It all depends on how "conflict" would occur as well. The point is to not allow total destruction of an opponent on a sneak attack. If you were able to completely disrupt your opponent's ability to wage war on a sneak attack, when you would not have been able to do so otherwise, it is an anarchistic system. Therefore I would suggest that troops garrisoned in Cities should also be unabled to be attacked (other than simply disallowing a "city capture" to also disable attacking a city at all, in any way). This could represent a government's unwillingness to target the enemy civilian population before full-scale war is declared. (Only assasins could target troops within cities, and even then only very specified targets (you tell the assasin the parameters under which he selects his target, and then he goes after the weakest soldier/unit that fits the parameters, unless you specifically directed in your parameters to targer the strongest within applicable group) and even then an assasin cannot target the last troop remaining in a city. (so you can leave one person/unit in the city, and field your army, yet risk losing your army without support from that person or unit).

If however, you could use "conflict" to Von Claussevitz' type of destroying their main forces with your main forces, at any time during the game and under no special extenuating circumstances, then you will see a largely anarchistic world.

Usually, people can attack at any time, therefore its largely an anarchy where anyone can declare war at any time. However, with certain restrictions in place there can be at least a some-what sense of order. Civilized peoples were rarely in times of complete anarchy where war was constantly re-declared. To semi-represent this trend, a restriction was placed in Civilization that required most trade deals to be followed by 10 turns of mandatory peace. Im not saying that abritrary restrictions have to be in place in order to have a playable game ... but it makes for a game with better gameplay, to not allow cheap exploits which "cheapen" the experience of playing the game.

Well, I want to be able to do that. If a player can see your units and lets them near all its cities when you pretend you're sending them all to someplace and obviously your units aren't going there, then he deserves what's going to happen.

If the ai can't be coded to avoid that, then sure take counter measures, but don't have them prevent simple things like attacking the city on your border until the opponent had 5 turns to bring in reinforcements.

Also, I'd rather have the sneak attack a possibility with drawbacks rather than just denied. For instance declaring war with someone with whom you have a right of passage would cost you a lot of prestige. Cancelling a right of passage when you have units in their territories would cost a lot of prestige. As a result, people wouldn't flock to yoru cities and would likely leave them (you're an untrustworthy tyran after all), and other nations would see you for the untrustworthy traitor you are and never agree to rights of passage with you again.

Being unable to declare war for a time after a treaty is totally different in my book and perfectly acceptable. Probably even needed for the ai in most cases.

As for anarchistic periods, about all of Roman history except for a century or two were rife with civil wars and factions fighting each others, kingdoms declaring war as soon as the previous king died, etc.

I am fine with the 'port 'em out mechanic for now. I'm actually of the hopes that the AI will allow this code to be removed at a later date.  "Yes, we have a right of passage,  but you moving that mammoth army towards my capital is totally unacceptable."  Even better if the AI does it in  some sort of United Nations meeting.  Severe diplomatic drawbacks to violating treaties should be doable with the experience stardock has been getting with AI's.  The biggest one would be that no one would sign treaties with you.  It is the reason you don't do things like this (at least not and get caught) in the real world.  Fear of a permanent and massive backlash by the other AI's and even players would prevent you from forming treaties in the future, and probably throw you into a permanent war with several other factions at the request of the offended party.

This leaves only the late game when it is just you and a couple opponents, or maybe even just one.  At this point the AI should just flat out refuse right of passages for troops.  Because the AI should know that there would be no real reprocusions to violating your word.  

Porting all of a particular factions troops out of  your land if they attempt hostile actions against you would make a GREAT defensive spell.

I suppose the real question is ... if your setting up such an obvious sneak attack, and the opponent knows about it, what options do they have? If your troops are already in their territory then its too late right? So what are they supposed to do, declare war upon you?

I think there should be an option of "Eject Player X's troops from our borders" option. Is the only possible defense vs sneak attack, which is ALMOST like declaration of war = troops teleport out, although its up to the defender to do such a thing, and it has to be done during peacetime.

Actually I like this idea more and more. At any point in time during a turn you can immediately expell all forces of Player X from your borders ... so long as there are still peaceful relations. So if you move too many troops through an AI's territory they will expel you (or if you move too close to their cities)

Im not saying that there shouldn't be ways to perform a sneak attack, but a sneak attack should be the exception, not the norm. You should provide some significant investment to perform a sneak attack, something significant in both single player as well as multiplayer. (like following a Shadowy cult/Assasins Guild)

Yes, declare war. Probably declare war before they reach your heartland. A good way to simulate that would be to provide open borders only through certain parts of your territory, like through a corridor leading to common enemy land rather than through all the territory. It might be painful to draw the corridor and would need some uithinking but it could be interesting.

Also, sneak attack would be exceptional as noone would trust you again afterwards so you'd never get another open borders agreement.

