Territory managment

Let's trade our lands for peace!

from Elemental Forums

some short skippable intro

Hi,

Although I am new to this forum (and preorder ;-) ), I have played 4X games since… since beginning J

I consider borders and territory to be one of best game mechanic improvement which happened to them and which makes civ1 feel so “obsolete” for me now. (was it Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri which introduced them?) Since then, lot of games handle it more or less same. But since borders first time appeared I am still missing one option:

 

actual idea here:

- being able to actually trade territory with other players. (at least as a peace condition) Right now you can always trade cities, but they usually represent large chunk of territory plus “winner” receives lot of negative bonuses due to change of city allegiance. On the other hand it is quite a sacrifice for a loser therefore these deals don’t happen much in games (at least in games I played).

 

Personally I would love if there had been mechanism which allows me to cede/gain territory to/from opponent. This might be that square which I need to connect my enclave, or to get access to sea, or even a resource, or just some mountain area where I would like to build some forts “just in case”. This has lot of potential for multiplayer as well.

There might be interest in mutual exchange of territories between players. Probably some sort of  short term rebelliousness should be associated with every square traded to protect from abuse, but that really depends on implementation.

 

Obviously this mechanic leads to lot of potential problems. For illustration, lets say that player A won (by trade) some territory from player B. Problems which I have thought of now include:

- only territory bordering with already owned territory should be claimable.

- player’s B influence might enlarger his territory in such a manner that A’s gained  territory would be no longer connected to his “standard” lands. In such a case deal should be still valid.

- 3rd player C  gained territory by increase of his influence (since claimed territory cannot be immune to someone else’s influence) and after some time player C is destroyed thus border should effectively return to its original state. But which one is original – pre-deal or post-deal? Post-deal most probably.

 

From those few cases it seems that all can be resolved by simple rule:

Gained territory behaves completely normal regarding rest of the world (influence-wise). But whenever that square should be allocated to B, it will be allocated to A instead.

 

This allows more additional mechanics involved – e.g. time limited deals, canceling the deal (either buyout or war declaration). This would quite nicely simulate reasons why wars were waged in history.

Of course this seems as a detail for large scale wars, where whole cities are eradicated, but it would add more flavor for small and crowded maps.

 

Any thoughts?

 

5,581 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

It can only be done if the borders don't expand automatically. That is the real problem, I think.

If it doesn't grow automatically, it could become a nightmare in the end-game, with huge empires.

Or changing the way borders work : why not a per-square ownership ? At start each square has no influence and belongs to noone (or maybe only special grounds, like the borders of a dragon lair ;)). When you move your units, you gain 1 influence for each square you traveled through. If your score of influence is greater than 10 (for instance) AND at least double than any other influence, then this square belongs to you.

Such a system would be interesting : you need to "protect" your borders if you want them strong. Patrolling would have a real meaning. You could trade influence on squares.

But it would cost A LOT in terms of memory reading/writing, scripting and such.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Influence borders are considered to be your territory. Altough easy to use and saves from headaches (and in this game also means the territory that becomes alive too), in theory influence should be dissociated of the real domain. I can claim that the Altar lands belongs to me but unless I have troops garrisoned there to enforce my claims, these mean really nothing.

The only real lands you control are those that you can defend (or that they have no protection but no enemy claims). I'd prefer if influence was one thing (that can surpass political boundaries) and political limits were marked by the garrisons/strongholds,/castles... So they could have troops in them or not but constructing one somewhere would create a political area (like the current one for influence) around it that would increase as you improve it (if that kind of building allows it). Wars could only be started (in the classical sense of units entering opposing influence zones) when "enemy" units cross the borders of one of your claimed territories. And you could build little keeps to create political areas in places of your interest.

This political areas should/could be affected by population factors, maybe some by influence, commerce bonus in the region...

The idea would need tons of work and won't be used but I just wanted to say: Influnce should be different from political borders! Also, to be able to give terrain to otehr players sounds cool.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Wintersong, reply 2
Influence borders are considered to be your territory. Altough easy to use and saves from headaches (and in this game also means the territory that becomes alive too), in theory influence should be dissociated of the real domain. I can claim that the Altar lands belongs to me but unless I have troops garrisoned there to enforce my claims, these mean really nothing.
End of Wintersong's quote

This depends if it will be more GalCiv or Civ(4) model. If borders wont be tresspasable, than if any resource is within your borders, than it is yours. This makes borders/influence  quite associated with real domain :)

What I was suggesting is that apart from standard borders expansion, there could be possibility to directly trade with territory (within limitations, see 1st post).

I personally feel that borders should be "hard" as in Civ, since there isnt just empty space, but they represent real "habittable" land and each. And since redistribution of bordering territories was quite common part of peace treaties, this might be implemented as well... But I am aware that benefits might be not worth the work it might need...

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Civ borders are fine but I wouldn't mind Stardock trying to improve the topic.

What follows is nothing but an extension of the idea I previously mentioned. Should be skipped by anyone not interested and for those who read it, it's nothing more that a first approach I'd use if I were to try to define the system (prepreprepreAlpha). The TL;DR? 3 kind of borders which a different function each. (yeah, I'm crazy but as I said, just a first approach, which means it could be wrong and it's not like I expect anyone to bother with it XD )

The Sovereign has a bunch of followers that... follow him... and he can use his Essence to bring the land he choses to life again. The land then becomes better for construction and suitable for farming. Once the settlement has been established, the Sovereign's civilization isn't nomad anymore. They become attached to a patch of land. And they can only continue living there as long as they can defend that patch of land against any enemy force that would claim it (or wandering monster looking for some fun).

People working together belong together. As soon as they stablish themselves, they start having influence in their sorroundings. That influence varies in the ways but all of them have an impact.

Political Influence

This influence reflects the real territorial claims of the Sovereign's domain. Every settlement of the domian has an area around them reflecting this. This area cannot increase or be reduced naturally.

It will increase proportionally as the settlement grows. If a new enemy settlement was to be built close to an already stablished settlement, this new settlement could never naturally take the political area already owned by the other settlement. In the same way, the other settlement wouldn't be able to take any political area that was uncontrolled and that the new settlement achieves to control after being founded.

As settlements can be traded,the Political Influence borders can change greatly after one of those trades.

Any enemy unit that enters without permission the political borders can be attacked without a Delaration of War and without suffering one.

Social Influence

A stablished group of people living together is more noticeable that some people wandering in small groups. Once you know where they are, you can start things like trade. You get to have a more stable relation with them and to know about them.

The Social Influence is an area around any settlement of any kind that the Sovereign controls. It represents anything related to culture as has no physical influence per se. It can extend quite beyond of the Political Influence borders as other settlements start to embrace the foreign culture as their own. Or be reduded as the Sovereign's settlements favour a foreign culture above their own.

Social Influence can be used as unreal territory claims for the Sovereign's domain. Any faction would get a penalty in relations against any other faction which's culture enters the political borders of any of their settlements. That penalty would increase greatly if the "invader" has declared as one of his Principles that he claims any land under his Influence (in this case, Social Influence) as his own.

It spreads across trade routes too and if the influence is big enough in a settlement, it could turn the enemy settlement into a new vassal or part of the Sovereign's domain. Such high levels of influence could be taken as an offense and be reasoon for a Delaration of War.

Battles that happen in lands only affected by Social Influence borders can happen without a Declaration of War, but they can end with any of the involved parties declaring one on the other if wished.

Magical Influence

This influence has nothing to do with the Political or the Social one. It just represents the land that is being terraformed by the Essence used by the Sovereign. It could be bigger or smaller than the Social Influence area and, maybe, should always be the same are the Political Influence borders.