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Author Topic:   Borders, Liars and Acts of War

slink posted 03-13-99 08:56 PM ET
I was dismayed to discover that ocean squares are not included in your territory if your base is not a sea base. While this *might* make sense for an all land base, surely a coastal base should be able to lay claim to ocean squares since it has both land and sea access. The sea formers on full auto certainly recognize your ownership of these squares. However, I accepted this poor point of game design (since I have no choice) and proceeded to use rings of sea bases to defend the true limits of my land bases. But then factions with whom I had a treaty began parking armed and armored units directly adjacent to my sea bases, well within my territory, and denying their existance. Why is this not an act of war? *I* have no option to lie about the existance of my troops within someones territory. Why does the AI get to do this with impunity? I cannot get them to move and they finally ignore my calls. If I blow their troops out of the water I am blamed for breaking the treaty and my reputation falls to "wicked", which is not even on the list in the manual. I am quite annoyed by this entire thing.
1. Coastal bases should be a third type of base with hybrid rules. Sea vessels should be able to conquer them and their base limits should set territory boundaries into ocean squares.
2. Confiscating developed resources in use at the time by another faction, by building a base directly adjacent to the territory/base limits should carry diplomatic penalties.
3. AIs should not be allowed to lie about the whereabouts of their troops.
4. Human players should have some way to declare vendetta other than simply breaking a treaty without notice and getting slammed for it in reputation. If this exists I have not been able to locate it.

ViVicdi posted 03-14-99 01:28 AM ET
Recognizing "territorial waters" too aggressively introduces some real chaos into the game.
But your point 2 is an excellent one.
"Any base construction which removes local resource potential from another faction's base is an act of war."
This is absolutely necessary. (I phrased it that way because, on land, it is possible to construct a base within your own territory that infringes an opposing faction's base's exploitable terrain area.)
The territorial model is excellent, but the "cold war claim jumping" problem definitely needs to be addressed. I would prefer a "no taking" solution to a less flexible MoM-style blanket "halo" rule (in MoM no city may be founded within 3 squares of any other city, regardless of political affiliation.)
My frustrations came with The Believers who crammed "Freshwater Sea" with a bunch of junk colonies, taking food away from my coastal cities, without diplomatic penalty. Even once I started cracking skulls I had to starve out and build colony pods on all those worthless bases to be rid of them -- I needed trade too much to raze them. (There was only room for 1, which I kept.)
The only way to permanently keep The Believers from claim jumping me was to capture all of their bases adjacent to the Freshwater Sea. In other words, because reasonable territorial claims are not recognized I was forced to conquer instead.
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Author	Topic: Borders, Liars and Acts of War
slink	posted 03-13-99 08:56 PM ET I was dismayed to discover that ocean squares are not included in your territory if your base is not a sea base. While this might make sense for an all land base, surely a coastal base should be able to lay claim to ocean squares since it has both land and sea access. The sea formers on full auto certainly recognize your ownership of these squares. However, I accepted this poor point of game design (since I have no choice) and proceeded to use rings of sea bases to defend the true limits of my land bases. But then factions with whom I had a treaty began parking armed and armored units directly adjacent to my sea bases, well within my territory, and denying their existance. Why is this not an act of war? I have no option to lie about the existance of my troops within someones territory. Why does the AI get to do this with impunity? I cannot get them to move and they finally ignore my calls. If I blow their troops out of the water I am blamed for breaking the treaty and my reputation falls to "wicked", which is not even on the list in the manual. I am quite annoyed by this entire thing. 1. Coastal bases should be a third type of base with hybrid rules. Sea vessels should be able to conquer them and their base limits should set territory boundaries into ocean squares. 2. Confiscating developed resources in use at the time by another faction, by building a base directly adjacent to the territory/base limits should carry diplomatic penalties. 3. AIs should not be allowed to lie about the whereabouts of their troops. 4. Human players should have some way to declare vendetta other than simply breaking a treaty without notice and getting slammed for it in reputation. If this exists I have not been able to locate it.
ViVicdi	posted 03-14-99 01:28 AM ET Recognizing "territorial waters" too aggressively introduces some real chaos into the game. But your point 2 is an excellent one. "Any base construction which removes local resource potential from another faction's base is an act of war." This is absolutely necessary. (I phrased it that way because, on land, it is possible to construct a base within your own territory that infringes an opposing faction's base's exploitable terrain area.) The territorial model is excellent, but the "cold war claim jumping" problem definitely needs to be addressed. I would prefer a "no taking" solution to a less flexible MoM-style blanket "halo" rule (in MoM no city may be founded within 3 squares of any other city, regardless of political affiliation.) My frustrations came with The Believers who crammed "Freshwater Sea" with a bunch of junk colonies, taking food away from my coastal cities, without diplomatic penalty. Even once I started cracking skulls I had to starve out and build colony pods on all those worthless bases to be rid of them -- I needed trade too much to raze them. (There was only room for 1, which I kept.) The only way to permanently keep The Believers from claim jumping me was to capture all of their bases adjacent to the Freshwater Sea. In other words, because reasonable territorial claims are not recognized I was forced to conquer instead.