Cultural Borders?

I picked up Galciv2 because I heard galciv3 got announced few weeks ago.

 

But, I'm totally lost on the purpose of cultural borders because while I was playing a yutz waltzed inside my borders and settled on three of colonized worlds that I was going to colonize, I got beaten to them by a turn.

 

It upset me alot for few weeks, until then I decided to ask here to learn more about cultural borders because it doesn't work like other games. It doesn't prevent settlement of the worlds from opposing factions..

 

So what does cultural borders do exactly?

19,030 views 12 replies
Reply #1 Top

I've seen 4 main aspects of borders so far:

1) There is a United Planets event that taxes starbases within someone else's borders.

2) It shows the extent of your influence. Where there is more than 1 influence on a tile, it will show whose influence is greatest.

3) There is a United Planets event that removes enemy warships to outside of borders (neutral territory) at the start of hostilities.

4) There is an Isolationist Super Ability which forces enemy ships to speed 3 or less within your borders.

 

I wish there was more, like a non-trespass treaty...

Reply #2 Top

The "influence border" basically depicts the limit of where an empire's influence projects out at a certain value.  

The effect that is most apparent to players is the unhappy face symbol when it appears on a planet or mining base.  If that appears, then the colony or base has some probability of switching to the empire that is imposing the influence upon it.  The influence value is a summation of the effects of population, bases, influence buildings, and racial value - there may be another factor or so, but those are the ones I can recall off the top of my head.

Some AI personalities are very reluctant to colonize within another empire's strong influence envelope.  In crowded galaxies, those AIs do not expand much and are easily crushed.

Thus, if a planet is colonized within another empire's influence border, there may soon be the risk of it being lost to that other empire.

Some players have recounted tactics that use influence in unexpected ways. Perhaps the favorite one I recall was the trick of putting the political capital on the heavily populated homeworld (say, Earth), then selling/trading Mars to an AI, then having it flip back due to the high influence of the larger population planet with the political capital.  Then, do it again, etc.

Reply #3 Top

  Sometimes an AI player will send a message about "military build-up on their border" and "we don't like it" or "remove them or we will do it for you".  I get more of this at crippling difficulty than lower difficulty settings.  I guess from this that they also dislike military ships inside their borders.

Reply #4 Top

Quoting Zarnick, reply 3
I guess from this that they also dislike military ships inside their borders.

Only if you are parking lots of ships close to their borders/planets. Especially troop transports will trigger a response very quickly. The AI sees those as a sign of an imminent invasion.

If your ships are only passing through, then it is usually no problem. However, there are some exceptions. Primarily if the AI doesn't like you already, or you've got a reputation as a genocidal warmonger.

 

Another thing regarding cultural borders, some races have atlas modules that only provide their bonuses within your own territory. Those modules are usually more powerful than the unlimited ones, and have a tendency to work only for the ship they are installed on.

Reply #5 Top

The troop transport parking tactic as also been discussed a lot.

That is, how do you get into a war with an AI w/o triggering other negative effects?  For example, attack the Altarians and other races are likely to declare war on you, etc.

The answer is sometimes to park a troop transport or three near the target AI's planets.  Note, though, that sometimes the AI will pretend to ignore them if your military is a LOT stronger then the AI's is.

Reply #6 Top

Quoting FitzGC, reply 1

I've seen 4 main aspects of borders so far:

1) There is a United Planets event that taxes starbases within someone else's borders.

2) It shows the extent of your influence. Where there is more than 1 influence on a tile, it will show whose influence is greatest.

3) There is a United Planets event that removes enemy warships to outside of borders (neutral territory) at the start of hostilities.

4) There is an Isolationist Super Ability which forces enemy ships to speed 3 or less within your borders.

 

I wish there was more, like a non-trespass treaty...

 

Alright thanks.

 

Is there a genocide option for when I take the planet over in war?

I just wanna wipe the torians out at this point. Every single torian must die.


My borders has been disrespected. Torians must be taught a lesson otherwise everyone else will do the same to me.

 

And the problem is more worse than I thought.

Not three, but FIVE!

 

Douches, I strategically colonized planets to grab planets in borders perfectly. And Torians is just like disregard borders and colonize whatever it wanna LOLOL Do i get a free casus belli to dow Torians? Or am i going to be looked down on for killing the trepassers?

 

And why aren't torian planets revolting to me yet, they're deep inside my cultural borders. So they should be mad or something.

 

Here is the planets.

 

So I decided to look at something.

Military Stat looks fun.

I'm off to kill torian dead once i get troop transports researched and then quit Galciv2 for good.

There's a good reason why I don't play Sid's Civ3 anymore ><

 

Reply #7 Top

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6
Is there a genocide option for when I take the planet over in war?

When invading a world, there is no "option" for genocide. It's the standard approach.

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6
My borders has been disrespected. Torians must be taught a lesson otherwise everyone else will do the same to me.

Don't confuse your political borders with your cultural borders. They're not the same, even if the game sometimes treats them as such. Your political borders only extent as far as the orbit of your planets. 

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6
Do i get a free casus belli to dow Torians? Or am i going to be looked down on for killing the trepassers?

If you declare war, then the other races will look down on you. No matter your reason. If you completely wipe out a race, then the others will look down on you even more. If you continue to do so, then the others will stop trusting you and, eventually, declare war on you in order to prevent your genocidal warmongering.

