I really like the Right of Passage Treaty, but I don't think a speed limit is the way to go. Why can't this be dealt with purely diplomatically?

For example:

If the Drengin, who I don't have a treaty with, see any of my ships within their borders, our relationship takes a hit and the Drengin demand I pull them out.

How big an impact on relations would depend on how many ships they see, what kind they are, how heavily armed they are, etc. etc. The impact to relations is calculated for every turn my ships remain in sight. This means that the deeper into enemy space my fleet is, the longer it will take for me to pull them out and therefore the more my relations with the Drengin will suffer. Especially if the Drengins send some units to "escort" my ships out, as they probably should.

In general, I think it would be ideal if we could make sneak attacks more difficult but not necessarily impossible. Barring any AI limitations I may have overlooked, I think the above would work pretty well in this respect.

Another idea. Let's say war breaks out between me and the Altarians. I have a few large invasion fleets in Altarian space, yet they only have a couple ships in mine. As soon as war breaks out, I take a big hit to my overall reputation (relations with every race), proportional to the amount of firepower I have in Drengin space. The Altarians don't receive a big reputation penalty; there might even be an outpouring of support from the other factions. So even if my sneak attack succeeds against the Altarians, I may have the rest of the galaxy to answer to.

There are some more apparent problems with this second idea. Firstly, it won't make much of a difference in a 1 vs 1 galaxy. The more races there are to contend with, the riskier a sneak attack would be.

If both ideas were implemented, things get a little complicated. For example, what happens if you have a passage treaty with someone, and then for some reason they declare war on you?

I'm going to ponder on it a bit more, but in the meantime does anyone else have thoughts on this?

I wonder if some people found suicidal easy by not allowing max CPU for the AI. At suicidal level, the AI should have all available bonuses and CPU power is one. After all, there isn't any time limit for the human player . Maybe suicidal level game should always turn on max CPU for the AI, without being possible to uncheck it.

The Right of Passage treaty should be a bidimensionnal treaty (like alliance, if you have a RoP with a race, that race has a RoP with you) that allows military ships to travel into another race space without triggerring build up warning from the AI. That way, you could help an ally in another part of the galaxy without annoying a neutral race by having your fleet passing near its planets. In short, a race which whom you have a RoP treaty shouldn't declare war against you for military build up concern.

The cancelling of a RoP treaty should be treated for ships like a declaration of war with the UP issue that enforce relocation of ship. The cancellation could be made in the diplomatic screen by specifically cancelling it. And naturally, you can't have/maintain a RoP treaty with a race if you are at war with that race

An alliance should automatically give the RoP treaty. But ending an alliance wouldn't mean ending the RoP treaty.

And for the AI, RoP treaty means that they shouldn't really worry (ie less CPU processing devoted to that task) about the possible intentions of the fleets owned by the race which whom it has a RoP treaty

BTW,  I wonder is the problem is really sneak attack or unability to defend a planet with a fleet without the proper planetary improvement (Orbital Fleet Manager). I understand that coordonating defense around a planet is more tricky than battling into empty space, but instead of being unable to use fleet to defend a planet, why not using fleet build with the half of the logistic capability when there is no OFM on the planet?

Any comments?

 

I really like two of the ideas presented:

(1) Hide or obscure the values of enemy ships, tied to espionage and a little random factor

How am I supposed to know that alien ships move x parsecs and have an attack rating of y right away? I might get this information for a given ship type over time due to experience, espionage, luck or a sophisticated guess, but at the start an alien ship should be, well, pretty alien.
(By the way, I think this would be a nice feature for the different races: They could have advantages and disadvantages in reconnaissance - think about the Krynn not-so-super-ability for a second.)


(2) Make it easier to prevent invasions.

E.g. the attacker could have to kill all nearby ships and starbases (the latter was suggested every now and then already) before starting an invasion or suffer penalties. As of now it often is too easy to kill small to medium sized fleets in orbit, sometimes even one after the other because the "fleet defenders" building isn't there.

I think an important part of the problem is that annihilating a race is too easy and goes too fast. All species can extinct or be subdued completely, but not within a week.

To be honest I've never heard of a single *player* that has complained that suicidal is too easy. At least not in the last year and probably even longer than that.

I have seen many folks playing at lower levels express a desire for the AI to wage war more efficiently. This same desire has perhaps been expressed by the occasional suicidal player as well, however this by no means automatically translates into "please make suicidal more difficult".

