One thing I would like to see in GC3 is the ability to close your space to other races.Meaning, If they try to enter your space. they get a warning that doing so would provoke a war. And then they choose what they want to do. Ofcourse, Other races could close their space too.
Yeah, this was my point. I was trying to figure out where the guy who said invisible force field even got the notion.
If you want to deny trespass then you have to blow them up. But you're losing sight of your other options when you do that. How will trade work? Closing your borders is a pretty aggressive stance to take. Even the Drengin trade with others.
backs out of the room slowly...
Well, there's a difference between allowing trade and allowing a military presence.
You'll notice that nowhere in that paragraph of mine which you quoted did I ever refer to how the borders should be generated. And for reference, I think that the GCII influence borders, which are the only auto-generated borders that I can think of in GCII, would be absolutely awful as territorial borders.
I did post an idea about borders earlier in the thread, namely:
which would seem to be the kind of thing that you're talking about.
This isn't solving the scale issue, it's ignoring it. Math and physics are always valid ways to show how impractical something is, as long as the computations involved are valid. This doesn't mean that games necessarily have to work in a practical manner, but there are some things which are much less reasonable than others. Interstellar minefields are one of those things. And for the record, a 1km spacing on the mines within the minefield? That's an extremely loose net when the majority of the targets that you're trying to catch have a maximum dimension which is much less than 1km.
Going beyond that, if we assume that each mine can be modeled as a sphere with a 1 meter diameter, and that the largest capital ships in GCII can be modeled as a 1kmX0.5kmX0.5km box which is 80% hollow, then that minefield that I described earlier uses enough resources to build roughly 2.5X10^33 capital ships of the largest class in GCII. Even if we model the ships as 100% solid, it's still enough for about 4.5X10^32 capital ships. That's for a minefield covering just one 1 parsec by 1 parsec by 1 parsec tile while spacing the mines at 1 km apart. You can increase the spacing all you want, but by the time the resources involved become reasonable, the minefield is so diffuse that it might as well not exist. Alternatively we can scale up the size of the capital ships - let's say our capital ships are cubes with the sidelength equal to 2km and are 100% solid; in that case the minefield described earlier contains sufficient material for 1.5X10^31 such capital ships.
Maybe we should go with numbers for one of the largest ships ever seen in a movie? Let's say the second Death Star. The official size of that thing is at least 900km, according to Wookieepedia. If we assume that that thing is 100% solid, then our minefield contains enough material for merely 4X10^22 900km diameter Death Stars. Let's go up in scale even further - how about Larry Niven's Ringworld? Based off of a quick Google search, the dimensions for that thing is that the ring has a circumference of about 600 million miles (multiply by 1.609 to get to kilometers), is 1 million miles wide, and has rim walls about 1000 miles tall. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to assume that this thing is solid, even though it is probably closer to 90% hollow, and that the ring is cylindrical rather than spherical in form (I don't know if it is or isn't, though cylindrical works out better if you're going to use platform rotation to maintain artificial gravity, which is how gravity on the Ringworld was described as functioning). This gives us that our minefield contains 'only' enough volume to construct 2.5X10^13 Ringworlds. Mind you, this is a structure with an inhabitable surface area equivalent to 3 million earth-like planets, and aside from the Dyson Sphere the largest artificial structure in science fiction that I can think of. I've also significantly overestimated the volume of the Ringworld, so you're likely to have enough material for far more Ringworlds than I described, though I doubt that the difference is more than an order of magnitude or so.
Since I brought up Dyson Spheres, let's do the math for one of those, assuming that the shell is 1000 miles thick and the thing has a diameter equal to the average orbital diameter of Earth. Based on those assumptions, our minefield only contains enough material for about 2.7X10^11 Dyson Spheres.
Let's go one beyond that, and assume that each mine masses only 1kg despite being a 1m diameter sphere. In that case, if we define a 'solar mass unit' to be the mass contained within the Sun and the eight officially recognized planets in our solar system, you would need 'merely' 61.1 billion solar mass units in order to make your minefield.
