Expansion Discussion - Borders/Territory

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Harmonious Hegemony

The way I see it you could send ships to colonize anywhere, its just that as they get farther from your empire's core and more into another empires sphere you stand an increasing chance (increasing with distance and time) of them changing sides. This would allow for fuzzy frontiers but would tend to keep an empire's core area free from interlopers.

1. I'm not sure I agree with the "distance from core" idea. If you start off close to another race - then your "core" area will overlap a lot, resulting in planets switching sides unpredictably.
2. The concept of what is "core" is subject to interpretation. If you discover a lost colony (ie: relatively large population) far from your homeworld - does a nearby new colony of another race stand a greater chance of joining you - or your colony of joining them?

I think greater detail needs to be put into what "core" means and what factors determine "sphere of influence". Bad implementation of this would lead to behaviour which could not be explained by the average player - "wtf? My 6 billion strong lost colony just up and joined the empire with a dinky 30m colony next to me????"

[Simulation01]

You simply should NOT be allowed to colonize in another Empire's territory unless you declare war, and military ships should not be allowed to cross the border of another empire when they are automated.  The player should have to give a direct order to violate another nations territory.  The AI should be programmed to respect borders until such time as they are ready to deteriorate relations, attack, or declare war. 

I would accept that another empire could cross another empires territory and colonize a planet only if the planet and system they colonize remained under the control of the owning empire before colonization.  Change of ownership would only occur once the colony amassed a certain development level.  The planet would act autonomously till such time.  When the colony reached said development level the empire in which it is located should receive a notification that said planet or system will fall under the control of the colonizing empire.  You should then be given a set of options...1.allow the planet or system to change hands...2.Deny the change and occupy the planet ( which would remain autonomous and act as a neutral empire...this would negatively affect relations with the colonizing empire as in the mean time, but so would the initial offending colonization ). 3.Deny and blockade the planet and use it in negotiations ( you would have the option of changing your mind about this system at any time in the future if of course you do not allow it to join with the colonizing empire ). I envision a popup screen with these options on it.

There is another thought as well.  If a rival empire founds a colony in your empire you could begin rushing your own citizens to the planet in question in order to turn the tables and basically 'steal' the colony from the original thieves.  You should have to build two or three colony ships to accomplish this feat.  You should then also have the option of enslaving or eradicating the 'alien' population.  This of course should negatively affect relations between empires.

Please feel free to praise or rip this idea....but something like this is the only way I would be mollified by allowing rival empire ships to cross borders without a declaration of war.  I apologize for channeling Congress tonight.

[Kal Naar]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

You simply should NOT be allowed to colonize in another Empire's territory unless you declare war, and military ships should not be allowed to cross the border of another empire when they are automated.  The player should have to give a direct order to violate another nations territory.  The AI should be programmed to respect borders until such time as they are ready to deteriorate relations, attack, or declare war. 

That option already exists in the game, in Options > Automation > Empire Settings, you can define so you can't colonize or build mining stations in other empires systems.
So the AI can control that option already, and maybe could be easily expanded for your idea, with warnings for the player when an manual action would cause a casus belli or war.

[Kal Naar]

ORIGINAL: Harmonious Hegemony

How about implementing the concept of "Spheres of Influence", something like Civ had/has (I think).

I would prefer a solution that would rely on the player/ai decision for territory definition, since a SOI causes empires to always have ownership of the neighboring systems, it would remove a game play possibility that could exist otherwise.

[Simulation01]

ORIGINAL: Kal Naar

ORIGINAL: Simulation01

You simply should NOT be allowed to colonize in another Empire's territory unless you declare war, and military ships should not be allowed to cross the border of another empire when they are automated.  The player should have to give a direct order to violate another nations territory.  The AI should be programmed to respect borders until such time as they are ready to deteriorate relations, attack, or declare war. 

That option already exists in the game, in Options > Automation > Empire Settings, you can define so you can't colonize or build mining stations in other empires systems.
So the AI can control that option already, and maybe could be easily expanded for your idea, with warnings for the player when an manual action would cause a casus belli or war.

My point is that the AI doesn't seem to play by these common sense rules very much and that they should. It makes no sense to found colony's deep inside hostile territory or within friendly territory since that would cause hard feelings. Also this is within the context of a border system not the current ownership system or whatever you want to call it.

[Fideach]

I wouldn't mind seeing something like controlling sectors of space. But I would say the current sectors might be a bit too big for that. Might need to make them smaller for that to work. Perhaps once your influence gets to a certain point the sector defaults to your control and any other Empire\Independent colonies will suffer reduction in income and growth? Depending on your diplomatic relations and agreements with them.

