The step into space is pretty similar to the step into civilization as a whole. There isno space claimed, there are no rules of conduct. There is nothing but a new begining for all and it's a fantastic thing to explore. What will the rules of warfare be? What will anything be?
As it is now Stellaris assume a consensus that doesn't necciserily exist at all and I'd say is better to work toward than start with. Let's start with borders, I made an earlier post about it but im going to flesh it out a bit here.
----------------------------
Claiming Space [Dictio spatium]
Ownership is not an inherent property of object or land. It is something we sapient beings impose upon objects and even other sapients on occassions, aka slavery. This is also a mutual agreement between sapients where recognition of ownership is done by both parties, most often. There have been human societies where the concept of ownership is foreign to them and in some instances it is certain things you cannot own. For example land could not be owned, it belonged to all. This is why instead of these fixed borders I recommend a system where empires claim systems. The game already contain a division of space which is used by the sector system so it can ride on that I imagen.
The idea is that if you go into, let's say for arguements sake, into the empire screen then you can like in EUIV, where you set provinces of interest, select systems into one of three categories and yes, the romans took off into space and names the terms!
Spatium mihi: Just "My space", this is space that you proclaim is rightfully yours. any system that you colonize is automaticly added to this category. Adding systems to this category beyond the neighbouring systems of a colonized system would cost influence and the further the distance is from any colony the greater the cost. So 2 steps away would cost 25 influence (let's say) and then next one 50, 75 after that and so on. This is to prevent someone just to claim everything and go nuts. You can go far and such but it'll cost you.
Spatium neutrum: Or "Neutral space", this is space and systems that you the empire say you don't own, others do NOT own it and even goes one step further and say NO one CAN own it. It does not belong to anyone and shall remain so. The question is why would anyone want this? The answer is simple, Militant Isolationist Fallen Empire. It's not just for them but the issue with them is always border friction and neutral space would be established to minimize it. By having it inbetween empires the border friction would disappear along those edges where the neutral space exists. This should also cost some influence but not nearly as much, maybe in steps of 5 instead?
Spatium Alii: Other's space, this is space that you acknowledge does not belong to you. This is however not something you click to do but rather in diplomacy get by saying you acknowledges someone elses claim, or if war is forced to accept it.
The "fourth" one is No-mans-space, or "Spatium nillius" which is unclaimed and undetermined so far, that's all space but the starting systems at the start of the game.
With this we can consider a few philosophies. If we think to star trek, the borg. They recognise no ownership of space and just use space as they please and go where they please, while in the alpha quadrant they do instead have fixed borders. Any "border" of the borg is just other races drawing up a line of safety to avoid their activity. As such we could have a policy here that an empire gets to choose. Namely if they recognise the concept of ownership. If an empire does not then they cannot start claiming space, the opposite is fairly self-evident. This would be tied to ethos of course, I'd say collectivists would be leaning toward not acknowledging ownership, especially fanatic ones as it's all the collectives stuff. Individualists the opposite of course.
Now why does this matter? In our world we recognise the land owned by nations and there are many small ones that try to claim land but as it's not recognised by anyone, it's meaningless. Which is what would happen here. You can politically or through war, which would be it's own seperate wargoal, ask/demand your claims to be recognized by the other empire. Politically I think AI should be such that if they have no way to reach it within the foreseeable future, then they should automatically accept recognition of claims as long as it's reciprocal. Through war you can demand neighbours to recognise your claims.
What about when claims overlap at the begining? That is where the fun comes in, if two empires lay claim to the same system there is a dispute going on on whose space it is. I would recommend for this that you have the option fo "recognise non-disputed claims" as such so two empires can come to some agreement about space without a dispute ruining everything. Here, diplomaticly you can solve it by, if le'ts say you dispute 2 claims that overlap, then you should be able to diplomaticly to say you take one, the other empire takes the other system and then recognises the systems. This of course require that the AI empires put value on systems, which I presume they do in order to decide where they colonize, put frontier outposts etc. of course with this system frontier outposts becomes redudant. Another factor would be that as long as it's in dispute, both can colonize, build things etc which can drive up the tension even more. This could develop into a full fledge war of course and if other empires exist it can turn into quite nasty ones as you might not want the other one to get the space, after all they are even more powerful then.
Neutral space is similar, you can diplomaticly ask to recognise a region as neutral that you've designated, I imagen to not make it insane and catastrophic that neutral areas that are continuous can be named and is displayed on the map and as such you gotta pick which one to recognise in an agreement. If not there is again always the war option. This is fun because when a third empire comes in and start wrecking havoc there, both of the empires that recognised the neutral space can now possibly team up against the third one to get it recognised by them too. Considerable more dynamic interaction in the begining of the game where all wars is not necciserily conquest or the like.
