Territories

[ribez]

to avoid cheating with civic centre spawning, what about if civic centre cost is proportional to the distance to the nearest civic center (or border) of your faction? and maybe inverse proportional to the distance to the nearest enemy civic centre (or border)?

Also, if you know how culture works in Civilization 4, the construction of some buildings like temples and theaters affects the cultural influence that your faction has on nearby players

Edited July 21, 2011 by ribez

[fcxSanya]

How do foundations affect territories? If they have no effect, I can probably build a dozen civ center foundations right next to each other in neutral territory and then finish constructing them all. If they do affect territories, I can probably capture enemy buildings by placing loads of foundations around them and then later I can destroy all those foundations and get all my resources back, so they're effectively free.

As I understood from Michael's description, we can just separate logic which check distance between civ centers from territories logic, because this distance is always constant and independently from fact whether you build civ center on your own territory or on neutral one. In this case foundation should not affect territories, but you will not be able to "build a dozen civ center foundations right next to each other". Maybe I'm missed something ?

[SMST]

Why should civic centres be buildable on neutral territorry? Could they not just be built close to the borders of the current territory of the player and push the borders from there, like RoN did it?

[gudo]

Suppose I control two adjacent territories. May I construct a building directly on top of the border?

[SMST]

Suppose I control two adjacent territories. May I construct a building directly on top of the border?

I think so.

Though it appears the territory concept is about to be scrapped as soon as it was beginning to be implemented.^^

[Chakakhan]

I think so.

Though it appears the territory concept is about to be scrapped as soon as it was beginning to be implemented.^^

Huh? Where you reading that?

[SMST]

Huh? Where you reading that?

You seem to be planning to abandon territories for dynamic borders.

[Chakakhan]

Ah, now I understand what you are saying. So yea, no fixed territories, territories are dynamic.

[SMST]

Ah, now I understand what you are saying. So yea, no fixed territories, territories are dynamic.

Well, they are not territories for me anymore, then. "Just" borders of player's spheres of influences.

What would be lost, of course, would be historical flavour added through historical provinces (accurately named and stuff). But I'm fine with both concepts.

[Mythos_Ruler]

How do foundations affect territories? If they have no effect, I can probably build a dozen civ center foundations right next to each other in neutral territory and then finish constructing them all.

You wouldn't be able to do that because Civ Centres can't have overlapping radii.

[Ykkrosh]

Is this something like the idea? I made it so impassable tiles (cliffs/water) are effectively 4x as expensive as normal tiles, in terms of the influence falloff, though one consequence of the terrain-dependent approach is that it tends to form octagons rather than straight lines; I don't know if it's the best approach, or if pure terrain-independent circles would be better. With the isolated red house, there's no continuous path through red territory to a civ center so it can be determined to be cut off, but rather than immediately turning it all green it's maybe nicer for it to keep a bit of red territory around it while losing loyalty (due to being cut off) with the territory shrinking over time (i.e. make the weight proportional to loyalty (or health or whatever)).

(I played RoN for the first time just now (just the demo version, in Wine which was quite buggy but basically worked), and it looks pretty much exactly like what's proposed here - cities make octagonal territories (affected to some extent by seas and maybe hills?), you can only build within friendly territory, there's a fixed minimum distance between cities, there's research to increase the weight and size of your territories (so they expand and also push back adjacent enemy territories). About the only difference I could see is that most buildings didn't affect the territories, only cities and forts (and maybe a handful of others), whereas the proposal here seems to be for most buildings to expand them.)

[Chakakhan]

This looks good to me. I like the more expensive tiles implementation as well.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Is this something like the idea? I made it so impassable tiles (cliffs/water) are effectively 4x as expensive as normal tiles, in terms of the influence falloff, though one consequence of the terrain-dependent approach is that it tends to form octagons rather than straight lines; I don't know if it's the best approach, or if pure terrain-independent circles would be better. With the isolated red house, there's no continuous path through red territory to a civ center so it can be determined to be cut off, but rather than immediately turning it all green it's maybe nicer for it to keep a bit of red territory around it while losing loyalty (due to being cut off) with the territory shrinking over time (i.e. make the weight proportional to loyalty (or health or whatever)).

(I played RoN for the first time just now (just the demo version, in Wine which was quite buggy but basically worked), and it looks pretty much exactly like what's proposed here - cities make octagonal territories (affected to some extent by seas and maybe hills?), you can only build within friendly territory, there's a fixed minimum distance between cities, there's research to increase the weight and size of your territories (so they expand and also push back adjacent enemy territories). About the only difference I could see is that most buildings didn't affect the territories, only cities and forts (and maybe a handful of others), whereas the proposal here seems to be for most buildings to expand them.)

Water and Hills/Cliffs affecting the weight is a must. Good thinking.

Yeah, my initial thought was that only Civic Centres and Fortresses would expand your borders, but Kieran insisted all buildings do it, and it didn't really matter to me. Wouldn't it be easy to give some buildings a weight of 0 (zero) so that they don't affect borders at all, if we wanted to do that? I'm thinking Houses, Mills, Farmsteads, and Farm Fields should not affect borders at all, while Civ Centres, Fortresses, and Barracks definitely should. I think that's something we can work out later?

