Right of Passage Treaty:

With a Right of Passage Treaty, you have the Right to enter into the space of another civilization's influence(unless within a parsec of an owned thing, starbase or planet) without declaring war.

Should you wish to enter another civilization's influence, you must declare war or sign of Right of Passage Treaty, or barring that, leave the United Planets.

You cannot declare war with a Right of Passage Treaty in force. It must be broken diplomatically first. You cannot break a RoP treaty and declare war on the same turn.

If you break off the RoP treaty, you get a large diplo-relations hit with them.

Once out of the United Planets, you may enter the civilization's space at will. Also, anyone can enter YOUR space at will.

That's how I would do it.

I was unclear earlier. I was trying to say that the other civ's influence area does not make it so you cannot move within a parsec of any of your owned things, not that you can enter their space except next to their things.

Also, you may go through any alliance member's space during a war even without RoP.

Jythier- that's also a good idea, but I'd add one addendum.

If you own a planet in the sector, you can move anywhere freely in that sector.

To be quite honest, I am glad the "no sneak attack" proposal is dead. While the AI has trouble using it, it is still a valid tactic. Sudden, unexpected attacks are simply a fact of military strategy. While two massive fleets lining up on opposite sides and charging each other is certainly an option, it isn't the only one.

What this idea would do, I think is limit the options of players who don't build massive fleets. Asymmetric warfare is one of the things I like about Gal Civ 2; I can take a smaller and more mobile fleet into a race I want to go after, hit weak points without warning, and keep my fleet out of range of their heavy guns. Why would I declare this to my enemy, run outside their space, and run back in again for this style of warfare? It could still be done, naturally, but less effectively initially making other styles of warfare than "whoever builds the biggest fleet wins" less practical.

One thing, I think that is important to remember is right of passage treaties are wanted for more reasons than just one. Many people were asking for them not to prevent sneak attacks but for other uses. Personally, I want them because I find it ridiculously annoying that the enemy can move ships through my space at will, colonize planets in the heart of my territory because I missed a Class 1 in my gigantic map because they don't show up at the most zoomed out levels, or conduct a war with another race halfway across the galaxy through my backyard.

I'd like to see an option for open or closed borders and also right of passage treaties so that you may open them for races of your choosing. Closing your borders has the effect of cutting off trade except with those you have the treaties with, but, on the flip side, any ship of theirs in your space can be blown up without declaring war, thought it will cool relations with whoever's ship you just blew up. Naturally, closing your borders to them will make them close their borders to you. Hopefully the AI can learn from this and will attempt to avoid your space after losing some ships there or better arm the next group of ships. One of the things about this I like is you still can only control as much space as you can police. If you don't have enough ships to shoot down interlopers, or your ships are too weak, then the closed borders policy will hurt you rather than help.

You know those races in Star Trek, the cagey ones who close their borders, admit nobody into their territory, fiercely defending their space from any and all who try to enter it? I want to play that race and at present, it just isn't possible. In order to do it, you effectively have to declare war on everyone which tends to end badly. Further, this could be a mechanism to further differentiate the races in the game. The ever diplomatic Humans might maintain an open border policy with everyone to facilitate talks and trade. The less friendly Drengin might close their border to all except those they are allied with in a given moment. Consider, if you send an unescorted colony ship into a race of evil reptiles determined to enslave the entire universe, are they A.) going to let it continue on it's merry way to colonizing a world they can strip mine for resources or B.) going to scrap the ship for parts and dump the occupants into slave pits to build more ships? I think this option could be used to reflect that.

One note I will make though, is that those races who do choose the closed border policy should have some effective method of continuing on without trade. Perhaps salvage ships, which, when accompanied with fleets, get back some percentage of the value of the ship the fleet destroyed in credits. This could make for an interesting challenge to the player - do I close my borders and recycle the ships entering my space for that money or open them for the trade income?

Another implication of this is further expanded diplomacy - demands you close your borders to another race's enemy or to open your borders to their freighters lest they declare war and open them for you. UP resolutions could exist regarding open border policies, such as a resolution for the benefit of galactic commerce that all races open their borders. What does one do about planets in other territories? Unless you expand your influence to encompass them your enemy could take your entire planet without declaring war.