Anyway, I suppose anything is possible, but for someone to play suicidal and then explicitly attempt to hamper the AI by disabling max cpu is rather ludicrous.

I'm far from an "authority" on this "issue," but it has been my experience that an AI, even one with whom I have relatively good relations, will declar war on me if I start building up significant forces inside its territory anywhere close to its planets. I just had it happen by accident in a game where I mistakenly let a single transport stray into enemy territory and it got too close to a planet. It seems to me that upping the AI's sensitivity to having another player military assetts within its territory (unless their an ally of course) would help with the perceived sneak attack issue. The Sensitivity would be highter to having military ships simply parking in one's territory, which is usually an obvious prelude to an attack. There could be a reduced level of sensitivity to having ships parked within 1 grid square of a border. Although I'm not sure what the "nerfed engine" issue is referring to, I believe it is the fact that in DA engines are far more expensive and space consuming. I liked that-it seems to me that interstellar engines would be a very expensive and space consuming piece of hardware. As far as the reduction in speed issues, I have to say that I've never noticed that the Yor's Super Ability even worked. My ships seem to move just fine through the Yor's territory, but I admit I've never closely observed them to confirm that. Anyway, regardless of whether it works or not, I believe that making that ability a universal rule in the game subject to a Right of Passage Treaty would be better served by making it optional and a UP enforced issue. If the player refuses to obey the Right of Passage treaty requirement by slowing down its ships in another's space (by clicking a button saying he will not) and speed through enemy territory at full speeds, then all members of the UP, including allies, declar war on that player and attack him. Another penalty might be the automatic restriction of all trade with that player or at least a substantial diplomatic penalty. This would give a player incentive to not disobey, but leave in the option of launching sneak attacks (albeit at risk he will be caught before he can do so by the AI's heightened sensitivity as described above). Now obviously, if the advantages of a sneak outweighs these penalties, the player is still going to launch sneak attacks, but that would usually be towards the end of the game where the UP's importance has declined and the player is on its way to victory anyway. Just my two cents-it may or may not even be implementable.

Personally, I like the engines as they are in DA. Further nerfage would be lousy, though, but they shouldn't be TOO powerful either. A twin-engine or triple-engine design should be a big deal.

How about cutting the Range of a ship in foreign territory to the square-root of it's normal value, measured in parsecs, with non-perfect squares being rounded down just like defenses? This way, you simply wouldn't be able to go that far into enemy territory without bringing in Constructors to form 'supply lines' of starbases. Making Constructor Modules slightly larger and more expensive will make sure these supply-lines aren't too cheap.

If the enemy cuts these supply-lines by destroying those starbases, then your ships which are farther into it's territory must make a beeline to the nearest supportable range. If those ships get engaged in combat, their weapons and defense ratings are halved since they must conserve supplies and energy.

This wouldn't apply for unclaimed space, however, and it wouldn't be a problem for unarmed cargo ships like Freighters since they don't have to carry weapons and thus have more space for installing Life Support modules. A Right-of-Passage treaty or an Alliance will remove the square-root penalty to life support range.

Hi!

IMO the "right of passage" is just an overkill-cure to warfightig problems AI can't handle, sneak attack being one of the hardest. To handle war properly, AI neds lots of additional algorithms and time to organize defense.

Since additional algorithms are hard to made, you can give it more time by introducing PACTS. The main issue with pacts is forced gradual decrease in relations before one can actually start fighting, because nobody can attack other player if he's not at war with him. Pacts would represent the steps in "trust" between two players, going by following steps:

• war: full combat available in the next turn after it is declared.
  
• no pact/cease-fire: you're not trusted, every of your actions is treated as threat, AI very willing to go to war, and is preparing for it. If you attack AI, you suffer no penalities. No trade routes or trading possible.
  
• truce: you can declare war, but you can not attack in the same turn. You're not trusted, your actions are carefully monitored (present state of the AI), AI will go to war if it finds good reason (your warships and transports close). More friendly AIs will try to warn you before that. AI researches warfaring techs and searches for diplomatic support. If you attack AI, you suffer small penalities, form "they don't trust us" for some more sensitive AIs and small decrease in diplo relations with most. AIs with unfriendly ralations to the AI will however increase their relations.
  
