They can fly into my systems. But I tell my fleet to go into their territory and nothing happens.



????

Your empire has an official border -- a thick colored line surrounding your home system and your colonies. But, when you first colonize a star system, it is considered an "outpost", not a "colony"; it takes a certain number of turns to change from one to the other. (You can see how many turns you'll need to wait by clicking on the star system and looking at the fine print beneath its name in the "System View").



In order to cross the official border of your system, your opponents need to have signed an "open borders" agreement with you (or, of course, have declared war on you). Outposts do not count as part of your official empire territory, so if they don't already fall within the border generated by your other colony systems, no open borders agreement is needed.



There is one special case, however: if you have not previously scouted a system, you won't know whether or not it is a colony of your opponent. Thus, you can fly into each system at least once regardless of your current diplomatic status. Of course, this is also true of your opponents: each opponent can visit each of your colonies once before they need an open borders agreement.

Excellent explanation by Copernicus. And of course if you declare war, you can freely move into your opponent's space (and vice versa).

Copernicus wrote:
Your empire has an official border -- a thick colored line surrounding your home system and your colonies. But, when you first colonize a star system, it is considered an "outpost", not a "colony"; it takes a certain number of turns to change from one to the other. (You can see how many turns you'll need to wait by clicking on the star system and looking at the fine print beneath its name in the "System View").



In order to cross the official border of your system, your opponents need to have signed an "open borders" agreement with you (or, of course, have declared war on you). Outposts do not count as part of your official empire territory, so if they don't already fall within the border generated by your other colony systems, no open borders agreement is needed.



There is one special case, however: if you have not previously scouted a system, you won't know whether or not it is a colony of your opponent. Thus, you can fly into each system at least once regardless of your current diplomatic status. Of course, this is also true of your opponents: each opponent can visit each of your colonies once before they need an open borders agreement.

Thanks, that explains it. I'm playing as the Amoeba and can see everything. So they could fly into my system because they didn't know who owned it, but since I could see their system I couldn't fly into it.



So they can't fly into my territory unless we're at war? Seems to me if there was a way to 'force' peace you could seriously block the AI's expansion. Especially if you're the Amoeba and can see where everything is.

Idaho wrote:
So they can't fly into my territory unless we're at war? Seems to me if there was a way to 'force' peace you could seriously block the AI's expansion.

Yes! The usual way to win a non-military victory in most 4X games is to scrupulously maintain and expand your political borders, max out your trade routes, and do whatever it takes (within reason) to keep your opponents pacified. (This gets even more tricky when trying to determine when to join or leave an alliance.) For me, this way of playing is a lot more enjoyable than a straight-ahead "build the biggest military and slam all your opponents" game.

Copernicus wrote:
Your empire has an official border -- a thick colored line surrounding your home system and your colonies. But, when you first colonize a star system, it is considered an "outpost", not a "colony"; it takes a certain number of turns to change from one to the other. (You can see how many turns you'll need to wait by clicking on the star system and looking at the fine print beneath its name in the "System View").



In order to cross the official border of your system, your opponents need to have signed an "open borders" agreement with you (or, of course, have declared war on you). Outposts do not count as part of your official empire territory, so if they don't already fall within the border generated by your other colony systems, no open borders agreement is needed.



There is one special case, however: if you have not previously scouted a system, you won't know whether or not it is a colony of your opponent. Thus, you can fly into each system at least once regardless of your current diplomatic status. Of course, this is also true of your opponents: each opponent can visit each of your colonies once before they need an open borders agreement.

There is one small inaccuracy here, and that is that growing from outpost to colony merely makes a system project ownership.

The reason that distinction is important is because on the left sided tree there are techs that increases your influence, with a few of those nearby systems can overwhelm the influence and ownership of other players.



You can, while at truce or cold war with an AI, fly over and invade his capital without declaring full war, if you first crowd out his influence. That being said, such acts of aggression will often result in the AI declaring war on you. (in regular cold war, in truce mode they can't)



Incidentally, if a system is blockaded it cannot grow into colony and will remain an outpost indefinitely.



Also, if an enemy is invading your system during a truce/cold war, building the +influence buildings on nearby systems so that their influence expands to cover said outposts will halt the invasion (they will have to declare war to restart it).



