This literally cannot be a random pattern. I didn't start getting the quest until by mid-game. Every empire has become fair-sized, including mine. I've noticed that provided the player's empire is NOT last, the ones that rank lower tend to have an "Envious" or maybe even "Terrified" stance towards the player. As a result, it's not surprising to have at least one empire to initiate Blocked Borders towards the player's empire.



Here's how the quest is bogus: You pick up the quest while investigating a Ruin. The quest is to repeatedly run a Hero-led army to a series of other Ruins, following a trail of increasingly larger rewards. I have the quest come up 5 times now, and EVERY time, the last destination is in an empire that has blocked its borders to me. If it was a sincerely random selection (based on the location of the last visited Ruin), the odds favor that at least one intermediate destination would have been in an empire that has blocked its borders to the player. That NEVER happened. However, the fact that EVERY last destination was in an empire with blocked borders is sooooooooooo unlikely as to have the Gods of Probability shaking their heads.



Just to clarify, in the game I'm playing two of the five empires opposing me have blocked their borders, and no amount of Diplomacy has swayed them to unblock their borders. That amounts to roughly 1/3 of the Huge, Large Pangaea map closed to me. Having it that FIVE TIMES the last destination was in one of those two empires is downright sadistic game designing.

I didn't see something in the files I modded that would relate to "closed border region" (when the AI chose its targets in quests for instance). So I would vote for a real unlucky shot. Or a bug.

Some quests can't be completed so easily because of circumstances of the game, I think that's just fine...

Personally I have a game where I play as the Wild Walkers, and I was taking my time with the Wild Walkers faction quest...

A good 20 hrs in I stumble upon a faction quest to settle a new city. Virtually every region is settled already, and the only way to do this is to salt an area...

Basically, it's a pain in the ass and I ended up not trying to go for a wonder victory.

That isn't necessarily the quest's fault, as they are designed to be completed as soon as possible, in order to keep pace with the gameplay. The people that truly want or need a wonder victory will always do these quests as soon as possible, which allows them to gain useful rewards from completing the quests that will probably not be nearly as useful to someone completing the third part of the quest in the fifth era.