I remember using Amoeba in Endless Space and being able to build defensive fleets, with no weaponry, that could essentially work as a complete blockade.  Strategically placing a handful of these fleets at specific choke points would allow you to experience relative peace while you worked on your Diplomacy and Intergalactic Trade.  In a 4x game, options like this are what made Endless Space so amazing and variable.  This is no longer a possibility with the current "Only Guard for 1 Turn" mechanic.

While this mechanic has fixed some issues that were present in ES1, like capturing and holding a weaker fleet in orbit eternally (which you could just use the attack and retreat option in ES2).  It does this at the expense of creating new problems.  Here are some issues that arise:

1.  You can cheese through any blockade by separating your fleet of 4 ships into 4 fleets of 1 ship.  You will lose 1 fleet in battle, but you can get the other 3 through with no further hassle.  This can be used to cheese through any defensive posturing if done properly.

2.  You cannot defend yourself from invasion if you choose to be pacifists.  In a game that added an entire political philosophy called "Pacifist" with their own representation in government, you are forced to build military ships to counter any aggression.  Therefore, true pacifism is an illusion and you must always be competitive militarily, especially where Cravers are concerned.

I would implore the development to bring the old mechanic back, but with this added stipulation:

If you are trapped in orbit by an enemy fleet, after 1 turn, you can move freely so long as it is in the exact same direction in which you entered the star system originally. This would prevent trapping but still allow some level of defensive posturing at choke points that could make true pacifism viable.

Edit: Apparently you cannot use quotation marks in Polls, so here are the options:

1.   Yes, I want the "Only Guard for 1 Turn" mechanic removed.
2.   Yes, but allow a player to leave freely from the direction they came.
3.   No, I like the "Only Guard for 1 Turn" mechanic as it stands.

Eji1700 wrote:

I'm mixed on this.

I don't think it makes any damn sense that one fleet can just wall off a system completely, and overly easy defensive options are a problem.

However there's little point to spacelanes if chokepoints don't work, and sometimes i've found myself grabbing systems for their strategic value alone.  Further we do have free movement now as an option to bypass chokepoints in some cases + wormholes (which...currently don't exist, but also seem like a way to open the map up).

Ulimtately I do think the game is better for having strong guard mechanics, but I also kinda like the idea that I can just overwhelm your fleet in a "can't stop them all" sort of attack.  

I agree with this as well, but there is also a problem I see with cheesing your way through a choke point by separating your fleet into a bunch of small fleets and bypassing a much large fleet.  I can take a fleet of 7 ships, turn them into 7 fleets of one ship, and the opponent's fleet can only attack one of them, rendering the choke point impotent.  I was hoping to find some pretty good ideas and the best one I have heard so far is from https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/66-game-design/thread/22281-system-guard-and-cheese-tactics by a player in that thread:

C0ldSn4p wrote:

Or make that instead of having 1 attack per fleet, you have N attack where N is the number of command point in your fleet and attacking another fleet consume M attack point, M being the size of the opposing fleet.

I think this would work to keep the integrity of choke points intact without making a fleet an virtual wall.