Are you starting to see just why it is that I object to the practicality of this thing yet? Now, maybe we can open the spacing between the mines up by several orders of magnitude - let's say that instead of a 1-km spacing we use a 1000km spacing (clearly, our 'mines' must now be weapons platforms rather than traditional mines, because the frontal area of even the largest ships in GCII is tiny relative to the area between mines for this hypothetical minefield). In that case, we can reduce the number of mines in the field to only 1.2X10^32 mines, which would 'only' require 61.1 of the solar mass units defined earlier, and 'only' contain enough volume for 268 Dyson Spheres or about 24,000 Ringworlds, using the previously listed assumptions. If we want to use 'only' 1 solar mass unit on our 1kg 1m diameter mines, then we'll be looking at a spacing of about 4,000km between each mine. Given that the complexity of each mine in our minefield is now approaching the complexity of a starship or a space station, maybe we should consider building some of those instead of building a minefield? If we up the spacing on the mines out to 1 million kilometers, then we'll only need about 3X10^22 of them, and we'll need "only" 3 Pluto-sized objects to provide the mass for it (again, assuming that each mine masses 1 kg). If you want to, you can carry out the math to get the equivalence in Death Stars, GCII capital ships, Ringworlds, Dyson Spheres, etc. I'll point out that even with this kind of spacing, you're still looking at lots of most of those (it's no longer a sufficient volume for a complete Ringworld or Dyson Sphere, but you could still build ~40,000 Death Stars or ~2X10^14 GCII capital ships with what you put into the minefield).
By the way, all of this is being sunk into something that 1. can't move and 2. is easily bypassed (even on the 2-dimensional grid; if we're looking at a 3-dimensional space then it becomes even easier to bypass). I'm fine with accepting certain things which are completely unrealistic at the present time, but I am not willing to accept minefields that, in order to have even a hope of becoming practical, must involve an amount of mass on the order of entire star systems, or worse billions of star systems. I realize that these arguments also apply to one extent or another to GCII's space stations (immobile, so you can bypass them, and so small relative to the scale of the tiles that it isn't really apparent why you have to fight them if you move into the tile), but at least those are something that I might reasonably want to engage, and also have some kind of magical ability to influence battles/economies/etc within a certain radius of the station (or mine things which magically make everything better for one faction).
While your response was a hilarious hammer blow, a small number of mobile mines with basic sensors and basic hyperdrives could completely bypass the problem of resources. Boom, you need a few dozen mines to cover a Parsec, not... Trillions.
I was thinking about the minefields. I don't know if they r practical or not. I Think these ideas r insightful. I do think we need to take into account inflation, technology, and the mathematics of
Second u have to take into account fuel the type of fuel would make a difference.
Third is what kind of explosives, and how big r the mines. Size affects how much fuel u can carry. Which could be a factor on speed. Yes u should take speed into account. How much fuel u could carry could affect range. Both the fuel and explosives could affect how big of a mine u need to take dowm what kind of ship. Both the hulls, hitpoints, and logistics could be taken into account. The bigger the hull, and the more hit points would affect how much damage u would take. Remember if u r expecting a bunch of small or medium ships coming through your space it would not make sense for u to pack the explosive power for huge hulls. This could be taken into account if u r the first person to research a hull design, or get hitpoint techs.
Fourth we need to take into account inflation, and materials needed to build them. I would agree that there would have to be a lot of mines, but if inflation has made these so cheap this could be affordable.
Fifth how about a planetary defense like starwars instead. Why can't mines be lasers instead.
Sixth assuming they r not lasers. U would need to remember that the ship has only a 2 degree that they could enter the planet this may shorten how many mines u would need.
