Currently as it stands, invading an outpost or attacking someone's fleet in a system they control is not considered to be a hostile act, or an act of war. Same for destroying a colony ship going to colonize on a neutral planet.



There should be certain actions in game that should be considered to be hostile, or have major diplomatic ramifications with other races if you choose to attack an opponent's ships or invade someone's outpost with Cold War relations (and even worse ramifications if you're at peace, allied, or have an open borders agreement). If you don't declare war on someone but continually like to attack them then other races will begin to dislike you and it could backfire. Say for example you're in a Cold War state with someone, and the influence from a few of your planets overlaps into 1 or 2 systems of an opponent who has outposts. Since your influence prevents them from sending in fleets to that system in cold war to protect them, abusing this fact by invading one or both of their systems would have serious repercussions.



Along with other diplomatic ramifications, it would be nice if you could still move ships through systems that are inside of a race's influence, only with consequences or some diplomatic relations hit with the race that wants you to leave their territory. Say you might be given a few turns to leave the confines of their territory, or if you're good at negotiating, arrange a rite of passage so you can pass through so you can get to a certain system you want to colonize, or a system of a race you want to invade. And maybe if you eliminate pirates invading or blockading one of their systems you'll get a nice diplomatic boost with that race.



Now ships fighting each other over neutral space could be considered fair game, as well as simply blockading an opponents system to cut off resources, but actively invading a system or civilian ships like colony ships it would seem that attacking them would come with some negative attention for doing so. Races won't like it if they suspect you might take a liking to going after noncombat ships like colony ships, and will became wary if you make it a habit of doing so.



Just some general things I was wondering if the dev team would take a look at. Some of this is off the top of my head so I know it doesn't all sound perfect but hopefully you guys get the general idea.

I like the current status of cold war. It allows for gameplay not possible in other TBS/RTS games where you can be neither at peace nor at war and allows for some element of border skirmishing.

These are good suggestions. I kind of like one part of the game setup, that outposts can be attacked without causing war. In most other games, any attack is an act of war, so this is unusual. However, other games do usually have a diplomatic action which is "military access for N turns". This allows you to pass through, for example on the way to fight some other guy. It would be nice to add that.

I agree interesting suggestion

sagittary wrote:
I like the current status of cold war. It allows for gameplay not possible in other TBS/RTS games where you can be neither at peace nor at war and allows for some element of border skirmishing.

Well the main reason I say this is because races may simply like to declare war on you for no reason, and if pirates are on (and on a higher difficulty too) this may mean having to defend yourself from 2-3 races (even if not all of them are at war with you) on top of having to repel pirates. Against human opponents, it may be near impossible to deal with so many things at once even if you're not expanding at a large rate, so there seem to need to be more diplomatic considerations before just blowing stuff out of the sky. We get enough skirmishes dealing with pirates, which also allows heros to level up before the real fighting begins.

I say keep it. It adds depth than just peace and war.



Also, if you don't want it to happen, assign a fleet or 'make with the peace already!'

davea wrote:
These are good suggestions. I kind of like one part of the game setup, that outposts can be attacked without causing war. In most other games, any attack is an act of war, so this is unusual. However, other games do usually have a diplomatic action which is "military access for N turns". This allows you to pass through, for example on the way to fight some other guy. It would be nice to add that.

This.

What would be useful is a galactic reputation variable above and beyond your rep with each race (distant worlds legends has one of the better implementations of this i've seen, in fact I'd wish for amplitude to cough* borrow most of that diplomatic system). This could be used as a factor in how other races relate to you (say perhaps 80% 1on1 relation and 20% your galactic rep), get into too many cold war skirmishes and your rep should take a big hit.

In fact, when you finish to capture a system after invading an outpost, You have a malus in relations which is told you by an event message.

In many respects i like playing this game like the cold war between the Soviet Union and the USA.



Where Attack the out posts could be compariable to the korean war and the the vietnam war. where the two super powers actually had their forces fighting each other but in no real war.



But as other people have said, the points added to decreasing your relations should be added.



Would be cool to have FTL nukes.......just saying

thelovebat wrote:
Currently as it stands, invading an outpost or attacking someone's fleet in a system they control is not considered to be a hostile act, or an act of war. Same for destroying a colony ship going to colonize on a neutral planet.

I'm not sure what Game Theory/Politics has to say on the matter, but I would suggest that a good reply to such an act is a game of Tit For Tat. If they begin an invasion of one of your outposts, then perhaps the best reply is to do the same to one of their equally valuable outposts. This would maintain a status quo, and so it might still be considered a cold war situation.

bump, interested in hearing more opinions about this.

I think that this is not the final and they will change this.

thelovebat wrote:
Currently as it stands, invading an outpost or attacking someone's fleet in a system they control is not considered to be a hostile act, or an act of war. Same for destroying a colony ship going to colonize on a neutral planet.



There should be certain actions in game that should be considered to be hostile, or have major diplomatic ramifications with other races if you choose to attack an opponent's ships or invade someone's outpost with Cold War relations (and even worse ramifications if you're at peace, allied, or have an open borders agreement). If you don't declare war on someone but continually like to attack them then other races will begin to dislike you and it could backfire. Say for example you're in a Cold War state with someone, and the influence from a few of your planets overlaps into 1 or 2 systems of an opponent who has outposts. Since your influence prevents them from sending in fleets to that system in cold war to protect them, abusing this fact by invading one or both of their systems would have serious repercussions.



Along with other diplomatic ramifications, it would be nice if you could still move ships through systems that are inside of a race's influence, only with consequences or some diplomatic relations hit with the race that wants you to leave their territory. Say you might be given a few turns to leave the confines of their territory, or if you're good at negotiating, arrange a rite of passage so you can pass through so you can get to a certain system you want to colonize, or a system of a race you want to invade. And maybe if you eliminate pirates invading or blockading one of their systems you'll get a nice diplomatic boost with that race.



Now ships fighting each other over neutral space could be considered fair game, as well as simply blockading an opponents system to cut off resources, but actively invading a system or civilian ships like colony ships it would seem that attacking them would come with some negative attention for doing so. Races won't like it if they suspect you might take a liking to going after noncombat ships like colony ships, and will became wary if you make it a habit of doing so.



Just some general things I was wondering if the dev team would take a look at. Some of this is off the top of my head so I know it doesn't all sound perfect but hopefully you guys get the general idea.

Added to summary list under Game Play > Diplomacy > Diplomatic Posturing