Personally I think that cultural borders should be different from the influence borders. Just make the cultural borders extend a certain set distance from the planets you own. So lets say that you have one planet, the cultural border would extend say 5 parsecs out from it in a circle unless it comes in contact with an alien border.

You could also make it a bonus that if you have all the planets possible in a solar system you get a larger circle originating from the star, say 15 parsecs instead of the 5.

In this way I don't think ti would be unbalancing if the you implemented the UN deal for all wars but only with relation to cultural borders instead of influence borders.

Let's split the difference. Ban upgrades outside of a player's cultural territory.

sorry this is what i meant

This idea was stated much earlier in this post, but I agree with it completely. I also agree that there needs to be a definitive "cultural" and "political" border. I do admit, I'm a realist and I like to see as much realism as can be imagined. And while GalCivII takes place in the future and reality is a fine-line I believe there has to be a way to fit both sides of this "argument". I don't necessarily like the ability for sneak attacks (since the AI can't do this, it seems like a huge disadvantage). However, when would it ever be possible anyways? I would never allow a nation to scout out my territory. Much less allow military vessels inside of it. Yet I have no way (as of now  ) to tell them to leave my territory. This then raises another question as to what are these "borders". That is why I believe that all military vessels should not be allowed to enter an enemy's political border (not including their "cultural" border) without repercussions. If you do have a right of passage with a nation, Trade ships and scout ships would of course be able to come in (and move at full engine capacity). If you try to get into a nation for a sneak attack, they are most likely going to declare war before you get close to one of their planets anyways. It keeps the depth of reality alive, while not making the game unbearably realistic and micro-managed. What do you think?

Problem- too artificial.

I want sneak attacks to remain in the game, but at a serious diplo penalty.

Open/Closed borders is a great idea if done right- it's hard to do right though.

How about with the above suggestion of no upgrades period outside of one's cultural territory? If you really care about realism (and i don't).

And the diplomacy thing can work, in fact, i suggested the same thing months ago. But the penalties have to be universal, and not just to the civ being attacked. And they would have to be large. Some think that would be too blunt an instrument.

And again, sneak attacks are easy and take little skill. I don't see why they have to remain in the game.

every army tries to make every attack a sneak attack.

One thing, if the AI is in war state, it shouldn't declare war until it attacks.
Civ IV does this

Cultural borders can be made by using a constructor and influence starbase, so that earlier proposal won't work too well.

Let the AI sneak attack a bit as well.

My two cents worth (if it is even worth that much!)...

I like what Peace Phoenix said above. It seems simple enough and does not seem to be much in addition to what is already in the game. If there is no RoP then foreign military ships would trigger a build-up warning as Peace Phoenix said. To expand on this, the build-up warning would not necessarily mean that the other race would declare war but would add a negative point in your relations with that race (perhaps a double negative if you have LOTS of military ships in their space). The AI could warn you to remove your military ships from their space if you don't have a RoP with them if your ships have triggered a build-up warning for them. This warning would be similar to the warning that they give you when you have a couple of strong influence starbases next to their planets.

I think that it is OK to move ships out of another races culturally controlled space if a RoP is cancelled (either diplomatically or through the declaration of war). I have never found the UP event like this silly - it just adds another thing to consider when I play which is good for variety (and I haven't seen anyone complain about the UP event before the RoP topic started so why start complaining now! ). If you don't have a RoP with another race then you can still launch a sneak attack but your ships would have triggered a build-up warning with the AI race and so they should be watching you closely (not to mention the cool relations that you would have with that race due to the negative point that your ships in their space without a RoP are causing to your relations with them).

If people are worried that moving ships out of culturally controlled space will then leave planets that are within in another races influence unprotected then perhaps ships should also be moved to within the squares immediately around a planet owned by the owner of the ships even if all of that space is technically in the influence of another race. Alternatively, Cari's idea about returning the ships to the world where they were build is another OK suggestion (except that planets have a limit (10 ships?) to how many ships can be in orbit so I don't know how her suggestion would work with this limitation.

As a semi-side note, I think that implementing actual borders (instead of just using cultural borders as a quasi-border) is silly! This is space. Sure your race might have influence over a large portion of space but it is not really owned by anyone. What are you going to do to declare ownership? Put up a big fence? Remember that space is 3D so the fence would have to be a sphere. Also, if there are actual borders then what happens when there are two planets in the same star system owned by two different races? It would be complex and annoying trying to determine a good way to fairly and logically handle actual borders in instances like this. I think that actual borders *would* add too much complexity without any (or much) benefit to gameplay.

The ai will not be able to sneak attack as well, because humans are inherently more aware and in a better position to exploit ai ship positioning, especially when its targetting other ais.

And again, I don't see how erecting an expensive artificial border will be much of a problem for the ai given that my proposal allows non attack ships to pass through without a war declaration. Influence starbases are also easy to take down.

Add the Declare War button. Add the 'push out' functionality. Remove the UP event.

But...

Still allow sneak attacks, with a very large diplo hit...and a planetary defense bonus (10% ??) on every defending planet after the 1st invaded (defender's homeworld would get 10% even if it were sneak attacked, 20% if it were not the 1st hit.)

Substitue a UP vote, with an increasingly likely chance of coming up, condemning sneak attacks in general. When condemnation statute passes, future sneak attacks give a chance (30% ??) that sneak attacker will get thrown out of UP.

drrider

As I have said before:

I am wondering if the problem is really sneak attack or if the problem is the inability for the AI to successfully defend its planets when war breaks because its orbiting ships are sitting ducks waiting to be shot and its inability to launch fleet to intercept incoming fleet? 

This is mostly true, but even if the AI would launch orbiting ships in fleets to attack instead of having them sit in orbit waiting to be shot down one-by-one... it wouldn't solve the sneak attack problem, because a sneak attack implies that the AI won't have the chance to be able to react to the player's attack in that matter.

I really would like to see the OFM be dropped and just have all planets be defended by fleets as if they had one... *shrugs

That's similar to the point I was making earlier. In my current game, for example, the biggest, baddest thug AI empire had at least one battleship or dreadnought orbiting every one of its planets, usually two or three, plus some frigates and defenders. If it had launched all of those big ships, fleeted them, and sent them to attack, I would have really had a run for my money. As it was, I just had to slow down every so often to replenish my transports and build a few new attack ships. What does the AI do during a pause in hostilities? Build more dreadnoughts that never leave orbit and send a few easily-picked-off singleton battleships toward my borders.

It would be possible. However, AI could declare war on you in such case (after asking for RoP treaty), and colonize the inner planets anyway.