And also, you cannot colonize a system which is under someone else's influence, and vice versa. So using +inf buildings can be used to claim systems without settling them. This also has a bonus of creating a demiliterized zone between you and another nation, as those unsettled (and unsettleable to them) worlds act as buffers to prevent you sharing star lanes with them (which lead to war with any race other then aomeba and sometimes even with them).

Also, having a wormhole form the border causes a tiny fraction of the border tension.



And last but not least. influence zones also massively boost your speed via later techs that give +speed in green (blue speed is universal speed, green speed is only inside your influence domain). And also determine whether your ships get repaired

taltamir wrote:
There is one small inaccuracy here, and that is that growing from outpost to colony merely makes a system project ownership.

The reason that distinction is important is because on the left sided tree there are techs that increases your influence, with a few of those nearby systems can overwhelm the influence and ownership of other players.

Hmm. To my understanding, the thick colored line _is_ the political border of your empire. There is no distinction here; if, through raw population size or through propaganda, your opponent can extend their borders and overwhelm your influence over a star system (including your homeworld!), that means your system now resides within _their_ empire. You may still own the system itself, but to access the system you'll now need to deal politically with your opponent (either through border deals or through war).

You can, while at truce or cold war with an AI, fly over and invade his capital without declaring full war, if you first crowd out his influence.

Well yes, of course -- it's a system within your empire, after all, not theirs.

Also, if an enemy is invading your system during a truce/cold war, building the +influence buildings on nearby systems so that their influence expands to cover said outposts will halt the invasion (they will have to declare war to restart it).

Again, any system outside of an empire's political borders (including systems with outposts) are fair game to anyone who wants to invade them. And yes, this is probably the primary reason to try and expand your political influence early (and colonize systems close to your homeworld), because it is easier to provide a level of political protection for them. Seeding lots of colonies far from home is just an invitation for others to come and occupy them...

And last but not least. influence zones also massively boost your speed via later techs that give +speed in green (blue speed is universal speed, green speed is only inside your influence domain).

Actually, the "blue speed" is associated with travel along a "cosmic string" (the first type of FTL travel available to you). "Green speed" is associated with "warp drive" travel (direct movement through space; this is the third type of FTL travel, available after researching "Atmospheric Filtration"). Wormholes (the second type of FTL travel, available after researching "Applied Casimir Effect") provide instantaneous movement between two points, and so involves infinite speed. So far as I know, your influence / political borders have no effect on your ship speed (or that of your opponents).

Copernicus wrote:


Actually, the "blue speed" is associated with travel along a "cosmic string" (the first type of FTL travel available to you). "Green speed" is associated with "warp drive" travel (direct movement through space; this is the third type of FTL travel, available after researching "Atmospheric Filtration"). Wormholes (the second type of FTL travel, available after researching "Applied Casimir Effect") provide instantaneous movement between two points, and so involves infinite speed. So far as I know, your influence / political borders have no effect on your ship speed (or that of your opponents).

As a side question: how much movement does it take to use a wormhole? I got the impression that as long as you have 1 movement left, you can use it, but you often (always?) lose all remaining movement points?

springel wrote:
As a side question: how much movement does it take to use a wormhole? I got the impression that as long as you have 1 movement left, you can use it, but you often (always?) lose all remaining movement points?

Yes, I'm fairly certain that any use of a wormhole consumes all your remaining movement for the turn. So, if you have any movement at all, you can enter a wormhole, but you must wait until the next turn before moving any further. The one exception I've seen is that when I've run into a hostile fleet on the other side of the wormhole, my fleet has been able to successfully retreat back through the wormhole after using a "Retreat" card in battle.

Copernicus wrote:
Yes, I'm fairly certain that any use of a wormhole consumes all your remaining movement for the turn. So, if you have any movement at all, you can enter a wormhole, but you must wait until the next turn before moving any further. The one exception I've seen is that when I've run into a hostile fleet on the other side of the wormhole, my fleet has been able to successfully retreat back through the wormhole after using a "Retreat" card in battle.