I'm really just wanting something that allows me to assign fleets of ships to certain sectors\borders on my empire to auto defend\attack. Be able to tell them "go no where else, but to planets in this "sector", and defend". Or even "your base is here, at this space station\planet and you are to attack and intercept threats in these areas only" while just checking a box for defense operations, or assigning the fleet to attack operations and what sectors they should attack\defend and what should be the attack priority. What they should attack, and what they shouldn't. 

Since I'm so tired of seeing fleets based out of a planet on the other side of the universe flying off to who knows where while my planets are attacked.  Especially when they decide they should blow up one measly ship of an aggressive empire on the far side of where they should be station. That a single escort ship of mine could blow up by itself.

Would be nice if the AI could assist with assigning the appropriate number of ships\fleets to different "borders" of your empire based on the threat coming from that direction.

Hmm would be nice to also be able to zoom out on the map, and assign whole sectors to different types of operations. For example: Sector AB4 and 5 is unexplored. Please prioritize exploration in this area *check box\slider changed*. While Sector BC5 and BC6 are on the boarder of three aggressive empires that are threatening war. Please prioritize beefing up both orbital\ground defenses and increasing defense fleet sizes. *check box\slider changed*. Oh, also assign attack fleets to operate out of certain areas whose sole purpose is to wage guerrilla warfare. Be it an economic attacks only, or preemptive attacks on enemy military ships and installations.

Borders and what I was talking about could also let the game overtime develop neutral or pirate sectors that will be infested not only with pirates, but also mercanires ships\fleets you could pay to do something for you. Either hiring them to do so, or "buying" them flat out.  Be a resource area to buy black market goods like illegal technologies that the United Nations of the galaxy has outlawed (if something like that is ever added) or rare resources.

[Seath]

i really like your ideas Fideach.
Exactly this type of actions needs the game to become more interesting in the mid/endgame and a lot easyer to control. I am a control freak... so i play without any automation and its a lot of micromanagment to fight a war.
Also a tipe of Galactic Senate or something like that should be added like in MOO2 or GalCiv II.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Data

Yes and no. Once a player colonizes a colony than the system takes his colors but anyone can colonize other colonies in the same system. Unfortunatelly, afaik, it's not like in MOO2 where each would get a color in that system and you could end up with a rainbow of a system. But that at least would indicate various ownerships in that system.
I have a terrible lapse now and I don't know if the same applies with DW.

Also, unlike MoO, in DW, the more powerful/prosperous empire might end up with the planet in the end just from the citizens deciding they want to swap sides. I've lost several planets this way. In fact, most of the time this is what happens, so the rainbow effect doesn't last long.

However, when I find a rare resource planet I can colonize, I don't care if another empire is there first, I'm colonizing the planet. You just have to station a sizable fleet and more several trooper units there to be sure and hold it. Getting a small SP built and upgrading to a large as soon as practical also helps. Typically, my capital and the rare resource planets are my most heavily defended with a LSP, several defense bases of various designs, and a fleet at the ready.

[Data]

Typically, my capital and the rare resource planets are my most heavily defended with a LSP, several defense bases of various designs, and a fleet at the ready.

only that? [:)]

[Stormy Fairweather]

If I may suggest; have an configurable distance from colonies that qualifies as a border, and a separate distance from bases that do the same thing, write up a simple algorithm for allowing borders to merge if the distance between then is small, or split the difference when overlap occurs. Any civilian ship from a nuetral or friendly empire crossing a border should pay a small tariff to the owner, including, perhaps, customs fees. This would open up many diplomacy options, such as allowing certain ships to enter one's territory without penalty, lowering customs for some races/goods, as well as empire wide polices, such as having your patrols fire on nuetral civilian ships. Crossing borders with any military units, or building anything in another borders, should be treated as an act of war. I would even suggest taking this a step further, enabling the placement of 'claims' on systems or lesser stellar contructs, that your friends could be expected to respect, and others might be indifferent to; something like a half-border. And on the other end, perhaps even some empire rules for how far from your territory different types of ships will stray or wht type of missions outside of your borders your advisors advise. Just my two cents, and what I think of when I think of borders in space. There is nothing in a 4x space game I hate more than having a number of systems under my control, and somewhere near the middle of my established colonies a 'friend' colonizes a system I didn't. It doesn't matter that I had not colonized it yet, it is in my middle of my turf and is an intrusion, the AI doesn't, cannot, see it that way.

Edit - I just realized this si a necro post... sorry.