Hi,

I recently upgraded to the 1.11 patch, and granted, I haven't been playing the game for long, but I've encountered a pretty annoying issue.

Later in the game, the AI has taken to sticking Economy starbases all around my planets. My homeworld currently has economy starbases from all of the other four major civilizations around it, and I'm having to build influence starbases at a ridiculous rate. My side of the minimap looks like a rainbow there are so many. Recently, they've all started putting in Influence starbases too, all around my planets. I control about 1/3 of the map, so it's hard to keep up with them and still maintain my military. There are at least three starbases from other races around all of my systems, and even in some unpopulated ones. The economy starbases especially make no sense, as they're not getting any bonuses from them as far as I know.

I tried countering by going into their territory and building starbases, but I immediately start getting threats from them to remove them, and since I can't take on four civs at once at my current strength, I'm forced to let them do as they please.

I tried going into the Diplomacy menu and looking for an option to force them to remove them, but apparently such a thing doesn't exist, which hardly seems fair, as my only other option is to declare war on four other civilizations. There are so many that I would literally have to trade away all of my tech tree and all of my money to get rid of even half of them.

I scouted their territory and they're only doing it to me, they don't have any bases in each other's territory.

It's also incredibly annoying to have them randomly park fleets of warships around my planets. I'm not at war with anyone, but if I were, it'd be trouble. I tried doing the same to them, and got the same threats as before.

My relations with three of them are close or warm, and the last is neutral if it matters, so I don't understand why they're doing it. None of them are allied with each other either.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to reiterate the need for some sort of restrictions on enemy ships and starbases in my territory. For one thing, there are so many that the game is starting to lag when I start scrolling around my own territory, and two, if they declare war, they're already in prime position to attack, while I can't do the same. I'd like to see the ability to restrict foreign ships with weapons or starbases in an opponent's territory, or at least the option to tell them to get lost.

I've read other posts that all make the point that its impossible to control borders in space, and that's true to a certain degree, but I think that this is going a bit overboard, as no soveriegn entity would allow another power to build on this scale anywhere near their planets. I know there's the whole space is vertical too argument, but civilizations on earth claim airspace, so I don't see this as being any different. I know influence and territory are two seperate things, and I'm not talking about influence being redefined as borders, but rather the introduction of a new element, perhaps a diplomatic ability, that allows you to place restrictions on what the AI can park near your territory, perhaps based on your current relations with them.

Neutral and below would allow only freighters in, warm would allow scouts in addition to that, close would allow ships with weapons below a certain power, and alliance would allow warships and perhaps a certain number of starbases. (Of course, there should be an option for the player to restrict at will what is and isn't allowed into his territory.)

I'm not talking about this being a 100% AI is barred from your territory, they can choose to ignore it perhaps if they have a higher military or diplomatic ability than their opponent, or are currently at war with you.

Another idea is to set borders, but to only allow the AI or player to restrict what they can see, IE, if you went behind the AI and slipped some ships through their sensor grid they wouldn't be able to tell you get them out, because they wouldn't know they were there. Perhaps this would work better if there were a "Listening Post/Observation Post" module for the starbase, or heck, I guess just better sensor upgrades for them. Inversely, if they parked some ships in your fog of war area, you wouldn't
be able to stop them from entering your "territory" unless you uncovered them. Maybe there's a way to work the espionage ability in here, but I've written enough as it is.

...Wow, look how much I typed. Anyhow, my main point is is that this is really annoying, and I'd like to see some way other than declaring war or buying them off to get rid of their ships and starbases around my planets.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.