Natrually in all cases there is the "threaten war" middle ground where you demand it without going to war but you will if they do not accept your demands.
What about those forementioned societies that does not recognise ownership? They are clearly excluded from this right? Yes and no, if they are powerful enough and sees you constantly claiming stuff they can do a war for you to revoke your claims as you have no right to it, both sides can however through diplomacy or war, get the other one to switch the policy to match their own. If I don't recognise ownership and am strong enough to beat you, I can get you to change to it and be locked there under threat and vice versa. Which brings us to another point.
----------------------------
Enforce policy change
One of the laws today is that slavery is forbidden and it's universally recognised. As we've already seen in this game it's not necciserily so in all cultures and as such the question is how does it come about? Diplomacy and war again.
You should be able to diplomaticly ask someone to change a policy. You can do it through trade by giving them something worthwhile, systems, money etc. War and threatenwar is all the same really and war goals that suits.
An important point here though is that it should be especially important within federations where policy homogenity should be an important factor. That is there would be a policy screen for the federation where the any policy set to "any" means it is up to each member. If it's set to anything else each member either have no choice or get's massive oppinion/trust malus and maybe even more if they do not conform to the policy in charge. This would probably be a voting issue and not something the president can just decree left and right so it turns into a circus where policies changes with each president.
---------------------
Warfare
Now this is the big one. Warfare has included a lot of decisions throughout history especially as it got bloodier and more destructive, on interstellar scale this is even more profound as technology is already there high. At the start of the game there are two or three technologies that affects planets. Chemical, Nuclear and Conventional. I mean with the planetary bombardment. I don't think it should be just light, medium and dark roasted bombardment choices but also that we can pick the TYPE of bombardment. Chemical one is obviously better to kill troops, and of course population while maintaining structures. This doesn't discriminate which species, everyones affected. Conventional would be normal TNT bombs as they are used now in the game and nuclear would be able to wipe out the defensive troops easily with a few well placed strikes, however it would have a high likilyhood of destroying buildings and the pop occupying it ALONG WITH a risk that it reduces habitibility for some time, "nuclear winter" modifier that lasts 20, 30 years and the more bombs you drop the longer it lasts and more severe the modifier gets. Later on as genetic technology gets better you get biological warfare which targets just soldeirs and pops but destroys nothing. The disadvantage to it is that it must be custom made to each species so it's slower, the benifit is that you can wipe out all of one species on a planet while leaving any other species on it safe. A fun side thing is if we let it also be a modifier on a planet/pop then it could technically spread, perhaps even "mutate" and ravage the empire in manners that's unpredictable. Could even be a crisis event where usage of biological material like that has a small chance of giving rise to a super virus that targets species indiscriminatingly.
Why did I bring up warfare like that? Well we need a base for what I am about to say or it seems pointless, with those options you can make treaties such as "no chemical warfare" "no biological warfare" "no nuclear devices" etc.
Not only that but why is it battles are always "until destruction"? You can fight in wars such that you DISABLE the enemy such that htey cannot fight, WITHOUT destroying them and it should be the same here. You should be able to, by choice and maybe policy, be such that you enter a fight and it's terminated without destroying the enemy fleet completely (and them not running away). The ships can get their weapons disabled and hence is useless OR they can be "captured", that is they are removed from the map but once the war concludes, you get the choice to release the captured or not. If not they are turned into scrap minerals and reverse engineered. This would be of course more difficult and long battles than merely going for destruction.
As such you could also create a treaty such that destruction battles are prohibited, losses will happen but this still means not everything is. Another inclusion is that at the end of the war you could by the treaty have such that you always give back the captured ships and crews.
In a way people would have the possibility to start their own Geneva convention treaties and as before, other empires can choose to join in on it or not depending on various factors. If they want to go on some or all and such.
A fun addition would be if these "treaties" could be named and is stored in all whom adhere to it such that they can demand, threaten, diplomaticly get other empires to sign the treaty and such. But that's just a nice dessert to add and not neccisery with hte previous suggestion of changing others policies.
---------------------
Piracy
Once trade comes along piracy becomes relevant. As it is now it's nothing but a nuasance in the game that serves no real purpose. This would be similar to EUIV in function but for the interstellar treaty it'd be the "you don't do piracy" thing.
----------------------
In general we can add much more I imagen, I took the big things that I think involves most here. The important thing is that it gives options such that in one galaxy you might have no chemo weapons but in another the side that likes them wins instead and hence it's widespread used. We start from scratch in a manner, let's make it feel like it.
