I like this idea regarding the right of passage treaty Eloryn. I think this is the most realistic and best option to be implemented, and it least gives you some choices about what to do when the AI parks a scout ship next to your planet and that sort of thing. Should be possible to implement because from memory this is similar to how it worked back in Civilization I! I like the concept of the treaty but am not very keen about the original idea of limiting the speed of ships, as previously mentioned it would make for a very tedious game, especially on larger maps, and there's no real justification for it other than to nerf sneak attacks.
Regarding cloaking, that's also a good idea, but I doubt that could be included without a significant amount of coding of the AI to use and counter it effectively. I reckon the developers would already have enough on their plate trying to balance 12 different tech trees. GalCiv 3 maybe?

That could still be worked around. I occasionally park ships covering transports right next to an enemy planet, then wait for them to declare war on me. It neatly avoids the diplomatic hits from declaring war, and you don't give up the surprise aspect at all. All you lose is some control on the timing, and your enemy suffers the diplomatic hit, not you.

This also works if you have an ally. Bribe the comp to attack your ally, and they're generally too dumb to realize you will jump in. Again, they declared war first, so you don't take the diplomatic hit.

My point is, there will always be a way to blitz computers. Nerf what you like, put in indiscriminate borders, restrict movement, and do whatever else you may want - some enterprising soul will find a way around it, and then you'll hear complaints that something else needs to be nerfed. That doesn't mean that change isn't necessary, just don't expect a magic bullet.

Sneak attacks can be detected without a war declaration. If you take a planet within one or two turns of a war declaration by either side, you have committed a sneak attack. A small rules change to hold allies responsible for the behavior of the war starter would handle issue two.

I believe that I am the one who first posted this concept, and I think of it as the "Pearl Harbor was your Worst Nightmare, or Don't Tread On Me" bonus. (Substitute your own preferred sneak attacks for political correctness or generational relevance.)

And to elaborate just a bit on my original intent, I did not mean that defenses on subsequent TURNS got a bonus. I meant that every battle after the 1st one RESOLVED got a defensive bonus.

To cope with some of the other ways of making sneak attack set-ups work (getting allies to do it, horrible diplomacy, etc), just flag every ship that is inside the influence zone of the enemy at the time a war starts as a potential sneak attacker. A war declared by the ship's owner would automatically move them out of the influence zone. Otherwise, say if your ally starts the war on your behalf, if a ship gets out of the influence zone without combat, the flag is removed; if any such ship gets involved in combat, invasion, etc, before it gets out to neutral space, it is still defined as a sneak attack and the penalties begin. (After all, that's what the enemy's propagandists..er..journalists are going to claim to stir up the populace, anyway.)

Here's an additional twist. After the initial 10% defensive bonus, the defender's defense OR attack bonus could have a decreasing chance of rising another 1% each turn, until the first turn that the increase failed its chance. Possibly you could relate that chance to what the diplomatic relations were like before the outbreak of war, a 'degree of outrage/betrayal' factor.

I think that pretty much covers every way to stash your ships on top of the enemy's worlds ready to pounce. And it adds some uncertainty; you can still do it, but its not going to be as easy as you'd hoped.

And don't forget that my original proposal also called for a big diplomatic hit relative to EVERYONE, and a chance that you could get thrown out of the UP. Those penalties would apply even if you won the war within a single turn.

drrider

I fight and destroy entire AIs in four or five turns...Anytime past the very start of a game I will generally be taking several planets by turn two of a war if I receive a surprise declaration of war from an AI! You just quick build a transport and hit any undefended planets (a planet with a beginning of game defender IS undefended) within reach of your planets. This hardly qualifies as a sneak attack if I can be doing it in reaction to the AI. Instead it turns into a penalty for reacting quickly to a war declaration.

Yes, and in that case, shouldn't you be viewed as a threat if you are able to pull that off? If it is so easy to rush an undefended ai, I think you can deal with the added challenge that comes with a diplo hit or a defensive invasion bonus, etc.

If you don't like to think of it as a sneak attack penalty, think of it as a reaction to your tactical skill. You still get most of the benefit for your preparation, but the ai's respond accordingly.

Kind of reminds me of someone complaining that they could win the fight if the other guy would just hold still!

