No Open Border

It's not 'territory' as such, just a line delineating where your cultural influence is stronger than anyone else's. Space is a big place, and the only true borders are the atmospheres of your planets.

hmm, that makes sense but why would Civilization IV make the culture border as the territory border?

I haven't player Civ IV so I'll have to ask: Are other civs unable to cross that line even if its far from a city?

I'd like to say "ouch" to kyro's response, it was a good one but I was kinda hoping for something in the future regarding zones of control but it doenst seem likely now. Maybe the idividual ships / fleets can have zones of control instead. (?)

In Civ you can't cross the line unless you're at war or have an open border pact. But Civ isn't in space either, and it's not made by us as you know.

Also, in Civ IV I don't believe your borders can surround someone else's city, as opposed to GCII where you can certainly surround someone else's planet with your cultural influence. There would be quite a problem if they couldn't get to their own planet...

They can surround another person's city, but that results in that city immediately flipping sides. The city cannot actually sit inside another's territory like the planets can in GCII.

I think Kryo's answer makse sense to GalCiv2  

Possibly because Civ4 is an apple, and GalCiv2 is an orange?

drrider

ok i have had as much as i can stand about no territory in space.

here is a question.

given the nature of man. When we colonize the centary system that would be alpha, beta, and proxima centaria for those of you who do not know. And when we run into another civ. friendly or other wise. Do you not think that humans will patrol space between the two system even if we are still sublight. Meaning that those ships would be generational ships.

This would mean that we claim the entire 4 light years between sol and centaria as our territory.

becouse we will have civilian ships running between the two systems needing to be protected from other civs and or pirates. and yes there would be escorts for those ships. The problem is when you tie up all of your warships with escort duty they can't fight a war.

and yes your influence will far exceed your territory borders take the united states, russia, england, and the other countries. tell me that they don't influence you in one way or another no matter where you are on the planet.

you could, in theory, create several unarmed tiny ships with little or no add ons, and place them as a wall of sorts. I've thought about doing it, but I'm far to lazy. Other races' ships can't cross that line (without declaring war) of course.

true

Make laws all you want - it's the enforcement of them that count!

There would be absolutely no way to enforce such restrictions in space as we can on the vast but distinctly limited soil of our homeworld. There is no way that we would be able to patrol such absurd distances even at light speed.

Even if we could detect someone entering our space (how would we detect tiny ships in the vastness of space?) and send a message back to a police outpost (How would this be accomplished? Radar? It would take years to learn of intrusions as the signals would travel so slowly!!!) the response would take weeks, maybe months even at light speed. Furthermore, what would be the point of stopping ships from entering abstract lines drawn on galactic maps indicating the extent of our cultural dominance? We'd instead have spheres of influence much closer to planets that would be inviolable and protected by patrols - entering those would instigate a response (much as it does right now with the AI in the game - mass some ships near a planet and you will get a response).

It's the proportions of space that completely nullify all our orthodox earthbound conceits.

what we would do in space is exactly what the united states did during the 1800s indian wars.

build bases out so far assign ships to patrol around that base and then build another probable 2 weeks out from the last base. the patrols would cover a one week distance from that base.

in the above example as was the case in the united states. The bases would attract settliers to the area. If for no other reason than to fleece i mean serve the military personnal at the base.

and the material that we would use is cement. The reason is that when cement hardens on the earth it has holes in it. but they found that the same cement has no holes in it when it hardens in space. not saying it is air tight but it wouldnt be to hard to make it so. and of course you would need to add armour to the military bases at least.


and i won't mention the kids that will grow up never seeing a planet at all

Claiming and patrolling the volumes between colonized systems would be more akin to claiming and patrolling the entire Pacific Ocean after we aquired the Phillipines in the 1890's, seems to me.

drrider

Danielost - 2 weeks out from our planet at light speed would still be in our solar system...... space is just too big to compare to anything planetary. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.3 light years away.


ddrider - I am going to make an even more absurd comparison. Even if we use a comparison such as..... it would be like the first homo erectus, freshly dropped down from the trees, standing up for the first ever time and then patroling the entire circumference of the world.... backwards.... just to protect his tree....... even that would be but a drip in comparison to patroling the vastness of space!!

