every army tries to make every attack a sneak attack.

My two cents worth (if it is even worth that much!)...

I like what Peace Phoenix said above. It seems simple enough and does not seem to be much in addition to what is already in the game. If there is no RoP then foreign military ships would trigger a build-up warning as Peace Phoenix said. To expand on this, the build-up warning would not necessarily mean that the other race would declare war but would add a negative point in your relations with that race (perhaps a double negative if you have LOTS of military ships in their space). The AI could warn you to remove your military ships from their space if you don't have a RoP with them if your ships have triggered a build-up warning for them. This warning would be similar to the warning that they give you when you have a couple of strong influence starbases next to their planets.

I think that it is OK to move ships out of another races culturally controlled space if a RoP is cancelled (either diplomatically or through the declaration of war). I have never found the UP event like this silly - it just adds another thing to consider when I play which is good for variety (and I haven't seen anyone complain about the UP event before the RoP topic started so why start complaining now! ). If you don't have a RoP with another race then you can still launch a sneak attack but your ships would have triggered a build-up warning with the AI race and so they should be watching you closely (not to mention the cool relations that you would have with that race due to the negative point that your ships in their space without a RoP are causing to your relations with them).

If people are worried that moving ships out of culturally controlled space will then leave planets that are within in another races influence unprotected then perhaps ships should also be moved to within the squares immediately around a planet owned by the owner of the ships even if all of that space is technically in the influence of another race. Alternatively, Cari's idea about returning the ships to the world where they were build is another OK suggestion (except that planets have a limit (10 ships?) to how many ships can be in orbit so I don't know how her suggestion would work with this limitation.

As a semi-side note, I think that implementing actual borders (instead of just using cultural borders as a quasi-border) is silly! This is space. Sure your race might have influence over a large portion of space but it is not really owned by anyone. What are you going to do to declare ownership? Put up a big fence? Remember that space is 3D so the fence would have to be a sphere. Also, if there are actual borders then what happens when there are two planets in the same star system owned by two different races? It would be complex and annoying trying to determine a good way to fairly and logically handle actual borders in instances like this. I think that actual borders *would* add too much complexity without any (or much) benefit to gameplay.

Add the Declare War button. Add the 'push out' functionality. Remove the UP event.

But...

Still allow sneak attacks, with a very large diplo hit...and a planetary defense bonus (10% ??) on every defending planet after the 1st invaded (defender's homeworld would get 10% even if it were sneak attacked, 20% if it were not the 1st hit.)

Substitue a UP vote, with an increasingly likely chance of coming up, condemning sneak attacks in general. When condemnation statute passes, future sneak attacks give a chance (30% ??) that sneak attacker will get thrown out of UP.

drrider

This is mostly true, but even if the AI would launch orbiting ships in fleets to attack instead of having them sit in orbit waiting to be shot down one-by-one... it wouldn't solve the sneak attack problem, because a sneak attack implies that the AI won't have the chance to be able to react to the player's attack in that matter.

I really would like to see the OFM be dropped and just have all planets be defended by fleets as if they had one... *shrugs

It would be possible. However, AI could declare war on you in such case (after asking for RoP treaty), and colonize the inner planets anyway.

In that case, the game mechanism should be tweaked to avoid planets being defended by sitting ducks

Currently, when a fleet attack a planet that is defended by ships that can't be fleeted, it is sometimes useful to split the attacking fleet and attack the planet 1 vs 1 , rotating the attacking ship, allowing to clean the planet defended in one turn, even if there is no space left on orbit before the attack. And you still have lots of movements points when refleeting your ships

Yeah. I'd like to see Orbital Fleet Managers removed and planets defend as a fleet. Would make invading more difficult as is, and Orbital Fleet Managers are a cost of space.

As for the invasion maybe a planet should, based on its PLANETARY influence, but capped by its sensor rating, get a ring around the planet. Any ship entering that ring would need a RoP, unless it has a ring of its own in that ring. (If two civs share space- like in a split system, the ring is shared by both) Entering that ring without a RoP is either a diplo hit or war.

Starbase influence does not count at all for this.

I think these two things would prevent effective sneak attacks until late game.