• non
• aggression pact: you can not declare war, just break NAP. Declaration of war can follow only after 2 turns (weeks) after NAP termination. AI is not so sensible to your ships in its space, but will issue a friendly warning, if the presence is excessive. Your termination of NAP will be looked like unfriendly act, some AIs with friendly relations to AI will react with lowering diplo relations and trade relations and/or their NAPs with you. AIs with unfriendly ralations to the AI will however increase their relations. There will be small risk of some of your ships defecting to other AIs, mostly to the AI you canceled the NAP. That AI will start preparations for a war: obtaining warfaring tech, building ships, looking for diplomatic support.
  
• alliance: you're fully trusted. AI will not do any checks for your intentions. You can break alliance, but your relation goes only down to NAP. You are allowed another change only after 3 turns. AI will start checking for your intentions, and react properly. Breaking alliance causes severe penalities: other AIs will possibly cancel trade routes, trade relations and will lower their pacts with you. AIs with unfriendly ralations to the AI will however increase their relations. There will be moderate risk of some of your ships defecting to other AIs, mostly to the AI you canceled the NAP, and small risk of your planets defecting.

BR, Iztok

Well, I love the idea of some kind of passage treaty that can be ignored (by clicking a diplomacy box (like the one for an embargo).
But if you ignore this, you get a diplomacy malus of 1% per turn per race.

There should be sneak attacks (think of Hitler and Poland and Pearl harbour) but I think you should become villified by everyone for using them:
- either something like the Altarian superpower without the same ethics clause
- or a vote for each AI population to go to war with you/or for your people to attack an AI, just like an election
- or another penalty for diplomacy.

So if you go around sneaking up on people they will beome VERY distrustful until you end up fighting the USA, CCCP, Britain and God knows who else at once.

Btw Has anyone thought of the implications of a speed limit on the colony rush? You colonize one world in a system a few sectors away and everyone has to crawl her colony ships through your space - except you!

Hi!
Since thebutterfly has beaten me while I've been editing my previous post, here's what I tried to add:

The simpler variant of pacts could exclude penalities, either only defections, or also diplomatic ones, so the only effect would be the forced delay and starting of proper AI's analyzing routines when pact would change.

BR, Iztok

I find it astounding that the concept of a DIPLOMATIC Right of Passage treaty has been tossed out by a huge number of players, but I've yet to see Stardock respond to it. Mostly this is astounding because Stardock tends to be amazing when it comes to talking with their customers. I'd at least like to know if it's being discussed, and why not if not.

Later I'll try to post a big message about realism in games. IMO, its importance is severely underestimated. But for now...


Strongly agree with both. Both make a lot of sense, and not only on suicidal difficulty.

Player's knowledge of the exact stats feels like cheating. It could be controlled by a checkbox at the beginning of a game.

The fact that you can't put at least 1 fleet in orbit without a special building seems weird as well.

The reasons are

1) People see it as too artifical, even for a game
2) They think there are better solutions

Iztok's idea as good- but I'd add under cease-fire that AI's can attack ships in their own influence area without declaring war, at a steep diplo hit.

I'd get rid of truce as well.

NAP would be standard.

Also, I'd buff up the UP, and in cases of serious treaty breach, the UP can call for sanctions or punitive war. That's a fairer counter-balance then what's been suggested so far.

I think that a Right of Passage diplomacy option is an enhancement. I think a speed reduction based on the cultural ZOC is a bad idea, for the reasons already posted.

The most logical limiter on the human player is to restrict the knowledge about the enemy. This is a realistic application based on what we've seen in our current realities. We overstate and understate our enemies military strenghts and attributes with the most sophisticated satellites and spy operatives. And this is on one planet...let alone across galatic space. Sliding the information available along the lines of difficulty seems an easy implementation as well, along with making it an optional addition, like mega events.

Making it easier for the ai to align/ally against other ai's or specifically against the human player might be a tweak to improve on the strength of the ai. I know its quite easy to get the ai's to declare war on one another to allow myself to build up, so as a response, the ai's can ally easier.

I think its outstanding that the devs are asking these questions, and while not being particularly original, I feel compelled to offer up my opinion. Thanks to everyone that's contributed.

What about attacking within a turn of a DOW forcing you to leave the UP? Or going through someone else's influence without a right of passage treaty?

are you going to redo auto pilot so that those ships will go around.