Why? If it is applied after the 1st qualifying attack occurs, but before the next player turn? The civs are at war at that point and by definition a quick and effective response by the attacked party vs someone they are already at war with could not be a sneak attack. I don't see how that would happen.

drrider

The idea of cloaking was just a random thought, brainstorming.

However, as I understand it, even that should be simple enough with the expansion. As is, they will likely be creating some sort of command ship, to travel along with a fleet. As I recall, some of the new items were ship components that affected the entire fleet. You wouldn't put these on every ship, just one ship in the fleet. The way I would do it, is make my basic fighting ships as the core of the fleet, and then make one command ship which would have all those fleet bonus components. If they are already adjusting the AI to deal with these fleet wide bonus things, then it wouldn't be more work to just toss in the cloaking detector (sensor) component onto that command ship also.

As for effectively "using" cloaking, as opposed to "detecting" it, they just apply a priority to the cloaking device. Probably somewhat low priority, putting engines and weps as a higher priority. But, if the space is available on the ship, one gets added after the higher priority items. And then, with this method, different races can have different priorities and may rate a cloak higher then defenses, or higher then weps. You would have races that use it a lot, and races that use it much less, or only after everything else if it still fits.

I don't see any really extreme difficulties implementing this. However, it was just a random thought, not something I expect. But it should be feasible without too much work, if they wanted to do it.

I would then add to the two components, another planet based cloaking detector to help cover planets better. Then again, you could just argue that a defender around a planet has that task and we shouldn't take up another slot on the planet itself. Either works. In fact, you could even make the cloak a device that affects the fleet and goes on that command ship, if you wanted. Or you could have cloaks and/or cloak sensors as a device on star bases. There are loads of options here, really.

I don't think they have to actually program the AI to launch massive sneak attacks or actually do anything special just because they have cloaks. They still interact and act the exact same way, except you, the player, may only be able to see half of their ships. Or perhaps you can't really see more then about 5%, depending on what priority a given race puts towards using that cloaking device. Nothing else spectacular needs to be coded.

Perhaps stronger cloaks are needed to block out a sensor. I have a level four cloak detector, but wont be able to see your ships with a level 5 cloak. Or perhaps its the range with which you can see them. Higher level cloaks make it so you have to be right up close before you can finally see them. Of course, if you accidentally move onto the space of a cloaked ship, you should get a pop up with 1) attack, 2) cancel, and it would reveal the cloaked vessels. Seriously, this isn't outrageously difficult to code.

One potential definition

A ship that

a) Is not a freighter or scout

Is detectable by planetary sensors

c) Is closer to the defender's planet then the attacker's nearest planet

d) Is not within one turn's move of the home planet

I think those would false positives and not be that exploitable (but still semi-exploitable)

The Atlas and Fortitude modules could apply here.

I personally can't stand the OFM. To me, its just a gamey thing. Someone, no disrespect meant here, was brainstorming and said, "how about we add this..." I don't really know. But ultimately, its design on paper may have sounded good. But in actual implementation, we often find that things sounded cool but just didn't turn out that way once put in use. I'm guilty of it. And I just have to say, the OFM is one of those that in implementation, is just gamey and lame.

I mean, really, my ships can work as a fleet on their own. But put them near a planet and they become stupid for some reason. There's a planet, someone jetison the IQ points so we can't function like we normally would, and require someone else on the planet to use a device to beam us some IQ points while we are here. We'll pick them back up when we leave orbit, but for now, hurry up and get stupid so we can rely on the OFM. Oh, and don't forget to turn off the sensors. Bah.

That thing just has to go, if you ask me. I very definately agree with adjusting this. All of this talk might not help though. Feature creep has to be stopped at some point and they just have to draw the line on what they are willing to do or it will never get done. But I do hope some things are adjusted for the better.

If they need more items for planets, to make our job as the player more interesting with tuff choices, then I vote for the cloaking sensors over the OFM. Of course, I don't seriously expect that to happen.

Actually, if you want my opinion this really isn't necessary.
How about improving the AI so that it will be able to better predict sneak attacks and more intelligently retaliate.

Right of Passage is not something that I think would be "annoying" though I won't resort to judging a book by its cover. Reduced to one turn per week? The first suggestion isn't realistic. I really would like to see an option to turn this off. Isolationist is bad enough.