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6
And why aren't torian planets revolting to me yet, they're deep inside my cultural borders. So they should be mad or something.

Your influence needs to be at least four times as high as theirs, before they will consider revolting. Get your Espionage rating for the Torians to Low, and you'll be able to see how high your influence is on their worlds.

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6
I'm off to kill torian dead once i get troop transports researched

Yes, wipe those bloody frogs out! }:)  

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6
and then quit Galciv2 for good.

Hold on, why would you do that? o_O

Reply #8 Top

@eric

Quoting Ericridge, reply 6




I'm off to kill torian dead once i get troop transports researched and then quit Galciv2 for good.



 

 

 

After playing the other night, and working on flipping planets, I found that it you really need to have a pretty high influence. You must research those Diplomatic techs, that boost influence, so you can add modules to space stations.  They add an extra group of influence modules to your space stations.  the first ones bring you up around 60 or 80 or something.  the second higher level group you can research pushes influence stations up to 277, that i have seen.  But it has modules that add +60, +100 and such.

 

Put one of these huge influence stations next to a planet and it will flip in no time. It takes about 8 or 10 constructors and maybe 1000 credits to make one.. But they work great!  Crank a ton of points into research, and with some decent research planets the tech takes maybe 50-75 turns, maybe faster if you really skimp on building ships and are in a spot that your planet are built up well.

Reply #9 Top

Well Gaunathor, I disagree with the thought of borders in GalCiv2, I don't like it very much.

 

I'm generally a peaceful fellow but if I find you inside my lines? Your dead.

 

I acquired large amount of anger and stress when I saw torians stealing worlds inside my borders so this game is very unsuitable for enjoyment purposes. Because i see borders as same as my home, your trespass in my home? your dead.

 

It's very unfun. It's more bad than SId's CIv series AI doing dick moves like settling a city inside your borders that tiny empty spot inside your borders and then whine about tons of soldiers because it's basically your land especially when the owner of the little cardboard house inside your land is 100 turns away from it's homeland.

And more worse is when they cry about too many soldiers near the said cardboard shack when it's my garrison zone away from main borders of real cities.

 

AI does it to get a NAP forced on you against your will, but the joke's on the ai, I always dow immediately and raze the offending shack.

 

AIs that respect my borders have a tendency to never get dow'd on by me and survive to the end of game and still not be killed by me because they're cool fellows. Douches who disrespect have a tendency to end being forcibly fed their own medicine by my own soldiers with me not respecting their borders and declaring ownership of their own lands because they did it to me.

 

Civ series is bad enough but at least you can actually notice the trepassers fast enough and kill them before they can even get near you.

But compared in Galciv2, they can sneak in like mexican immigrants and you won't notice them until its too late. I don't like this at all. All this advanced technology and not a single notification of a colony ship sneaking in?

 

They got in without my permission. They must die if everyone else don't like it, well sucks to be them doesn't it? :3 If i die, so be it, at least I died with my honor intact. AI is useless anyways, they don't even understand that torians trespasser not me in the first place.

 

And there's not even any open borders agreements at all in this game. If i opened my borders and torians colonized the uncolonized worlds in my borders, so be it, that's my own fault.

 

See? stupid wall of text. China called me and they want their wall back. That is why I'm uninstalling Galciv2 after I kill off the torians.

Reply #10 Top

Quoting Ericridge, reply 9
I acquired large amount of anger and stress when I saw torians stealing worlds inside my borders so this game is very unsuitable for enjoyment purposes. Because i see borders as same as my home, your trespass in my home? your dead.

It seems to me, that you are still confusing political borders and cultural borders in this game.

The border you see on the map is only telling you how far your culture is reaching. It doesn't mean, that you own everything within that area, only that you have cultural influence there. The only things, that you own, are your colonies, your ships, and your starbases. Nothing more. (I don't count asteroid mines, because they easily flip sides.)

As it is, I just don't understand how you can get so worked up over this. If the Torians had invaded your colonies, I would have understood some anger. However, getting to point where you quit the game for good, just because they had ships within your sphere of influence and colonised some planets, is beyond me.

Reply #11 Top

Quoting Gaunathor, reply 10


Quoting Ericridge, reply 9I acquired large amount of anger and stress when I saw torians stealing worlds inside my borders so this game is very unsuitable for enjoyment purposes. Because i see borders as same as my home, your trespass in my home? your dead.

It seems to me, that you are still confusing political borders and cultural borders in this game.

The border you see on the map is only telling you how far your culture is reaching. It doesn't mean, that you own everything within that area, only that you have cultural influence there. The only things, that you own, are your colonies, your ships, and your starbases. Nothing more. (I don't count asteroid mines, because they easily flip sides.)

As it is, I just don't understand how you can get so worked up over this. If the Torians had invaded your colonies, I would have understood some anger. However, getting to point where you quit the game for good, just because they had ships within your sphere of influence and colonised some planets, is beyond me.

 

Well Let's just put it that way, I dont like how galciv2's borders work. It's no biggie really. I dislike rts games. But Sins of the solar empire is only exception to the rule. I just dont like how galciv2 treat borders.

 

It's my preference, and the game didn't match what I like. If I see a line, i assume everything inside it is mine. No exceptions. I'm territorial.

Reply #12 Top

  Ships repair faster in your own territory;  and of course enemy ships repair more slowly in your territory.