Yes, I can confirm that. Recently I had the luck to flee from a powerful fleet on one side of the wormhole, only to meet another powerful fleet on the other side. I think I fled back and forth for at least three times, and even killing some enemies on Offensive Retreat, befor I was annihilated.

Copernicus wrote:
Hmm. To my understanding, the thick colored line _is_ the political border of your empire

You completely misread and misunderstood if you think you are disagreeing with me with that statement.



What I said:

projecting influence is not the same as being under your influence. You can push a border unto uncolonized systems, you can push a border so that a colony (a full colony, not an outpost) falls outside of its owners borders. An outpost does not project influence, a colony does project influence (but that does not automatically make it fall within your border)

When uncontested, influence = border. But when close together, different system's push on each other's influence and can nullify, thus making odd rare cases where a colony is projecting too little influence to cover itself with a border and is considered to be within someone else's border

I wasn't saying you are outright wrong, I was clarifying what you said with those edge cases

Actually, the "blue speed" is associated with travel along a "cosmic string" (the first type of FTL travel available to you). "Green speed" is associated with "warp drive" travel (direct movement through space

Do you have a source on that? I see the wiki says that but that isn't a source

if you look at the tech you would notice precision navigators says it "increases speed" and adds an additional bonus when returning to colonized systems. Its predecessor had blue: +3 ship +1 fleet, it has blue: +4 ship +2 fleet, green: +2 green

So, if the blue is the "general increase in speed" the green must be the "when returning to friendly colonized system"

taltamir wrote:
An outpost does not project influence, a colony does project influence (but that does not automatically make it fall within your border)

If a system has enough influence to project your color on the map, that system is within your empire (whether or not that patch of color is physically connected to the rest of your empire). Disjoint regions still count politically, so far as I can tell.



But yeah, if you're saying that a system may be overwhelmed by a neighboring empire if it lacks sufficient political influence, we are agreeing here.

When uncontested, influence = border. But when close together, different system's push on each other's influence and can nullify, thus making odd rare cases where a colony is projecting too little influence to cover itself with a border and is considered to be within someone else's border

That's not an odd, rare case (at least not when I'm playing! ). I do try to subvert my neighbors, and bring their systems under my influence (i.e., extend my borders over them). At the very least, it reduces their FIDS from those systems (so far as I understand).

if you look at the tech you would notice precision navigators says it "increases speed" and adds an additional bonus when returning to colonized systems. Its predecessor had blue: +3 ship +1 fleet, it has blue: +4 ship +2 fleet, green: +2 green

So, if the blue is the "general increase in speed" the green must be the "when returning to friendly colonized system"

Yeah, that description is interesting! But I'm not sure any of the descriptions are more than window dressing. (A lot of them seem mostly to be jokes...)



You can understand what is going on more reliably by ignoring the descriptions and just watching the numbers. In particular, check out the various techs in the "Exploration & Expansion" tree. The "Advanced Magnetics Drive", "String Gravitics Drive", and "Reckless String Gravitics" all increase the blue speed (and the Magnetics Drive description also explicitly mentions the "string" drive). And, the "Warp Drive", "Second Gen Warp", and "Advanced Warp Fields" all increase the green speed. And, after researching those techs, I have indeed observed that string movement increases when the blue speed has improved, and warp movement increases when the green speed has improved. So, I'm fairly sure that blue = string and green = warp.

Look at description for Warp Drive: "Unlocks space travel without cosmic string or wormhole use." It gives you +5 green movement.

And Second Gen Warp gives you +7 green movement.



It's pretty obvious to me that green is your warp (non cosmic-string) movement rate. It's also easy to see your cosmic-string (regular) movement rate on your fleets go up when you get the blue advances.



I have also noticed warp speed goes faster when my green movement rate goes up.



In conclusion, I assert that all the evidence trumps the puzzling description you cited.

Copernicus wrote:
If a system has enough influence to project your color on the map, that system is within your empire

EXCEPT for the situation where nearby systers overpower it with their own influence

taltamir wrote:
EXCEPT for the situation where nearby systers overpower it with their own influence

...in which case it no longer projects your empire's color over itself on the map.

I think you guys forgot to mention that it is also possible to engage in battles and even invading an outpost when players are in cold war (like, during first encounters) with each other.