve no intention to spend my life in that huge thread.  I know there is good stuff there, but someone pls summarize it.   I’ve exactly the opposite opinion.   Caravan can trespass borders inappropriately even when they are using a merchant guild.  The only exceptions are if the caravan itself is invisible, bribing the merchant guild to smuggle stuff for you.

I'll try to work on a summary of that thread, it might take some time though. It's probably a good idea though, as I think a lot of good thoughts came up but I doubt anyone wants to spend a full day reading that one thread :P

That said, I guess we disagree on foreign trade caravans and trespassing. I see them as independent guild traders with right of passage across all territory (maybe unless explicitly specified otherwise) commissioned by various kingdoms. If a kingdom attacks such a caravan within its territory, it would be considered as much an act of aggression against the traders guild as against the player whose goods it was carrying (and to whom they were going!). Basically, the guild will service you so long as you don't interfere with its business. The reasons for this are legion and this was the solution NTJedi and I best liked to prevent all sorts of exploitable situations. I'll try to work on that summary for you :P

Quoting Climber, reply 1
Scoutdog, if you have to always push that button, you’ll be annoyed.  Why not make it automatically pushed?  In that case, it will be very similar to the Neutral diplo state.

Like Scoutdog said, there isn't always a need to demand somebody get out of your territory. If a small AI army or band passes through a heavily guarded part of your kingdom, who cares? They aren't going to be able to do any damage so it's unlikely they have harmful intent. Demanding someone get out of your territory should also cause a small reputation hit - especially if it's just a worker or something.

Edit: Oh, and I too want 100+ hour games :rofl: . TBS games are among the only genre that can last that long (some RPGs can last pretty long, but rarely 100 hours - and those you rarely play through more than a few times if that). For me it's one of the things that makes TBS games so replayable. 

 

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

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 mo


You would love the variable micromanagment levels then, medium (small) map low (medium) complexity.

But some people want, or need the 6 hour - 24 hours, 80 hour epic games. Hopefully Elemental will be able to do both.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Hmm, I think I would also like to play a never-ending sand-box fantasy TBS game, where your channeller eventualy becomes a being like the Witch King or Cirdan the Shipwright from LoTR, with a rich history behind him or her.  Especially if there are interesting random events and quests to do.

But, back to borders, I think they are important to this game, but I would like to see a break from culture or influence defining your borders, but allow diplomacy to make a difference as well.  For example, channeller X negotiates with channeller Y that X's borders will extend to Mountain Range A, while Y can have River Valley B.  This would actually make a naming mechanic for territories and terrain features important in the game, maybe to further refine, there could be some sort of map plot coordinate system so that players can fine tune their borders.  I think this might make the game fun if you prefer diplomacy as well.:thumbsup:

Edit: Sorry, didn't realize this was buried a little deeply when I replied, nor that there was more than one page.

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Actually, I think that the "border" is essence-related: In one of Brad's screenshots, there is a red line that I am assuming is the border because no ohter border lines are visible. It pretty clearly matches the boundry of revived land, hence my theory.

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

I wasn't saying you were wrong, I was just saying that the mechanic I described above would be interesting.

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

I wasn't saying it woudn't be interesting, I just don't think there will be a conventional border.

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd like borders to affect an army's ability to supply. Within your borders, supply is easy. The population helps you out, helps keep you fed, and makes maintaining that army fairly painless.

Outside your border, no such luck. You've got to bring supplies or forage. Go inside an enemies border and it gets even tougher, foraging isharder because you need protected patrols or guerilla forces try to sabotage your supply trains. Abstractly of course, just as some +/- to supply which in turn affects the number of troops you can keep in an area, or their battle readiness, or some such.

I don't see borders having much impact on small groups. A patrol, or spy, etc, would be mostly immune to effect of borders.

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Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd like borders to affect an army'sability to supply. Within your borders, supply is easy. The population helps you out, helps keep you fed, and makes maintaining that army fairly painless.

Outside your border, no such luck. You've got to bring supplies or forage. Go inside an enemies border and it gets even tougher, foraging isharder because you need protected patrols or guerilla forces try to sabotage your supply trains. Abstractly of course, just as some +/- to supply which in turn affects the number of troops you can keep in an area, or their battle readiness, or some such.

I don't see borders having much impact on small groups. A patrol, or spy, etc, would be mostly immune to effect of borders.

Sounds nice. In most games, there is an exploit I refer to as "heart-ripping": you can go directly to the most prosperous/powerful city and take it out, then mop up the much weakened rest of the empire. This annoys me, because in real war you usually have to push far through enemy lines. However, your idea would SEVERELY limit the cheatyness of this exploit.

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds nice. In most games, there is an exploit I refer to as "heart-ripping": you can go directly to the most prosperous/powerful city and take it out, then mop up the much weakened rest of the empire. This annoys me, because in real war you usually have to push far through enemy lines. However, your idea would SEVERELY limit the cheatyness of this exploit.

Exactly. Nice term, heart-ripping :). It'd help prevent that and the related uber-stack issue. You can't just drag 10 gazillion guys and their horses through leagues of enemy territory. The supply logistics would kill you. Putting in an entire supply chain, disruption, etc mechanism would be overkill, but it might not be to hard to essentially have a supply rating that's based on your armies relative position to friendly territory vs. enemy territory.

I remember Kohan had army healing rates related to that kind of relative territorial distance.

Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

If borders overlap I'd like squares to be marked as "contested territory". Like in Star Trek Birth of the Federation.

 

What this can allow is using contested territory as a bargaining chip in diplomatic missions.

 

Also I hope political borders are not tied to "culture" ala Civ. Maybe physical forts/constructions that claim x squares around them.