So I start a normal game, and meet some nice neighbours, pacifists at that. We immediately make a non-aggression pact and I forget about them for a while, until this happens maybe thirty minutes into the game:
That's my first system, Phyrax, and to its left you can see the 'friendly' outpost. You see that star between the border? That _was_ mine, I had three stations already on it, but the border changes defaulted it over to the new outpost. The AI's terrible outpost placement might be bad enough, but the change in borders and therefore property is the real kicker here. In any other situation this would be considered theft, or in a political setting, an act of war.
Now maybe this sort of behavior would make sense, say if this were a hostile expansionist faction, the sort of stupid city placement you see in Civ 5; but these are my supposed allies. The worst part is, unlike Civ V, the AI sees nothing wrong with this sort of settlement, and you can do nothing to deter it. It's doubly bad this sort of behavior happened so early, as it would be devastating to my long-term territory growth.
Now you might say "just attack them and take it back. Well, let's assume I could (I signed a "non-aggression pact" remember?) Since the AI sees nothing wrong with this situation, all the AI would interpret this an unprovoked war, and I would take severe warmongering penalties at the very start of the game, assuming I could follow through with a war.
So basically my only option is to sit there, while they start to dislike me for border friction, the irony.
Surely everyone can see how this scenario is flawed. This is just my personal opinion, but If anything I would say don't allow entire planetary systems to change over instantly (or if they do, make it considered an act of war/aggression), make AI more aware of their outpost/colony placement, and have diplomatic options to deal with these sorts of scenarios.
That's my first system, Phyrax, and to its left you can see the 'friendly' outpost. You see that star between the border? That _was_ mine, I had three stations already on it, but the border changes defaulted it over to the new outpost. The AI's terrible outpost placement might be bad enough, but the change in borders and therefore property is the real kicker here. In any other situation this would be considered theft, or in a political setting, an act of war.
Now maybe this sort of behavior would make sense, say if this were a hostile expansionist faction, the sort of stupid city placement you see in Civ 5; but these are my supposed allies. The worst part is, unlike Civ V, the AI sees nothing wrong with this sort of settlement, and you can do nothing to deter it. It's doubly bad this sort of behavior happened so early, as it would be devastating to my long-term territory growth.
Now you might say "just attack them and take it back. Well, let's assume I could (I signed a "non-aggression pact" remember?) Since the AI sees nothing wrong with this situation, all the AI would interpret this an unprovoked war, and I would take severe warmongering penalties at the very start of the game, assuming I could follow through with a war.
So basically my only option is to sit there, while they start to dislike me for border friction, the irony.
Surely everyone can see how this scenario is flawed. This is just my personal opinion, but If anything I would say don't allow entire planetary systems to change over instantly (or if they do, make it considered an act of war/aggression), make AI more aware of their outpost/colony placement, and have diplomatic options to deal with these sorts of scenarios.
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