Other options for limiting the power of closed borders (if loss of trade and difficulty exploring other race's space aren't enough) could be things like lowering influence due to decreased contact, lowered diplomacy due to perceived distantness and coldness, lowered tourism income, inability to use special treaties like research due to the inability of other race's scientists to enter your space (except for those you have right of passage treaties with), or other things others may think of to add disadvantages to isolating yourself from the rest of the universe.

Anyhow, these are my rambling thoughts on the topic, but I would very much like to see some mechanism by which one can play an isolationist empire even if these ideas are rejected for whatever reason.

Edit: In retrospect, this actually would do something to limit sneak attacks as those you are attempting to attack can pick off anything you send into their space if you don't have a right of passage treaty with them. It won't end it like the original proposal would, but it would still give the AI a new recourse to fight back. You know that warning it gives you about it knowing what you are doing when you send too many ships into their space? What if they responded by closing their border to you and blowing up your ships? Or if you don't have open borders with them, just pick off your ships as you send them in.

That makes sense to me as well.
I think I like that idea the best out of all of them, and it sounds like something the AI could handle.

And it's basically what everyone is asking for, as well.

Sounds too complex. I'd say the simpler way is:
1) Every ship of an empire that does not have PT with you has to get out, or they are automatically go to war.
2) Either they stay out, or go to war.
3) If you click on an closed territory yourself, you get a warning like you do before attacking someone.
4) Autopilot/freighters try to find alternate routes to avoid closed territories. Even if you go to war with the empire and don't care.

IMO, #4 is the most difficult thing to implement.

Make it a separate bit for freighters...

I like this suggestion the best. It doesn't "limit" players, but provides real costs to the cheesy quick strike crap.

I don't really like this primarily because it would allow players to fence off massive amounts of space they can't realistically control. If that way was implemented, I would use colony ships and constructors to build a ring of influence around an area I want to control, then move from the outside in to colonize it. Even though I won't control the center, the space will be cut off from everyone else so nobody can reach it.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to be able to run the blockade, so to speak, if your ships are fast enough to get through their space before they can reach you or they just have too few ships to spot you or lack the firepower to stop you from going through their space. I think it important that right of passage type features not be implemented in such a way that an effective game tactic is to simply build starbases over the planets of other races and thus lock that planet down completely.

Honestly I think your suggestion makes it far too powerful.

Sorry this is long guys. I had to throw in my two cents here. And I feel this can be done in a reasonable way, that isn't gamey, and isn't extreme on the coding side either. I had to put this out here, despite its length.

I'm not sure why something like borders should be hard to code, separately from influence. Borders just need to be a specified radius around a planet. Your borders are what you own, physically, ie. land. In other words, if you own the planet, then you have a claim to a certain radius around the planet. This can be two parsecs, or eight, for all I care. And it could even be a startup option, to add more choices to the game. And to be clear here, star bases have no effect, they are ships without engines, not territorial claims (that requires ownership of land). Your borders are nothing more then a radius around your planets, which should be very easy to code.

And the UP can even vote to let the races decide exactly what size should be the internationally (galactic) accepted zone size. Just as our UN and current international law recognizes three miles of ownership out into the ocean.

Now, that just does not seem remotely difficult to me to be able to code. But then it leaves the next question, of how to handle it when someone enters your territory without a right of passage treaty. And that doesn't have to be too terribly complicated either.

Simply, if they are in your territory, we can have multiple options for solving the issues. If I attack someone within my territorial borders, I get a pop up with two choices, 1) attack (declare war), or 2) diplomatic ejection (i.e. that ship gets teleported back to their home or nearest planet). This isn't exactly unrealistic. Nations eject diplomats, or deport people, or whatever the case may be all the time. Calculate the time it would have taken to make the journey and wait that amount of time before making it available again. It's part of the price you pay for getting caught, and it keeps it more realistic (we are simulating that it was deported and had to travel back).

Now, we can try to run the blockade, so to speak. And the other side has to actually catch us to stop us. Yet we can be caught and ejected, or it could possibly even start a war. We have options, not restrictions. And that's for both sides involved in the issue. Perhaps a planet we own requires us to "run the gauntlet" because its deep behind the lines within another's territory. And different AI personalities can have different tendencies for their response (of course balanced if they simply can not win a war).

And then you could expand the right of passage with more flavors. Full right of passage, or just trading rights of passage. Or if we "really" wanted, only rights of passage through the borders of a specific set of planets. Or, even better, another right of passage for specific types of star base construction. Again, more options makes for a better game and I'll bet others can be creative and come up with more variations, that really wouldn't be too much more to code.

