So dear Stardock programers. What do YOU think of the idea of borders?

One thing I do is build a medium size hull and load it with nothing but engines and sensors....voila...instant sensor platform. (dont forget some lifesupport so they have SOME range!!)

oh yeah in the beta i used to pack a cargo hull full of sensors. i think the highest scanner range i managed was 42 parsecs lol.

i did it half for the tactics and half to remove the fog of war from blocking the quite gorgeous nebulae in the background.

It's a little scary, but I think I actually agree with Evil S here.

Aw come on G.W., it can't be that bad to think alike every once in a while can it?  

Well, your name is Evil Stormbringer (I know my Moorcock) and your icon is, um, scary

And I trust you've gotten that I like finding common ground with feisty, opinionated folks, especially in these threads that touch on the social "science" aspects of GCII.

The talk here about comparing sea "borders" with space is interesting, and if the devs are interested in developing something like ZOCs for the big map, naval history might be a good place to look for inspiration.

I have always thought that borders are a great idea but most other people here think it is impossible to implement due to the size of space and vast distances between planets.

I also think borders would be a lot of fun, and I don't understand why people find it hard to imagine such a thing could exist.

I don't think anybody is talking about building a big fence or wall around your empire. That's just silly. Yes, there is no physical way of stopping enemy ships from entering your space, it would be more like an agreement between both parties not to violate the space they have influence in. An opponent could agree to stay out, or enter, which would result in war.

This could open the way for new stealth technologies which can allow ships to pass through enemy space undetected. Discovery, by a ship attempting to enter their tile, or by new sensor technologies, can result in diplomatic incidents (just as in real life).

I would like a Zone of Controll. This may cause some problems, but hopefully it is nothing that cannot be fixed.

1. If the ZOC is too large, it will be inpossible for more than one race to controll a star sytem. This could a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who shuts our who. Once wat to get around this is to have a small ZOC, and/or to have new colonies have no ZOC until they build up population and influence.

2. When 2 ZOCs overlap, the overlapping porion is nutreul territory, and both races can use that space. It would likely lead to tense moments, however.

There is most likely more, but this is all I can think off for now.

I would like a Zone of Controll.

Attention fellow members with grammar-nazi tendencies: this is a really good point: we need to limit our edit-others tendencies to areas where hasty or sloppy typing makes it very hard or impossible to guess a poster's intent.

As a professional editor in a long-standing recreational fight with someone over how the rapper Ludakris spells his name, I'd like to advocate "Zone of Controll" as a misspelling to live by, at least in terms of self-restraint

@TOV: thanks for the thoughtful addition to the chat

Well, Shoot, everybodiy has already made the good points so all I can do is second them.

Space borders are equivalent to sea borders. They are real, but not infallible.

Also, borders really don't have much use beyond diplomatic consequenses, so we really need to indicate to the AI that border violations have an impact.

Starbases should definitely be able to cross borders (think european Imperialism). so the only other impact borders would have is the prevention of the AI from sneak attacking you. And well, heck, the AI doesn't know how to sneak attack you anyway, so that doesn't really matter.

Oh, you mean it could stop ME from sneak attacking the AI? Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all!

Actually, I voluntarily impose that rule on myself right now.

Oh, you mean it could stop ME from sneak attacking the AI? Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all! Actually, I voluntarily impose that rule on myself right now.

Doh! Now I'm going to have to behave better in my next game. I haven't done it very often, but now and then my "solution" the the slow late-game problem has been to suddenly jump on one of the AIs who was going to jump on me eventually anyway.

The main problem is that the current infulunce borders will not work at all for borders in which you can order other ships out of. The simplest problem is that another race can have a planet entirely surronded by your infulence and you will need a solution that stops nonsense like civilizations having planets in other civilizations borders, and resulting problems like you can't have any ships orbiting your own planet.

nonsense like civilizations having planets in other civilizations borders

If you think of the GCII systems as very crudely similar to partisan/nationlist/regionalist human politics, which I do, it can be perfectly sensible to have an other-civ world in "your" system.

But I believe you're quite right that the influence borders are not good for direct mapping to ZOCs--that's why I'd like to see an added map layer that is specifically for ZOC effects like no-fly zones and/or movement-based acts of war.

Perhaps we should be considering borders in a slightly different perspective. In the earlier times, says 50 years ago and further back, borders were pretty much solid. You come in here, we slug it out. This worked pretty much since we could define hostile intent as someone crossing our border.

However, as technologies evolved, so did the range or our weaponry and speed of our armies. At present day, the whole world is in a fuzz about nuclear weaponry, mostly because it can be launched from well outside the borders. It has come to this now that simply developing weapons with a great reach is a threat in itself.

I believe this evolution makes the concept of borders more tenuous than it used to be in the old days.

