i've played this sort of game for a long time now from what was it 2045 to orion 1's precursor all through the moo's (yes including that one which shall not be named). one of the principles i've lived by is if your going to start war dont declare it diplomatically make your first attack the declaration of war. declaring it first just gives the enemies time to mount a defense.



so why are we required now to declare war before we can attack, especially attacking those planets with those god forsaken areas of influence or whatever it means when they have that bold coloured ring around them, as well as those i've previously established peace with but decide i no longer need peace with. why was the ability to launch surprise attacks and blitzkriegs removed?

It has been suggested making moving into other players' influence zones show a "Declare war?" popup. But it wouldn't change the fact that you still can't move into an "enemy" area beforehand.



It's called decorum of war - much like the way they fought wars in the medieval and later times.

Just position your troops strategically while at peace, then declare war and invade during the same turn.

From a lore perspective, given that there are defined points in space for travel, it would behoove any empire to monitor that. Which in turn means that any attempt to stockpile the kind of fleet needed to invade in-system would be next to impossible. You'd sooner be called out for why you have 2 dreadnaughts that have entered but never left a system before you had enough people to invade a system.



From a game play perspective, general balance I'd imagine for both AI and players. Otherwise you could create a stack of doom, march it up to a capital or other strategic locations and in one turn, cripple an empire for a good number of turns if not more.



That said, I am a fan of the cold war mechanic. It would be nice to have an intermediate option you could fall back to where you could keep doing skirmishes and such without fullout war or peace.

Especially because a declaration of war can completely crash your economy. The cold war was won on America's economic strength, not our military might!

sagittary wrote:
From a lore perspective, given that there are defined points in space for travel, it would behoove any empire to monitor that. Which in turn means that any attempt to stockpile the kind of fleet needed to invade in-system would be next to impossible. You'd sooner be called out for why you have 2 dreadnaughts that have entered but never left a system before you had enough people to invade a system.



From a game play perspective, general balance I'd imagine for both AI and players. Otherwise you could create a stack of doom, march it up to a capital or other strategic locations and in one turn, cripple an empire for a good number of turns if not more.



That said, I am a fan of the cold war mechanic. It would be nice to have an intermediate option you could fall back to where you could keep doing skirmishes and such without fullout war or peace.

Then you could just declare war if you are discovered?

thegreedyturtle wrote:
Especially because a declaration of war can completely crash your economy. The cold war was won on America's economic strength, not our military might!

This is the future

I think declaring war may be interesting in the way that as long as noone declares it to you , you just need to protect your colonies outside your territory, permitting an uneven positioning of your fleet. But if your in cold war allready, then you better keep your strong points protected (vs. AI) cause they might attack you.



In a same line of thinking it could be interessting to implement some restraints before attacking someone. Let's say you can't declare war without previouvsly being in cold war with someone, wich you can't become during 5 or so turns after being on good terms with someone. Thus giving more time for someone to see a war coming and prepare himselve...