Not "in any direction". If you control a region, you are assumed to
have some control over your borders. This means that at the very least
you can turn people away who want to enter your lands.
> What happens if the attitude changes while the unit is moving
> on the road ? If there is nobody in a controlled region, _who_ stops
> the movement ?
Neither of these are really issues. 1) they get in. 2) you mean
a province with no units and zero population? I'm not sure that
such a province can be said to be "controlled."
> In addition, I think that this prevents perfectly legitimate movement
> eg. by units with high stealth who should not be either stopped or be
> forced to fight. They should be able to penetrate enemy provinces.
Not an issue. This has to be special-cased in any solution. You don't
want the auto-attack mechanism going after units that you can't see.
A border challenge assumes that you can see who you're challenging.
> The problem is not really foreigners coming into a province against
> the will of the ruler.
Maybe it is. Maybe I don't want to have to open the door to someone
and let them into my house before telling them they can't come in.
Also, if you're turned away at the border, you have no idea what the
forces inside the region look like, or what anything else inside the region
looks like either.
What do we need stealth for if I can send a lone unit in who will
be killed immediately, but not before he can dash off a LOOK, reporting
on mines, castles and stacks.
> The good and realistic solution to this province is to allow
> auto-attacks. In the combination with the default attack mode that
> easily allows you to automatically attack and capture any unwanted
> foreigners immediately when they come into your land. Then you can
> dispose of them as you want, including just dropping them off again
> in the province they came from.
Some players may want to casually explore; some players want to say
"this region is off limits". Throwing two units into combat is not a
lightweight activity; things get broken, people may die (even with
CAPTURE).
> If you absolutely want to warn people, announce in the OT or put up
> posts in all neighboring provinces. But don't add yet another not
> really necessary unrealistic artifact to Olympia.
I think it's unrealistic not to be able to turn people away when they
want to come into my land. I think that "move and see if someone kills
you" is also not a good way to see if a region is off-limits.
-- Rich Skrenta <skrenta@rt.com> N2QAV