As it is now Stellaris assume a consensus that doesn't necciserily exist at all and I'd say is better to work toward than start with. Let's start with borders, I made an earlier post about it but im going to flesh it out a bit here.
----------------------------
Claiming Space [Dictio spatium]
Ownership is not an inherent property of object or land. It is something we sapient beings impose upon objects and even other sapients on occassions, aka slavery. This is also a mutual agreement between sapients where recognition of ownership is done by both parties, most often. There have been human societies where the concept of ownership is foreign to them and in some instances it is certain things you cannot own. For example land could not be owned, it belonged to all. This is why instead of these fixed borders I recommend a system where empires claim systems. The game already contain a division of space which is used by the sector system so it can ride on that I imagen.
The idea is that if you go into, let's say for arguements sake, into the empire screen then you can like in EUIV, where you set provinces of interest, select systems into one of three categories and yes, the romans took off into space and names the terms!
Spatium mihi: Just "My space", this is space that you proclaim is rightfully yours. any system that you colonize is automaticly added to this category. Adding systems to this category beyond the neighbouring systems of a colonized system would cost influence and the further the distance is from any colony the greater the cost. So 2 steps away would cost 25 influence (let's say) and then next one 50, 75 after that and so on. This is to prevent someone just to claim everything and go nuts. You can go far and such but it'll cost you.
Spatium neutrum: Or "Neutral space", this is space and systems that you the empire say you don't own, others do NOT own it and even goes one step further and say NO one CAN own it. It does not belong to anyone and shall remain so. The question is why would anyone want this? The answer is simple, Militant Isolationist Fallen Empire. It's not just for them but the issue with them is always border friction and neutral space would be established to minimize it. By having it inbetween empires the border friction would disappear along those edges where the neutral space exists. This should also cost some influence but not nearly as much, maybe in steps of 5 instead?
Spatium Alii: Other's space, this is space that you acknowledge does not belong to you. This is however not something you click to do but rather in diplomacy get by saying you acknowledges someone elses claim, or if war is forced to accept it.
The "fourth" one is No-mans-space, or "Spatium nillius" which is unclaimed and undetermined so far, that's all space but the starting systems at the start of the game.
With this we can consider a few philosophies. If we think to star trek, the borg. They recognise no ownership of space and just use space as they please and go where they please, while in the alpha quadrant they do instead have fixed borders. Any "border" of the borg is just other races drawing up a line of safety to avoid their activity. As such we could have a policy here that an empire gets to choose. Namely if they recognise the concept of ownership. If an empire does not then they cannot start claiming space, the opposite is fairly self-evident. This would be tied to ethos of course, I'd say collectivists would be leaning toward not acknowledging ownership, especially fanatic ones as it's all the collectives stuff. Individualists the opposite of course.
Now why does this matter? In our world we recognise the land owned by nations and there are many small ones that try to claim land but as it's not recognised by anyone, it's meaningless. Which is what would happen here. You can politically or through war, which would be it's own seperate wargoal, ask/demand your claims to be recognized by the other empire. Politically I think AI should be such that if they have no way to reach it within the foreseeable future, then they should automatically accept recognition of claims as long as it's reciprocal. Through war you can demand neighbours to recognise your claims.
What about when claims overlap at the begining? That is where the fun comes in, if two empires lay claim to the same system there is a dispute going on on whose space it is. I would recommend for this that you have the option fo "recognise non-disputed claims" as such so two empires can come to some agreement about space without a dispute ruining everything. Here, diplomaticly you can solve it by, if le'ts say you dispute 2 claims that overlap, then you should be able to diplomaticly to say you take one, the other empire takes the other system and then recognises the systems. This of course require that the AI empires put value on systems, which I presume they do in order to decide where they colonize, put frontier outposts etc. of course with this system frontier outposts becomes redudant. Another factor would be that as long as it's in dispute, both can colonize, build things etc which can drive up the tension even more. This could develop into a full fledge war of course and if other empires exist it can turn into quite nasty ones as you might not want the other one to get the space, after all they are even more powerful then.
Neutral space is similar, you can diplomaticly ask to recognise a region as neutral that you've designated, I imagen to not make it insane and catastrophic that neutral areas that are continuous can be named and is displayed on the map and as such you gotta pick which one to recognise in an agreement. If not there is again always the war option. This is fun because when a third empire comes in and start wrecking havoc there, both of the empires that recognised the neutral space can now possibly team up against the third one to get it recognised by them too. Considerable more dynamic interaction in the begining of the game where all wars is not necciserily conquest or the like.