I figured it would be so obvious that the invisible force fields were a reference to how Civilization 4 worked out its borders. They made it that u could not enter a enemies territory unless u have a right of passage agreement. I don't like this method of get out of my space. I preferred Civilization 3's method where u could tell someone that they were trespassing, and u had 5 choices on how to respond you could comply and leave the territory, u could say no, u could sign a right of passage agreement, u could ignore the request and not respond, or u could declare war. If the person didn't like the response you had the option to declare war. I think if I enter your territory, and u don't like it then u should make me stop not raise an invisible border I cannot cross. Another thing I didn't like about Civilization 4's method is that when I broke a right of passage agreement it took 20 turns before I could do anything.I'm guessing u never played Civilization 4.
I think neutral ground should also work on people following the law. That u should also have the option to ignore this law. I'm not saying the Ai should not have repercussions. Maybe the players should vote to throw u off or not. There's always the diplomacy option. Trade embargo. If the computer wants to be but hurt if u snead attack then that's their perogitive. Even though I would vote against this I would like to call a vote on wether the Galactic council van raise an army to enforce these laws or not. Starbases and mines at least explains how these things r being inplemented. I would also like the armed freighters have to fight it out; even if they r the best ships on the game. Remember that the technology would not be so advanced that the council could not build it; because no one knows how to build these ships.
This does not nessarily change your argument, but the calculations don't make sense to me even if U apply volume and not area. The Dyson sphere Is a million kilometers in diameter; while,the earth and the mine field is only about 13,000 kilometers in diameter. This is not even 1 Dyson sphere per minefield, but we would have to account for area not volume. The mines would move making 1 kilometer a little close for a mine with a prewarning because of some interstellar communication that I don't understand. The area of a Dyson sphere would have to be a whole bigger than the diameter difference. If u can explain this further go agead. U might of added up all your planets to come up with this, but u also have a lot more resources. I like the weapons platform idea also. Even without all that stuff there is still alot of material required. I would like to point out that the Iconians would convert energy to matter; instead of manufacturing the mines.
I so would like to vote at the Galactic council to define boundaries please. There may be an issue of plants getting trapped out of influence I guess these would have to be new civilizations.
i was going to say something similar although much simpler seeing you put all this into context blows my simple estimate of requiring every planet in your civilization focused on building this minefield away
the problem with this is the same as the problem i had in gc2 ultimately
if i declare war then I'm the bad guy while your the one trespassing and telling me to shove it or building your influence star bases next to my home-world
essentially if i tell you to leave and you refuse i should be able to arrest or destroy your ship without having to declare war
Well to my opinion this should not make u the bad guy when I'm trespassing. As long as u r required to send out a ship and catch me then that will be fine. U still will only to see the territory that is lit up. I Think this is reasonable. The only thing I am arguing is this I don't think that u can block me from your territory without force. The obly time I thought it was wrong was in Civilization 4. Where u couldn't enter someelse's territory without a right of passage agreement, and if u declared war after u broke a right of passage agreement u couldn't enter the territory for 20 turns. I think u should give the players as mech dialogue as possible. U want to arrest me that's fine as long as u can catch me.
O yeah that influence starbase thing. Please give me the chance to blow up other peoples starbases my own territory.
I realize you never mentioned borders, and I didn't say you mentioned it, I said I agreed with some of the things said, with a "however" in there where I think they should still auto generate borders... I did not say specifically how, but I did say there should be tweaks to how it generates the borders in comparison to GalCiv2,
With this I said that you should be able then to negotiate the borders how you choose fit, if you choose to disregard them well that's up to you...
As far as protecting them if you did place a mine field as mentioned with in this topic then you would most likely have anti mine technology which would allow one to send hundreds of probes or something into the mine field to trick them to destroying them versus you, therefore neutralizing this problem.
Personally I think this is really a matter of point of view. Some AIs, particularly allies, would have to be taught to recognize this as potentially a defensive action and some AIs, particularly belligerent ones, would have to see you as being a bad guy. But then, that is already how they see you, so how has their point of view really changed?