Suppose you include a border in GalCivII of 5 squares as I heard some people advocate in other threads. Starbases have a bigger radius than that. Would I mind that influence starbase being built outside their border, affecting my system anyway? And how about boosting the borders, making them 20 squares? No starbase could give me any trouble then. But would I feel at ease if your neighbour would put fleets of vessel near that border capable of moving 25 spaces and reaching several of my planets in one turn, maybe two?

What I believe is at play here is not so much a territorial issue but more of a psychological one. I want a Zone of Comfort, a buffer that gives you time to react to possible anti-social events. Borders are only a means to an end and one that won't hold up very well in a game where range is as fluid as it is here.

I feel diplomatic options/ultimatums such as 'Remove that starbase or else' or 'I feel threatened by that stack of starships in range of my systems, move them.' would work better. Zones of Comfort can be formed by agreement then.

How about a context menu for AI units? It could have things like "File diplomatic grievance" and "Send threatening message."

Maybe a new type of treaty option could be created in which no ships can come within 10 movements points, (or however many movement points you want), of the other empire's planets? If they do after that treaty has been accepted it's a declaration of war. And what if it could only affect ships, so starbases already built won't be affected. The influence wouldn't need to be moddified and new starbases couldn't be constructed within 10 movement points of the opposing empire's planets. Does this sound like it might be a workable solution to borders? I'm just throwing ideas out.

To address an earlier comment. Texas was an independent nation for a handful of years after succeeding from Mexico and before joining the US. So, technically, an independent nation has joined the US as a state.

BTW on another weird side note. I have read somewhere that as part of the conditions under which Texas joined the union they had and still have the right to break up into as many as four different states.

And, no, I am not, nor have I ever been, a resident of Texas!

Yep, that was one of those slavery things. A lot of weird things went on in the mid 1800's as the South realised they were going to lose their majority in the Senate that was given to them to convince them to join the revolution.

Something along the lines of... Here's your proof that we'll never outlaw slavery. There are seven slave states and 6 non-slave states. Slavery will own the Senate.

Ever wonder why states were admitted as paris until the Civil war?

Ever wonder why we owned the panama canal?

Ever wonder why all the southern democrats in the 1950's became Republicans in the 1980"s?

Ever wonder why Universtiy of Kansas are the Jayhawks?

The first 100 years of American politics can be boiled down to the south preserving its senate majority. The last hundred years can be summed up as the South getting even for losing it.

The first 100 years of American politics can be boiled down to the south preserving its senate majority. The last hundred years can be summed up as the South getting even for losing it.

This is a perfect example of why people need to read *whole books*. ShuShu is "right" in a crude bumpersticker sense, but there was far more to sectionalism than the slavery issue even if that eventually became the keystone that fell out of the arch.

In particular, it is very important to remember that neither the old North and South nor today's red and blue states are anywhere near as homogenous as they are commonly portrayed in rhetoric. Those brother-fighting-brother stories from the War of Northern Aggression are true--families broke apart in both the North and the South. At least these days we limit ourselves to hurling invective instead of lead.

p.s. The House, and indirectly the Electoral College, were very important also, hence that villainous clause in our original Constitutuion that counted every slave as 3/5 of a person in the census.

I can buy part of that, I mean the reason Lincoln won is because the North voted as a block and the South split between the democrats and the Whigs. Ohio was the swing state, some things never change...

But all of the points I mentioned were specifically about slavery. And oh, the reason the North voted as a block? Because the southern controlled federal government sent troops into Massechusetts to extract a runaway slave from a church to return to his master. The South seceeded even though Lincoln promissed he would not touch slavery, the north didn't seceed when the South actually sent troops into to preserve it.

I've read the entire book, including the bits Southern states had removed from it. I actually have close family members in the curriculum publishing business. Texas stories are a highlight of every thanksgiving dinner.

Oi, don't get me going on the textbook industry, especially those wacky folks in Texas state gov't. I took my master's at UT Austin and heard some fascinating and scary stories from the locals. King of the Hill makes some very good jokes about that stuff on occasion

Still, to try dragging this thread back towards the OP's question, the brief fit of US history nattering here is a good example of why "real" borders of some sort, especially in conjunction with the epic generator, could be a really neat addition.

Adding territorial borders would be a good idea *if* there were diplomatic options available for free trade (allows freighters/constructors/colony ships to cross borders freely), non-agression pacts (allows warships to cross freely). Also, crossing a border should not automatically be a declaration of war, but lower the relationship for each violation.

Colonizing a world inside another's border could cause the offending race to pay a steep cost to purchase the world or start a war.

Borders and Influence should be seperate, maybe the borders should only extend 10*galaxy size (or some other appropriate number) sectors from a planet

As far as I know you can stop trade with a Civilization by just simly selecting the box in that tab you get when say you click "Report" on each civ. "Embargo" or something rather .... but for Constructers.

If borders were to exist; It would be cool if it were an option before you started your game and so on; so the whole system would be optional.