Valid Land Claims in the New Era

One day I ride out to enjoy my land as well as check on my animals and see if the apples are right for the picking. Suddenly I come upon a campsite with tents and a large camp-fire. There are men sitting around it. A pig is roasting on a spit and a basket of apple can be seen outside one of the tents. A string of fish is drying in the sun.

Now... I can do a number of things in this situation.

1. Take out my shotgun, and kill them all, disposing of the people. After all, it is MY land and MY pig, MY apples and MY fish. In some countries, this would be completely fine by the law.

2. Talk to them, ask them what they are doing, who they are, and then politely inform them that they are trespassing.

In no 2, I can get several responses, and my action will follow according to what they say.

I can then let them stay if they pay for the pig, fish and apples. I can run them off my land. I can call in the police and have them arrested. 

Or I could just kill them because I didn't like their snot-nosed replies and bury their bodies. Who will know? It's MY land and it's huge, and they had no right to be there.

I personally follow no 2, but I guess some people follow no 1. If it's THEIR land, it's in THEIR right to do what they like, as long as the law accepts it.

BTW... you don't hunt the king's deer on the king's land... unless you're Robin Hood.

I am going to directly quote Berylla, but this is really a response to several posts...

I am totally onboard with everything I've quoted and the things you lay out afterwards.  But I think this post and others are missing a crucial logical step.  What is YOURS?  What is YOUR farm?  We all understand the need to respect property rights and land claims... the question we must first answer tho, is how are those property lines drawn?  Is your "farm" found on the square on which your city rests?  Does your "farm" extend to a 5 square radius around your city?  a 10 square radius?  What is YOURS and what is public or unclaimed land?  We must define this first and foremost before we discuss solutions and etiquete for those who trespass.

I think this thread has gotten a little off track, and thats fine, but to clarify the purpose... do we as a community (a sandbox community, but a community nonetheless), want to lay out social NORMS for how to define what our farms are, where they begin, where they end, etc.  From this discussion so far, there seems to be two schools of thought:

1. The DLords definition of their "farm" - Our "farm" is anything within 10 squares of any of our cities (oh and by the way, if you stumble upon our farm, we're going with option 1 and using the shotgun).

and

2. The CLAIMED land definition of one's "farm" - Our "farm" is our city, any land we've claimed sov. on, and any land where our troops occupy (assuming they are not roasting a pig on a spit on YOUR farm).

There are other slight variations that have been discussed (3 or 5 squares rather than the DLord 10) but it seems to me the definition of our "farms" - our land that we can expect solitude and dominion over - boils down to these two views.  

I personally think that view 1. is unrealistic, impractical, and leads to hostility rather than peace.  Allow me to explain why:  

First, it is unrealistic because there is no NOTICE.  Sure, if you have read this thread you are on notice of DLords position, but for the thousands of players who dont follow the forum closely, how are they ever supposed to know that you consider that your land?  Bela, you say, "if they come onto my land they should have the courtesy of at least telling me before," well how will they know to message you if they dont know you consider that YOURS rather than public?  

Second, it's impractical (especially in dense regions like Norweld, Lucerna, newb ring, etc).  It's impractical because there are hundreds, maybe thousands of instances where cities 10 square radii overlap.  Sure, if it's just two players they can work it out cordially.  But I live in Norweld where it is not rare (and actually quite common) for 5, 6, sometimes 7 or 8 cities to have 10 square radii that overlap.  It's simply insane to think that the 10 square, or 5 square rule that DLords propose could ever work in such a region.  *I know what you're going to say Bela, "if you don't like it then move out of Norweld" -- well that's not the point.  We can't ALL retreat to Kumala or Ursor to avoid being close to other players.*

Third, this position leads to hostility.  I recognize and support that ULTIMATELY you CAN do whatever your military might allows you to.  If DLords (and sorry for continuing to use DLords, I'm not picking on them, I'm just using it to refer to their position which I'm sure is not theirs alone), if DLords or any other player/alliance wants to claim 30 squares then I suppose they CAN as long as they have the military might to police that policy... but that forces people into hostility.  The point of this thread is to find common ground to AVOID hostility.  I'm not anti-war, I'm not anti-agression; we have armies in Illy for a reason... that said, we should still be able to have generally accepted principals to harvest, settle, and occupy land without it starting a needless or unwanted war.

So for those three reasons, I think the stance that Bela (and others) put forth does not make sense for how we define what and where our "farms" are.  View 2 answers all the problems with view 1... It is realistic because even if a player has never set eyes on this forum, they can see in-game whether there is sov. or military on a square and have fair notice that land is OWNED by someone else.  It is practical because no matter how close your city is to another city, you can never overlap sovereignty or occupation (that still leaves room for neighbors to bicker, dispute, and resolve their desire to own land, as neighbors will always do).  And it is peaceful rather than hostile because of the fair notice given to the world that this is my land... players can avoid that square... or they can choose not to, but at least they choose not to KNOWING military hostility is likely to follow.

That is my two cents.  Maybe I am biased because I am in Norweld - maybe others are biased because they are in the remote corners of Elgea - maybe we need two sets of principles; one for dense areas and one for remote ones.  But no matter which way you slice it, I can't see DLords view 1 working as a social norm that everyone can follow peacefully.

But the fact is that you have no right to place that army there and when you send the army you should expect to loose it, someone can argue i can ask you the resource lost attacking your troops too.

 In a real world wars have started just becouse of troops placed near someone territory.

You are focused on the right to claim a land but what is your right to send troops far away or to claim sov?

Anyway again you say you do not want to ruminate on your personal view and keep enforcing your view to anyone else.

Edit: sorry maybe you are not the same person