I'm against the idea. It's placing too many "fakey game" limits on things. Having it be a UP issue is one thing, but a game rule?? In my view that's crossing a line. Sneak attacks happen, it's a valid tactic, it's real, and i think if it's changed, it will make the game fakey. At least to me, in fact i outright hate the idea. I know there's a need to balance realism with game play, GC2 being a game after all. But the key is balance, and i think if this is implemented, it's crossing a line from being balanced to being Overly-gamey. For me personally, i'd see it as being FORCED to use a particular strategy in every game i play, instead of having options.

I want my ships to move 100 parsecs every turn.   

"Um, the U.P. is made up of Guild navigators? And that's also why the U.P. exists before the player even encounters another race?"

Okay, I concede, it's explanable.

"I'm against the idea. It's placing too many "fakey game" limits on things. Having it be a UP issue is one thing, but a game rule?? In my view that's crossing a line. Sneak attacks happen, it's a valid tactic, it's real, and i think if it's changed, it will make the game fakey. At least to me, in fact i outright hate the idea. I know there's a need to balance realism with game play, GC2 being a game after all. But the key is balance, and i think if this is implemented, it's crossing a line from being balanced to being Overly-gamey. For me personally, i'd see it as being FORCED to use a particular strategy in every game i play, instead of having options."

That was the point I was trying to make, but failed miserably.

I do have to admit this is one of the things I really hated about Civ4. This is probably where part of my reaction is coming from. I always disliked military units that magically move.

The problem with returning ships to home planets, is that on gigantic maps, it may take game months to get them back to the border.

I guess, what I am saying, is that actual borders and influence spheres need to remain separate. It has been blurred a bit in DA, and I wouldn't want to see it get blurred anymore. GC II has never had actual borders, and if borders are going to be used to contain/restrain/control ship movement it really needs another layer of actual claimed space to be put in place. Maybe Birth of the Federation might be a good model here? Actual borders are only rearranged when planet ownership changes (so you know what it will be from turn to turn) and some squares are disputed between races.

Edit: And starbases built? It's been a while since I played that game...

BTW I do REALLY appreciate your asking our opinion!

I like that idea, Purge, except that Starbases should affect the border as well. Then it really wouldn't make sense to have fighting ships within someone else's influence unless you were going to war.

I'm not denying your personal preferences but you're already FORCED to use a particular strategy if you wish to play DA in that you're forced to build ships using larger and far more expensive engines than that of DL.

Since engine nerfage is the primary issue that has kept me from playing DA, I'd be happy to accept explicitly declaring war as a better alternative to the issue of the AI being unable to deal with sneak attacks as long as it helps me avoid taking 15 turns to crawl across a gigantic galaxy. To me this transforms DA from something I have no desire to play to something I can't wait to try.

I was thinking of just placing them around the planet instead of actually in orbit, so that it wouldn't fill up the orbit slots, thus stopping production. 

Well, I would be for a reduction in the current engine nerfage in DA, but that would be up to Brad.

The Right of Passage was intended for Twilight of the Arnor.  So whatever we end up doing will probably be just in TA.

The problem with something like this is that there are people on both sides of the sneak attack issue, and a good many of you in the middle who have your own ideas about how attacks should be handled.

Brad might consider making this an option, just as the mega events and super abilities are optional. I would prefer having something like this, and it being an option, than nerfing the engines with something like the Right of Passage treaty.  The Declare War button could exist whether the option was on or off.

The reason that we are discussing the Right of Passage treaty and my suggestion is because people were complaining that they can beat the AI even on the hardest difficulties too easily because of sneak attacks.

Well, if you knew that they were going to get moved, you wouldn't move them in the first place.

Uh Oh. This wording is starting to sound too much like how my wife sounds when she wants me to do some chore and promises some unspecified but never to be received reward in return.


I suppose that this could be the case, however IIRC the engine nerfage of DA did not occur because of some outcry from users that fast engines allow sneak attacks that the AI couldn't deal with and thus made the AI too easy to beat. Again IIRC and with all due respect, the engine nerfage was supposed to fix the issue of sneak attacks which was *assumed* to be the predominate method by which people were beating the AI at the highest levels. As it turns out that is not really the case nor has it really fixed the problem because of the further assumption that people have worked around engine nerfage and still been able to sneak attack by simply parking ships near all an opponents planets and thereby are still able to conquer an opponent in a single turn.

I have to stress, potential opinions to the contray, that my objection to engine nerfage and hence my refusal to play DA, is not based on an inability to beat the suicidal AI without using such tactics but on just the logistical nightmare that slow engines mean in gigantic galaxies. I'm perfectly willing to take on the suicidal AI in a straight up battle because most often I have more ships, stronger ships and larger fleets than the AI does and do not need to resort to sneak attacks to achieve victory.

The truth of the matter has been stated many times over. Right of passage treaty (even as originally announced a while back), Declare War button (I'd recommend it regardless of how the rest of this works out, personally. Perhaps make declaring war slightly less of a diplo hit than just randomly attacking or something), it doesn't matter what. The truth is we need to come up with a "controlled" border and a "cultural" border. They should not, and in the case of what we're talking about, CAN not be the same. Throwing numbers out, perhaps a planetary border is 5 parsecs in any direction from the planet. Perhaps a military starbase has controlled space of 3-6 (good idea would be to have modules which change the range of controlled space). I have an idea of a new module for sentry ships, so that you can station them and gain extra controlled space, which would add some more strategic decisions into the mix. In this case, I'd say that said sentry would have to be either within certain range of one of its empire's planets or within cultural borders.

However it's done, the only way to really do this well is to come up with a controlled border.

To be honest, I don't like this idea at all. I'm sorry to say that, but it sounds like a pretty cheap solution to the "the AI doesn't see it coming" problem to me. Both having to declare war and moving out of 'enemy space' - which is a problematic definition in itself because influence zones can shift around a lot, and be used exploitively as well - isn't realistic when taking Earth's history into account. Not to mention the really evil aliens that are supposed to be around - "Hey, we're the Drengins and we suck at influence, but all your base are belong to us - well, once our ships have made it back to you.". Hmm, no.

I agree that sneak attacks are, well, sneaky and can be easily exploited, but personally I don't think the suggested solution is a good one. Sneak attacks kind of belong into the game in my opinion. I wouldn't like to be forced to build influence starbases just to keep my fleets were they are when starting a war.

Regardless of what if anything comes of this I do want to echo Purge's sentiment here. Thanks for asking!

Mumblefratz, do you know how the people who are complaining that it's too easy to beat the AI on Suicidal are doing it if not through sneak attacks?  We are open to suggestions that are simple and reasonable.  If we can come up with a better solution, Brad has confirmed that we will un-nerf the engines.

I don't agree with this on the grounds that borders in space really don't make sense and trying to enforce a border system would be a micromanagement mess.

 

How about making it that the attacker cannot declare war and take a planet of the race declared against on the same turn?