Natrually in all cases there is the "threaten war" middle ground where you demand it without going to war but you will if they do not accept your demands.
What about those forementioned societies that does not recognise ownership? They are clearly excluded from this right? Yes and no, if they are powerful enough and sees you constantly claiming stuff they can do a war for you to revoke your claims as you have no right to it, both sides can however through diplomacy or war, get the other one to switch the policy to match their own. If I don't recognise ownership and am strong enough to beat you, I can get you to change to it and be locked there under threat and vice versa. Which brings us to another point.
----------------------------
Enforce policy change
One of the laws today is that slavery is forbidden and it's universally recognised. As we've already seen in this game it's not necciserily so in all cultures and as such the question is how does it come about? Diplomacy and war again.
You should be able to diplomaticly ask someone to change a policy. You can do it through trade by giving them something worthwhile, systems, money etc. War and threatenwar is all the same really and war goals that suits.
An important point here though is that it should be especially important within federations where policy homogenity should be an important factor. That is there would be a policy screen for the federation where the any policy set to "any" means it is up to each member. If it's set to anything else each member either have no choice or get's massive oppinion/trust malus and maybe even more if they do not conform to the policy in charge. This would probably be a voting issue and not something the president can just decree left and right so it turns into a circus where policies changes with each president.
---------------------
Warfare
Now this is the big one. Warfare has included a lot of decisions throughout history especially as it got bloodier and more destructive, on interstellar scale this is even more profound as technology is already there high. At the start of the game there are two or three technologies that affects planets. Chemical, Nuclear and Conventional. I mean with the planetary bombardment. I don't think it should be just light, medium and dark roasted bombardment choices but also that we can pick the TYPE of bombardment. Chemical one is obviously better to kill troops, and of course population while maintaining structures. This doesn't discriminate which species, everyones affected. Conventional would be normal TNT bombs as they are used now in the game and nuclear would be able to wipe out the defensive troops easily with a few well placed strikes, however it would have a high likilyhood of destroying buildings and the pop occupying it ALONG WITH a risk that it reduces habitibility for some time, "nuclear winter" modifier that lasts 20, 30 years and the more bombs you drop the longer it lasts and more severe the modifier gets. Later on as genetic technology gets better you get biological warfare which targets just soldeirs and pops but destroys nothing. The disadvantage to it is that it must be custom made to each species so it's slower, the benifit is that you can wipe out all of one species on a planet while leaving any other species on it safe. A fun side thing is if we let it also be a modifier on a planet/pop then it could technically spread, perhaps even "mutate" and ravage the empire in manners that's unpredictable. Could even be a crisis event where usage of biological material like that has a small chance of giving rise to a super virus that targets species indiscriminatingly.
Why did I bring up warfare like that? Well we need a base for what I am about to say or it seems pointless, with those options you can make treaties such as "no chemical warfare" "no biological warfare" "no nuclear devices" etc.
Not only that but why is it battles are always "until destruction"? You can fight in wars such that you DISABLE the enemy such that htey cannot fight, WITHOUT destroying them and it should be the same here. You should be able to, by choice and maybe policy, be such that you enter a fight and it's terminated without destroying the enemy fleet completely (and them not running away). The ships can get their weapons disabled and hence is useless OR they can be "captured", that is they are removed from the map but once the war concludes, you get the choice to release the captured or not. If not they are turned into scrap minerals and reverse engineered. This would be of course more difficult and long battles than merely going for destruction.
As such you could also create a treaty such that destruction battles are prohibited, losses will happen but this still means not everything is. Another inclusion is that at the end of the war you could by the treaty have such that you always give back the captured ships and crews.
In a way people would have the possibility to start their own Geneva convention treaties and as before, other empires can choose to join in on it or not depending on various factors. If they want to go on some or all and such.
A fun addition would be if these "treaties" could be named and is stored in all whom adhere to it such that they can demand, threaten, diplomaticly get other empires to sign the treaty and such. But that's just a nice dessert to add and not neccisery with hte previous suggestion of changing others policies.
---------------------
Piracy
Once trade comes along piracy becomes relevant. As it is now it's nothing but a nuasance in the game that serves no real purpose. This would be similar to EUIV in function but for the interstellar treaty it'd be the "you don't do piracy" thing.
----------------------
In general we can add much more I imagen, I took the big things that I think involves most here. The important thing is that it gives options such that in one galaxy you might have no chemo weapons but in another the side that likes them wins instead and hence it's widespread used. We start from scratch in a manner, let's make it feel like it.
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