Continuing on, we now can have disputed zones where two planets have overlapping radius zones. In disputed zones, you can't diplomatically eject the other side any longer. You either attack and declare war, to decide who really owns it, or you acknowledge their right to be there. Simply, if it's a disputed zone, you can't diplomatically eject them any longer. I can park on their doorstep and they can't eject me (because I do have as much claim to be there as they do). But it might be that they don't like that and are willing to fight as a remedy.

The gamey things are lame. And I wholeheartedly agree that simply teleporting them 100 parsecs or artificially slowing them down degrades the game, rather than enhances it. And I don't feel those are "minor degradations" either.

We are adding layers of play to the game this way. Cloaking comes to mind, when thinking of even more ways to add options and playability here.

One last point here. With borders being a simple radius around your planets, we have added an additional layer of game play by making that radius adjustable in the options or by UP vote. Some of us like to put influence star bases near other races planets. All of a sudden, depending on how large that radius is, those star bases may not be buildable up close and personal. Make it so you can't build a star base in someone else's territory, without a forced declaration of war, or star base right of passage. This brings in more playability, such as what happens if you have a star base somewhere (with right of passage), but the territory it's in changes ownership? The other side can ignore our star base, or attack (giving the option of 1. attack, or 2. force owner to sell it off, or 3. capture it with troops). And why not make all star bases capturable, for that matter.

This is adding simple, yet significant playability options, and it keeps it reasonably realistic. And it seriously should not be hard to code a radius or number of parsecs outward from a planet, to determine territory. Please consider some of this.

Finally someone who shares my concerns about treaties in the colonization rush that I voiced in #83.
This can cecome a major problem, making people even less likely to play corner games!

I think the issue is people want this, but in a "realistic" way.

Concerns: In cases of vast cultural influence, people will not be able to reinforce their planet.

Realism concerns.

First one- I'd make the suggestion that any sector you have a planet, you can travel across that sector regardless. Or maybe within sensor range of that planet- whichever is easier to code.

I think in cases of closed borders, the AI can attack ships within the borders without declaring war. Freighters would avoid the territory- though would not get a commerce bonus for doing so. Would take a relations hit for each attacked ships. Ships in enemy space can defend themselves but not attack without declaring war. When space is closed, there would be an option to autopilot out of the area without being attacked. This can be cancelled but your ship would be attacked in that case. Having ships in closed space is a relationship penalty. Closing space would hurt influence with that civ.

Hi!

IMO I can say something here. Sneak attacks are just a tip of the iceberg, and no cheese at all. Down below that tip are hidden many more or less cheese tactics, that misuse the game mechanics and AI weak spots. Here are some I think are the worst:

Good Diplomacy, as it enables player to fight 400% suicidal bonus with 400% suicidal bonus by enabling him to incite wars among AIs. I exterminated many races with no warships on my site, just with transports to take planets another AI cleared of defenders. Solution: give all suicidal AIs about 30% starting diplo bonus, and let us check how it will work out, or just make paying for the war significantly more expensive, making SuperManipulator really special.

Diplomatic bonus from treaties is too high. In one game I had an almost hostile Korath on my border I just could't pay to go to war, so I simply gave him my research treaty. The additional two pluses made their relations with me normal quite fast.

I would also mention here the trade-whoring, but
a) I don't have fresh experience with it, as in most my games I turn tech-trade off, and
it involves so much work it IMO deserves to stay in the game. In anyone is ready to invest half of his game-time to trading, then let him do it.
The one change I'd really like to see is player receives the tech when the game processes the turn (the tech should not be available immediately for usage or resale).

From game-mechanics I'd mention two:
a) DA defenses, that in early and mid game make ships almost invincible, and
the planet invasion tech transfer. In my recent game I had only basic weapons, and never in whole game researched any weapons above that, but ended my first and second war using Graviton driver II and last two wars with Doom Ray. Solution: apply about 75% of TPs the gained tech costed in curent galaxy (slow-fast tech, size) to the same tech branch of the player. You already have all needed mechanics for that in the game.

WRT DA engines nerf: keep it. I just finished a DL game where I had a huge hull with attack ~200, ~300 defense and speed ~60. I alone destroyed defenders on about 8 arceans' planets in a single turn. IMO that's just silly.

BR, Iztok

I believe that the AIs do get a diplomatic bonus on suicidal already...