Preventing ugly borders

[Tiresais]

Just occurred to my Economist-ridden mind that there is a good way to discourage the AI from having untidy boarders, and it's quite a simple method (to mathematicians) - imposing a constraint on non-convex borders.

Take the mid point of each boarder territory and draw a line between it and all other border territories (I believe most computer languages are ok with Euclidean vectors and Cartesian spaces). If that line passes through an enemy/nonfriendly nation, penalise.

The check only needs to be done once a year and would flag countries for conquering.

Of course, you could have already implemented smarter borders, in which case carry on brave frontiersmen!

 

[hitchens]

I agree. North and South America should be the shape of that Yin and Yang symbol.

 

[CaptRobau]

Kinda doesn't work in an era where it was still very normal to control provinces all over Europe.

 

[Tiresais]

Convexity need not be a circle - they can be quite square looking (especially given the nature of territories), and if you wanted other shapes you could limit the number of border territories it links to . I wouldn't say it was normal, but the penalty doesn't have top be overwhelming (for example, if Prussia is separated from a unified Germany, the urge to conquer a border territory would overwhelm the urge to make a neat shape through Poland). Suffice to say that owning territories far away from the mainland was typically a short-term occurrence (though notable exceptions exist).

 

[svenk91]

Do it for each region. In big regions the need for nice borders isn't to big if your realm is split up, but the smaller the region is the bigger the penalty will get. This way England would try to merge her colonies in the America's if there is no other big power in it but Mr. Habsburg doesn't feel to pushed to unite all of Europe for the sake of nice borders. They would however feel a big need to usurp any country within their land in the Austria region or any or for example the low lands during they time they inherited it.

 

[Kalelovil]

I'd rather an attempt was made to model the historical factors which resulted in borders being like they were historically. The AI needs to understand the importance of natural barriers such as rivers and mountain ranges, as well as the vulnerability and added logistical challenges of isolated provinces and a strung-out empire.