Anybody thought how having closed borders would effect other game mechanics such as scouting the galaxy? granted most exploring takes place in Gal Civ II in the first section of the game anyway, but particularly on larger map sizes a fair portion of the galaxy can remain unexplored even with multiple scout ships and a lack of range. Implementing closed borders could seriously hamper a players ability to find new systems mid to late game and as such cap their growth.
Obviously there are ways around this such as previously mentioned cloaks and freedom of non-combat vessels, but that throws up new problems of typically small ship sizes without much room and how people may want scouts having at least at a minimal level of protection. Finding a system that works perfectly may be next to impossible, it just about finding enough of a balance to seem realistic yet fair at the same time.
I think that depends on the size of the borders. A space 2-3 hex fields around a planet shouldn't hamper yout scouting abilities a lot, Only in dense inhabited space, you'd find a solid "block" you'd have to move around.
Regarding the mines: Of course it's impossible to mine a complete cube with an edge of a parsec. Mines in space do have a purpose in my opinion only if you know on which vector your enemy is likely to sail by, so you could greatly decrease the volume to be mined.
And you don't need a distance of 1 km between two mines. A mine would consist of a passive(!) sensor array (using radar would be a good way to help the enemy to eliminate them, screaming "I'm here, kill me!"), a very strong one-shot laser or graser driven by a strong energy device, say a fusion bomb. A laser or graser fed by a pulse of such a detonation could easily hit an enemy ship (and inflict damage upon) over several thousend kilometers, so no need to place them in a 1-km grid. No one expects a ship to literally collide with a mine to take damage.
Such a mine would be cheap to produce, so you could easily lay several thousands of them. Still, it would not suffice to mine a complete hex field of GC, it would just be enough to 'secure' the direct approach to a planet or something valuable and if you know which way the enemy ships will take (because they have no other choice) which normally is unlikely.
That's not a mine, it's a drone. If it's big enough to have hyperdrive and sensors, there's no reason the enemy fleet can't detect it and blast it to smithereens like any weak ship.
Mines are only usefull in small '2D' areas (land-based) and around small 3D objects (space-based).
I'd just like to be able to issue an edict to other species (per race, to all major or minor races and to all races). If the warned races violate it, I'd like to be able to warn them and if they ignore it, destroy the offending ship/fleet without starting a full-scale war.
Solution; Magic
Seriously; we're in a game fighting humanoid aliens in what are basically naval ships lifted into space firing black holes at each other, it doesn't have to make sense damnit!
Ok this is reasonable as far as I'm concerned, but Jack does have a point that as far as a diplomatic incident, or what the other races think this is diplomatically dependent on what the other species relationship with u and the offending species.
or, just don't have mines. There is no reason why the game needs space mines... Particularily if they're as annoying as the ones in Sins.
Id like to close off boarders, But that does not mean a ship could not enter. It just means you are crossing into my space, and i am declaring any ship that does so, an act of war..
you could set it so you get a flag, that says a ship is in your territory (if detected) and the option to start a war. This could lead to a deeper diplomatic game.
your territory is closed, even if not going to war, a species colonizes some planets in your systems. How other species veiw this would be the strength of your influence , along with military in that region, how you deal with the situation ect.
there is a lot that can be done with this to add more depth/flavor along with strategic game play
I quite like the internationally defined borders and nationally defined borders ideas, beyond the influence mechanic. An idea I would have is deploying a sensor net along your border; automated sensor probes to detect passage across the border, as an early warning system of attack or trespass.