RON was an interesting game with a lot of interesting ideas. One thing I didn't like was "slots" at resource depots and you couldn't add anymore gatherers once you filled the slots. Let's not do anything like that.

--------------------------------------

Our thinking here is that the red house I circled here would fall into enemy territory and gradually start to lose Loyalty and convert to green's side. Green could send some soldiers to speed up the capturing process. We don't have capturing or Loyalty yet, so in the meantime we could maybe just drain the building's health instead. What do you think?

[Chakakhan]

Our thinking here is that the red house I circled here would fall into enemy territory and gradually start to lose Loyalty and convert to green's side. Green could send some soldiers to speed up the capturing process. We don't have capturing or Loyalty yet, so in the meantime we could maybe just drain the building's health instead. What do you think?

It would be nice to have a decay factor of some time that could be set to zero to eliminate decay and different values would change the rate of decay.

[Mythos_Ruler]

It would be nice to have a decay factor of some time that could be set to zero to eliminate decay and different values would change the rate of decay.

As long as we don't give all buildings decay so you have to "maintain" them or other some such tediousness.

[Chakakhan]

As long as we don't give all buildings decay so you have to "maintain" them or other some such tediousness.

Totally agree, but I can imagine lots of different play styles where having decay would be interesting (plus it supports your desired behavior for territories). I can think of some cool scenarios where it would be cool.

[SMST]

Looks good. I think there is no need for a gaia border, though, since all land outside the player's territory is under gaias ownership and you don't need to distingusish between specific territory borders anymore. Plus it looks a bit weird.

Also, please keep this in mind:

Why should civic centres be buildable on neutral territorry? Could they not just be built close to the borders of the current territory of the player and push the borders from there, like RoN did it?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Why should civic centres be buildable on neutral territorry? Could they not just be built close to the borders of the current territory of the player and push the borders from there, like RoN did it?

I think it would be interesting, from a strategic standpoint, to build a 2nd Civ Centre all the way across the map in neutral territory and then attempt to link up the two territories. Also, trade between the unlinked territories could get interesting due to the added danger.

Looks good. I think there is no need for a gaia border, though, since all land outside the player's territory is under gaias ownership and you don't need to distingusish between specific territory borders anymore.

Agreed. No need for gaia border if we stick with dynamic borders.

[SMST]

I think it would be interesting, from a strategic standpoint, to build a 2nd Civ Centre all the way across the map in neutral territory and then attempt to link up the two territories. Also, trade between the unlinked territories could get interesting due to the added danger.

Stuff like this would really hurt immersion. How would anyone in their right mind build a Civ Centre all across the map, completely cut off from the rest of their territorry? (I'm speaking about real life here)

Nah, I want gradual expansion which is imo much more satisfying. I would opt for civic centres just to be built on player's territory. This adds a new strategic dimension to the game just how close to build it to the border to get the best influence on the

Maybe your proposed scenario could be in a campaign or something (I am thinking about Prussia, which had its territory split similary until the mid 19th century), but I definitely don't want it in regular gameplay.

[Spahbod]

This way of territory ownership and the previous one are both interesting. Each of them have their advantages and disadvantages too. How about implementing both in the game? For example, if we want a constant number of civic centers be present in the map (And thus making them strategic points which all players would like to capture) we would choose the first option. And if we don't want this, we would choose the second one.

[SMST]

This way of territory ownership and the previous one are both interesting. Each of them have their advantages and disadvantages too. How about implementing both in the game? For example, if we want a constant number of civic centers be present in the map (And thus making them strategic points which all players would like to capture) we would choose the first option. And if we don't want this, we would choose the second one.

I'd like to have a more "freestyle" map. The old territory system always seemed a bit restrictive to me. My main argument for the "fragmented map" are really nice possibilities with accurately named provinces on historical maps. (see my screenshot earlier in this thread)

[Mythos_Ruler]

Stuff like this would really hurt immersion. How would anyone in their right mind build a Civ Centre all across the map, completely cut off from the rest of their territorry? (I'm speaking about real life here)

You're pretty much wrong. Colonies, for one, ruin your argument.

This way of territory ownership and the previous one are both interesting. Each of them have their advantages and disadvantages too. How about implementing both in the game? For example, if we want a constant number of civic centers be present in the map (And thus making them strategic points which all players would like to capture) we would choose the first option. And if we don't want this, we would choose the second one.

I also thought it would be a plus to implement both options. However, I think we shouldn't get too greedy. One or the other adds nothing to the schedule, while doing both would add to development time.

[SMST]

You're pretty much wrong. Colonies, for one, ruin your argument.

True, but colonies could be handled differentely. Let's say a player could build civic centres on an island only if he holds the adjacent shore on the other side.

And except colonies, where else would you find cut off cities? (that were meant to be cut off, not cut off by enemy conquest, natural disasters and other stuff)

I just do not want civic centres randomly popping up everywhere on the map. I want my empire to expand in a organic way, by gradually pushing the borders. This would also restrict premature rushes a bit.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I just do not want civic centres randomly popping up everywhere on the map.

I think you overestimate the effect.

[SMST]

I think you overestimate the effect.

I don't think I do.