Must be a really nice tree. lol

Can you imagine trying to constantly supply fuel for ships and food and the rest, each being two weeks away from the other (i'm not calculation how many such outposts would be needed).

Besides, not knowing if there even are other beings in space, i doubt we'd start patroling for nothing.

out posts would have to be self sufficient. as for fuel nuke reactors



3.5 light years

Actually in Civ4 if there are enough military units in a city it will never flip even if totally inside your borders.

The fuel itself is correctly irrelevant, for us to be undertaking *anything* like this patrol program we would need to have discovered a vastly more powerful energy generator.

However, we still haven't dealt with the problems of communication.

Let's say a patrol spot a heavily armed incursion into "our" space..... the fastest possible way for them to communicate that information would be to fly back and tell everyone (as we're reckoning on ourselves having at least light speed travel) as any signal transmitted by them traveling at less than light speed+ would take years to reach its destination.

So now our notional patrol spots this enemy and is forced to fly weeks back to the nearest starbase to inform them that they are under attack.... the problem of course is that we must also assume that the enemy is also capable of flying at such speeds, or why would they be attacking in the first place (it would take them centuries to arrive).

Space is just too mind-bogglingly big for this to be in anyway realistically plausible.




I've just checked and everywhere I can see sets it at 4.22 light years away.

ok that's fine my info is just 30 years old and since stars move

In the GalCiv2 universe, patrolling space is easy. I park a bunch of sensor-laden ships around my territory and I detect unauthorized entry. The point is that I wouldn't have to enforce my borders with outposts or whatnot; I'd just call up the race in question and tell them to get out.

That being said, the notion of "you cannot enter my territory without declaring war" doesn't make much sense in GalCiv2, since you aren't guaranteed to have complete sensor coverage of your territory at all times. However, I'd like to have the option to exchange harsh words with a race leader whenever I catch a ship in my territory. Likewise, if another race catches my ship in their territory without permission, I'd likely suffer a diplomatic penalty and get told to remove them immediately. We would then have a notion of "open borders" which indicates ships can pass without incident.

I think this would go a long way towards adding a notion of strategically important positioning to the game. I admit, movement restrictions already do this for gigantic maps. However, on a medium or smaller map, it always feels to me like planet positions hardly matter at all once ships move sufficiently quickly.

Two Words: Neutral Zone

While some dictate that borders cannot exist in space, just look at startrek. A space fantasy with borders. Hey, it's fiction, but it's fiction with borders.

getting back to the game for a moment, i think the issue isnt being able to detect entry into your space or your area of influence, its being able to stop entry without blowing up the ships and going to war. It was suggested here and in some ideas on the "what you want next" thread that some method be developed to stop unwanted entry. This would apply to a human player entering AI space as well.

There are other issues that would have to be ironed out, like what ablout freighters and other unarmed ships. How will relations with the other civs play into this. can you use this to "build" a border early on so you can have a bunch of planets that only you can get to. should there be an actual treaty or can anyone with better than neutral (or whatever)realations have free rein. maybe a border crossing should be a pop-up question. You'll start seeing a lot more influence star bases around i bet.

But since this is probably a mijor change to the game and not a prioroty i doubt it will be done. I can live without it. But it just irks me when i have AI scouts buzzing my home planet. But i also like what the previous poster said aboit just being able to ask an AI to get out or else.

true we would have to go back to the pony express system





true you would need more than one ship on patrol ie a fleet and commo every hear of a radio beacon

Actually, thinking about it a little more, I think the issue I have has more to do with ship range than it does with crossing borders. It feels too easy to get range on ships. Even if I have vastly superior weapons technology, I feel like I shouldn't be able to march right up to an enemy's core planets and capture them on the first turn or so of a war. Similarly, it should take some effort for my rivals to be in a position to scout out my empire.