Also, sneak attack would be exceptional as noone would trust you again afterwards so you'd never get another open borders agreement.

This is exactly what I mean.  A spell that ports enemy troops out of your lands I think would be a much more fun strategic option than automatically porting them out upon war declaration.  I think we are all sort of thinking back to the broken AI of master of magic, where little hobo armies from every other wizard wandered randomly through your territory.  I think it is safe to expect no such issues.  I did have another idea.  "your territory" has the potential to be rather encompassing in this game as we have seen so far.  Perhaps "vital territory" and "non vital territory" could be flagged for this purpose?

Vital territory would be any area within striking distance of one of your cities.  Also, since your essence is imbued into the land, it is logical that your troops might find the terrain more hospitable, and quicker to travel on than your enemies don't you think?  

Other ideas would be "laying siege' to a town before you are able to assault it, giving the defending player a few rounds to rally some defenses. This has alot of historical merit, and would prevent the sneak blitz provided the defending player is strategic enough to have a sizable army close enough to bolster any of his cities.  Preventing the need to have a huge army at EVERY city, Just a few here and there garrisoned in case of attack.

Cari, sneak attacks Are going to be possible in Elemental, right? They better be, or at least they Should Be. Betraying a Alliance or Non-Aggression Pact at a key moment can be a very effective Strategy. It may be dirty and underhanded, but if yours is the only nation left alive after such a tactic is employed, it's you writing the history books anyway. If some kind of sneak attack isn't available in Elemental I think the game will be missing a big chunk of strategic depth. It doesn't necessarily have to be a sneak attack that has something to do with when you declare war though. It could be a lot of things. Maybe turning a army invisible for a short time with a spell, or by casting a very high cost teleport spell at a magical warp location to send a army to a enemy city.

Being able to decide to betray a alliance while your armies are in the target land though should still be a option Without it automatically teleporting your armies out. When you give another Sovereign permission to move a army through your land you'd be pretty stupid if you didn't keep an eye on that army and always be aware that betrayals Do happen. Though if it's a Sovereign you've had alliance with for hundreds of turns/years, then the chance for betrayal should be low. The stronger the alliance, the less chance they'd betray you. If your families are intermingled, you share bloodlines and trade routes and your population is intermixed and has been for years, that faction would almost never betray you. If it's a Fallen Empire who's often betrayed his allies, then the player would have to be very cautious when allowing a alliance or pact for them to move armies through your lands. This adds a lot of depth to both strategies of where you move your armies and to diplomacy because you have to think about the mentality and habits of the Sovereign you're making alliances with.

It's a nice thing to be able to share the inside creation of a game. And given your account makes me part of it all.

Keep wrinting it's really nice

At the very least we can probably turn off the teleportation code for multiplayer games.

Well, in Fall From Heaven, sneak attacks were possible, but only by factions that met certain requirements. In this game there are seven Guilds* you can join. And if you join the Guild* council of Esus, you can perform a sneak attack at any time. Also, if you follow the Guild of Esus people don't see, and theoretically can't tell, that you are following that guild.

Also, if you have the guild headquarters, you can see all troops stationed in any city that also contains the guild. The guild also gives special benefits to Recon units, like rangers and assasins. If a recon unit specifically follows the guild, then they can "mask" themselves in order to pretend they are a barbarian unit. Now, this might not mean a whole lot in small numbers ... but with enough units with mask (or the Svartalphar whose worldspell turns all units HN), you can use it to gather all forces next to an opponent's hero and kill him off without declaring war. These masked units, however, cannot capture cities. Therefore you would have to declare official war in order to take his cities. The attacked player must make the choice of waging war against the felon, or to simply try to cut their losses .... since after all, a giant army of their opponents is freshly in their borders, and perhaps they still want the flow of trade routes, and perhaps you could still kill their army before they unmask ... so many things to consider. Anyways, I hope something like this is used instead of disabling auto-teleport. In fact, I kind or prefer auto-teleport at war declaration for most/mundane circumstances. I also like how units move slower in enemy territory (cannot use enemy roads) ... EXCEPT* for nations that have invested in the Raider trait, which grants most units the ability to move on roads (seige units like cannon and catapult never have this ability, however, and are extremely limited in promotions in general)

So yes, there is a Guild which allows for all-out sneak attacks, and their is an ability for a group of units or an army to temporarily act as if they are barbarian (always hostile to all nearby units**)

*=for the faint of heart

**= always hostile will not attack your own units, nor will they be hostile to team-mates, AKA people sharing your research and line of sight.

Now that I think about it however ... it would be a GREAT idea if we could get Rites of Passage to be extremely specific. Aka, "you are only allowed to march along this dotted line or you declare war on my by default!" kind of thing.

Also, keeping trade relations Seperate from military passage would also help. Civilization unfortunately kept them both in an all-encompassing "open borders"