[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#13410) War & Peace

["Per I. Mathisen" <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=13410 >

More effective borders is a very frequent wish from players. However, this
is not so easy to accomplish, because we need to address what happens to
units that are left inside when treaties are formed and that accidentially
fall inside them as borders expand.

Here is a redesign that should solve these problems, and some other issues
with diplomacy that I have been annoyed with for some time:

Suggestions:
 1. Fortress cause borders, like cities. Maximum border range is reduced.
This makes fortresses very useful, and allows largepox players to have
effective borders too.
 2. Borders no longer change. Once claimed, they stay with their current
owner until there is no city or fortress within range, in which case
it either becomes unowned or falls to another player's city/fortress
within range.
 3. Cities and fortress cause borders only so far (in range) as the least
of maximum range and the distance to the first non-allied unit. So if
maximum border range is 5, and a non-allied unit is 3 squares away, it
will only extend borders by 2 squares.
 4. The 'neutral' treaty is removed, and 'war' becomes the default. This
is more natural (neutral is not a treaty), and will lead to fewer newbie
problems.
 5. Ceasefire works as before, but ends up back in 'war'. You can only
suggest ceasefire when in war. The AI will always suggest and accept
ceasefire when you first meet.
 6. New treaty 'armistice', which disallows you from entering new units
into an enemy's borders, but leaves existing units alone. Like ceasefire,
it has a countdown of 20 turns, and ends up in a 'peace' treaty when run
time runs out. (The AI will always insist on some turns of ceasefire, then
armistice, never go directly to peace, and will use the armistice to move
its units out of the other player's territory.) Breaking an armistice
drops you to war.
 7. When a peace treaty kicks in, all military units belonging to
peace-treaty players inside your border are immediately disbanded. They
cannot send military units through your borders, and non-military units
are prohibited from most actions. Breaking a peace treaty drops you
straight to war (dropping to ceasefire might be neat, but would just be
annoying).
 8. Non-military units are also prohibited from doing actions that would
cause 'reason for war' under ceasefire, armistice, peace and alliance. The
'reason for war' concept is removed. It was never transparent, and quite
abusable.
 9. Under alliance, players may enter each others' borders at will.
Breaking an alliance drops you to 'armistice' treaty, giving each player
time to move their units out of the other player's territory before a new
peace treaty kicks in and disbands units.
10. Borders should not extend into unknown tiles. This gives away players'
starting positions too easily, and is I think the reason why some players
do not like borders.

The above should eliminate the 'units accidentially falling inside
expanding borders' problem and the 'what to do with units inside borders
when treaty formed or broken' problem, for both borders and alliances,
without resorting to cheesy and abusable teleportation.

The resulting treaties will be: War, Ceasefire, Armistice, Peace, and
Alliance. Obviously, we will have a problem with civ1/2 ruleset
compatibility, but I think we should ignore that, rather than insist on
generalizing treaties first, because that is seriously hard work.

Comments?

  - Per