Cloaked ships would be able to sneak past with luck and the right tech and stuff, and if you already know you're at war with a race on your border, the advanced warning's not going to make all that much of a difference, though if the enemy wanted they could just blow a hole (or several, to confuse you as to which entry point the enemy will use) through the net if they don't want their fleet composition observed. That might be a reason to utilise scout ships during wartime instead of just the early explore/colonise phase - it gives them a role in neutralising lightly defend enemy targets, like the sensor net, maybe taking out mining outposts or trade outposts if some of he ideas for the 0 class planets from another thread would be implemented (Unlikely, but it would be cool)
There doesn't really seem to be a concept of 'territory' in Galciv like you find in EuropaUniversalis or Civ. Might add interesting gameplay.
Well one of the things we got to take into account of sensors is range; I'm not talking about regular sensors but the kind for scanning borders. R we going to add lasers to these kind of sensors. How r we going to do this. We should have stats on this. I think this should be on par with regular sensors. If it is not then this should be a really expensive tech to research. Since u research sensors u should probably research this, or u could add this to sensors and make the tech more expensive. U could make this where u can upgrade the sensors.
Do we give border sensors lasers or whatever type of weapon u want. I'm talking about missiles, guns, or lasers. Cam we upgrade these weapons with the border sensors to. Are these starbases or ships. If these r starbases I guess these would require constructors and the tech for these would probably under advanced starbase construction instead of sensors. If this was a ship then the ship would have hull points, and this might have a specialized module. This could be its own tech tree or a combination sensors, advanced starbase construction, sips or , or any of the three. This could be different for different species. Are we sure we can't make a ship that can't do this maybe we need a bigger hull. If this is true maybe they just need to tweek existing concepts. This is a matter for Stardock.
There r a few thubgs U came up for border sensors, they should be harder to research and implement than regular sensors since this provides more of a benifit than regular sensors to my opinion. I think if this isn't a planetary improvement or a starbase module then the range of the sensors should be limited depending depending on what planets r colonised, starbases u've set up, and territory u've explored. The reason I've made this distinction is that sometimes your influence is bigger than the explored part of your territory. Some of my ideas r super projects, 1 per planet improvement, starbases, and even a galactic achievement or trade good.
As a one per planet this could be put on all your outlying planets as a way to patroll your borders I think this might have a patrol range of 1 tile. Another option is a super project; the super project would probably be 1 of your more expensive super projects since this gives u a big advantage to my opinion. I think as far as projects, achievements, and trade goods the Terrans and Archeans should have to minus a wonder to have this one. Because they r the only 1's to have all the standard wonders. What ever wonder that was minused from these 2 should oribably added to the underperforming species. This would be fair to my opinion. Now if this was a Galactic achievement or trade good u would think this is unfair at first, but it would be a little less cheasy when u add my one per planet idea. This could also be added to the starbases as an advanced starbase module. This could also be used in a variety of different ways for different species. The reason u would do this is because different tech trees work differently. The options r superproject, one per planet, and a starbase module. This would at least provide different feeld for different species.
Another consideration is would all the species would be able to do this. Would the good species be able to do this. Maybe only the Dominion of korx, Iconians, and the Yor would be the only species that could do this. Beings that there is an isolationists and neutrals. Maybe only the neutrals and evil races can do this. That would the Yor. Drengin, Thalans, Drath, Korath clan, Dominion of korx, and the Iconians. Maybe only the Yor could do this because they r super isolationists, or maybe everyone could have this ability.
I was thinking that instead of having a right of passage agreements we could tack this on the alliance treaty.
What we might be able to do with the closing borders thing might be dependent on the species. LetsI take the Terran alliance, I'm basing on our current border policy assuming this is a closing borders thing. By the time of the game there would be no capital punishment. so we would try to capture the ships, and judging by our current imigration policy with illegal immigrants we would probably deport them while confiscating the ship that our current laws wouldn't let us use, so we would destroy them. This wouldn't necessary happen to other species like the Yor would exterminate u outright. The Korath clan would do the same as the Yor; unless, your Drengin. The Drengin on the other hand would take them to be slaves; unless, your Yor then they would probably deport them. The Dominion of Korx would sell them as slaves to other races. The Krynn and the Iconians would probably try to make them double agents, ir if they refused take them prisoners. Again these r just ideas u may have better ideas, or want to change them.