How about putting declare war button to state your intentions the formal way, Though I think we should still be allowed sneak attacks which you could take a trade and diplomacy penalty with other civs. I mean after all being sneaky and underhanded is part of politics . It worked quite effectively in ww2, kinda funny tho getting declaration of war after enemy troops are already crossing your frontier lol just a thought. On a side note I also think its really important to have some type button to tell enemy to get his ships/bases out of your territory . Sorry if this has been beat to death but Im kinda new to forums please bear with me.   

Good idea eoryn. I def like your "options " ideas as oppossed ro restrictions. I def think its kinda dum warping ships and slowing them down. Also cloaking could add a fun element to a game a cloaked commerce raider/scout ship reminds me of klingon bird of Prey heh

Ok, I'll make another stab at relevance here. If you think of Gal Civ as a Naval Sim, then all of the planets are tiny islands on a water world. The best you can do is defend a radius around the island, as has been suggested.

This means that any "borders" are both mutable and imaginary. In fact, when there is a war, all of the water is hostile territory, except where shore batteries and mines, etc. can give you SOME control.

A system where the control of the planets are in multiple hands, is, by nature, in contention, and is a war zone when any of the holders are at war. That is why I proposed that there be grey "territory." Imagine if the US held Hawaii, but the other islands were occupied by another, hostile, country. Where would you draw the border of the US?

Open water is just that, open. International territory. Not to be used to calculate total "ownership" of the world.

That being said, if you hold all of the planets, then you can be said to hold the area the solar system is in, but only to a certain radius. I would agree that it should be somewhat bigger than the sum of its parts, if there is no contention.

I'm not sure that stations should count at all. It may be that they could be used for force projection, and, so, aid the control of an occupied system. But if the stations count by themselves, why not count fleets? They are certainly more instrumental to holding an area.

The only way that you could be said to control an area of space, is if you can put ships there and your enemies cannot. In this sense, range is much more an issue than influence.

i have a stupid radical thought.


why not make the whole negotiable.

in other words how fast you can go through my territory.

where you can travail in my territory like no closer than 5 spaces to not at all.

and as many of these ideas that can be negotiated by the AI. if that is even possible.


one other thing i would like to see is a per turn price/tribute.

I guess its all Butterfly Effect, a change in any one dynamic can/will produce major and/or unpredictable changes elsewhere. Let's break this down to simpler components. There is the presumed assumption that Suicide levels are not difficult enough due to the use of sneak attacks, which the AI is unable to properly use or defend against. In response, the development team has presented a Right of Passage treaty that will drop non-treaty races to 1pc/wk and after declaration of war, or first attack, all player ships are moved from AI territory. While players like the idea of Right of Passage, they don't like the engine nerfing or "teleportation" of ships. Also, players want to keep sneak attacks as a viable option for use, as they are "realistic" in form.

Examples of where RoP limits would be bad (extreme example): a Gigantic Map with 2 players, relations status: at war, thus RoP cannot be used. Assume that each race controls half of the map (7.5 sectors) From the starting border of the enemy race, it could take up to 112.5 weeks to traverse the territory or 2.34 game years, an ungodly and extremely tedious amount of time. This is the basis of where Large and above map users draw their complaints on the tedium imposed by this limitation and also complaints about the overall engine nerfing.

Best suggestions submitted so far for 'solving' sneak attack and speed issues:

Diplomatic Repercussions should be VERY high for having military ships in the territory of another race; basically a triple minus in relations, unless allied. {i think this one in particular is a necessity}. Also attacks without a formal declaration of war could result in lowered relations across the board.

Territorial Control set at a radius from a planet or controlled star system where the full effects of the RoP could be used. {I happen to really like this one, doesn't limit the cultural border for flipping planets but limits ship placement and other restrictions without radical changes to current game play}

Increase Espionage Usefulness in that data is not presented immediately on a selected object as currently is and that espionage must be undertaken to gain such information. This changes player strategy as they will think twice about attacking a world or ship they truly know nothing about, it also dramatically increases the importance of the Espionage ability (both SA and normal)

Scaling Speed/Range that larger maps have 'cheaper' engines to offset the length of real life time it takes in waiting for a ship to reach a destination. {I suggest however only a small reduction in Size/Cost, mostly for balance purposes.}

These suggestions, most of which have been stated prior, are generally only improvements on CURRENT game features and do not artificially or in an iron-handed manner hurt either advanced, moderate, or new players but should only add new layers of complexity to the game.