U could choose to try and capture the ships, or try and destroy them. If u try and capture them there is a chance u will accidently destroy them. The captain might choose to self destruct the ship. If u capture them then u could either return the ship to its owner, or u could keep the ship to use or upgrade. The ship might need to be repaired before u use them. If u keep the ship u would have options like selling the ship, use the ship, or upgrade the ship like it is scrap metal. With the people who surrendered u have options on what u can do. U can try to ran some the people back to civilization they came from, make them slaves, kill them, deport them, get them to join u, make them prisoners, eat them, bribe them to join u, Torture them, sell them, use them as spies, put them in arenas for entertainment purposes to increase morale if u r evil, or lower morale if u r good. I think if enough of them join your society u may have problems with rebellions and revolts.u may
This would be nicer if u actually capture heroes. I don't think these should be random, but if this is a attack fleet u may capture an heroe. These would be more valuable for ransumming. They would require more money for bribing. If they join your civilization they r more likely to cause rebellions. You could sell a heroe for more than a slave. They would make better gladiators.
This does remind me of the United States policy after world war 1 and before world war 2. And 18th century Japan. Where Perry, Britian, and Russia pretty much didn't aknowledge their closed borders. This pretty much didn't work for the Russians.
You are mixing up two different things here: In real life, the immigrants you mean are private persons, trying to get a new, better life. The gouvernments of the nations they come from didn't send them and they are acting on their own.
We're talking about ships belonging to a star nation here, which will cross the official borders only with the explicit order of a gouvermnent to do so. So any such ship crossing a border closed to the nation it belongs to is a deliberate action to violate this space so it becomes a matter of diplomatics.
There's no real need to weaponise borders sensors - I was thinking of them as small probes, packages of sensor pods with power supplies and not much else. All they're there for is to detect passage across the border; you've got ships and things to actually enforce border control since it would be costly to equip the sensor net with weapons and in any case that moves it into the problems with interstellar minefields.
Therefore they'd come under the sensor techs, and maybe get improved with more advanced sensor tech, becoming smaller and cheaper and more sensitive the more advanced you are. I'm not sure if it would be expensive or not to sprinkle small sensor probes along an entire border, so maybe you put them in places of potential high-density traffic like your border near a Drenin colony world or whatever.
These will aid you in detecting trespassers for your ships to intercept and give early warning if a war-fleet enters your territory, even if they get blown up that's some warning that something big is coming, though you won't know what exactly.
The ony way to do something similar in GalCiv II was to park scout ships or fighters along your border to keep an eye on people, but that was expensive, especially maintenance-wise. This could provide a way for players to actually feel as if the space they've laid claim to it actually recognised under galactic law; it gives the a way to mark their boundary besides treaties and to guard it in some limited fashion.
Bear in mind that this just lets you see your border and you've got to deploy these probes in the first place, maybe with a constructor. They'll be pretty useless if you don't have ships or starbases to police your border in addition to the sensors.
I don't think this would run into the same problems as a mine field since at most you would probably need 1 sensor per tile at lowest tech level and possibly upgrade the sensor's to a range of 5 or so through techs
I think that these sensors should have some kind of maintenance cost although fairly low 1 credit per ten sensors or something
I almost think that it should have a specialized ship to make them or possibly be deployed from a military ship.
I would like to see some kind of mechanic where I can "draw" a line and say place 1 sensor per X tiles on this line
Why should the player have to think about that? Isn't it obvious that a player is going to want to monitor their border for activity? Setting that up isn't fun or an interesting choice, it's tedious gruntwork.
We don't even know exactly how borders are defined yet in the game, but it seems reasonable to assume that someone in the bureaucracy of an interstellar empire is going to be tasked with sensors so the player doesn't have to worry about something so trivial.
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