If you want to deny trespass then you have to blow them up.  But you're losing sight of your other options when you do that.  How will trade work?  Closing your borders is a pretty aggressive stance to take.  Even the Drengin trade with others.

backs out of the room slowly...  

You'll notice that nowhere in that paragraph of mine which you quoted did I ever refer to how the borders should be generated. And for reference, I think that the GCII influence borders, which are the only auto-generated borders that I can think of in GCII, would be absolutely awful as territorial borders.

I did post an idea about borders earlier in the thread, namely:

which would seem to be the kind of thing that you're talking about.

This isn't solving the scale issue, it's ignoring it. Math and physics are always valid ways to show how impractical something is, as long as the computations involved are valid. This doesn't mean that games necessarily have to work in a practical manner, but there are some things which are much less reasonable than others. Interstellar minefields are one of those things. And for the record, a 1km spacing on the mines within the minefield? That's an extremely loose net when the majority of the targets that you're trying to catch have a maximum dimension which is much less than 1km.

Going beyond that, if we assume that each mine can be modeled as a sphere with a 1 meter diameter, and that the largest capital ships in GCII can be modeled as a 1kmX0.5kmX0.5km box which is 80% hollow, then that minefield that I described earlier uses enough resources to build roughly 2.5X10^33 capital ships of the largest class in GCII. Even if we model the ships as 100% solid, it's still enough for about 4.5X10^32 capital ships. That's for a minefield covering just one 1 parsec by 1 parsec by 1 parsec tile while spacing the mines at 1 km apart. You can increase the spacing all you want, but by the time the resources involved become reasonable, the minefield is so diffuse that it might as well not exist. Alternatively we can scale up the size of the capital ships - let's say our capital ships are cubes with the sidelength equal to 2km and are 100% solid; in that case the minefield described earlier contains sufficient material for 1.5X10^31 such capital ships.

Maybe we should go with numbers for one of the largest ships ever seen in a movie? Let's say the second Death Star. The official size of that thing is at least 900km, according to Wookieepedia. If we assume that that thing is 100% solid, then our minefield contains enough material for merely 4X10^22 900km diameter Death Stars. Let's go up in scale even further - how about Larry Niven's Ringworld? Based off of a quick Google search, the dimensions for that thing is that the ring has a circumference of about 600 million miles (multiply by 1.609 to get to kilometers), is 1 million miles wide, and has rim walls about 1000 miles tall. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to assume that this thing is solid, even though it is probably closer to 90% hollow, and that the ring is cylindrical rather than spherical in form (I don't know if it is or isn't, though cylindrical works out better if you're going to use platform rotation to maintain artificial gravity, which is how gravity on the Ringworld was described as functioning). This gives us that our minefield contains 'only' enough volume to construct 2.5X10^13 Ringworlds. Mind you, this is a structure with an inhabitable surface area equivalent to 3 million earth-like planets, and aside from the Dyson Sphere the largest artificial structure in science fiction that I can think of. I've also significantly overestimated the volume of the Ringworld, so you're likely to have enough material for far more Ringworlds than I described, though I doubt that the difference is more than an order of magnitude or so.

Since I brought up Dyson Spheres, let's do the math for one of those, assuming that the shell is 1000 miles thick and the thing has a diameter equal to the average orbital diameter of Earth. Based on those assumptions, our minefield only contains enough material for about 2.7X10^11 Dyson Spheres.

Let's go one beyond that, and assume that each mine masses only 1kg despite being a 1m diameter sphere. In that case, if we define a 'solar mass unit' to be the mass contained within the Sun and the eight officially recognized planets in our solar system, you would need 'merely' 61.1 billion solar mass units in order to make your minefield.

Are you starting to see just why it is that I object to the practicality of this thing yet? Now, maybe we can open the spacing between the mines up by several orders of magnitude - let's say that instead of a 1-km spacing we use a 1000km spacing (clearly, our 'mines' must now be weapons platforms rather than traditional mines, because the frontal area of even the largest ships in GCII is tiny relative to the area between mines for this hypothetical minefield). In that case, we can reduce the number of mines in the field to only 1.2X10^32 mines, which would 'only' require 61.1 of the solar mass units defined earlier, and 'only' contain enough volume for 268 Dyson Spheres or about 24,000 Ringworlds, using the previously listed assumptions. If we want to use 'only' 1 solar mass unit on our 1kg 1m diameter mines, then we'll be looking at a spacing of about 4,000km between each mine. Given that the complexity of each mine in our minefield is now approaching the complexity of a starship or a space station, maybe we should consider building some of those instead of building a minefield? If we up the spacing on the mines out to 1 million kilometers, then we'll only need about 3X10^22 of them, and we'll need "only" 3 Pluto-sized objects to provide the mass for it (again, assuming that each mine masses 1 kg). If you want to, you can carry out the math to get the equivalence in Death Stars, GCII capital ships, Ringworlds, Dyson Spheres, etc. I'll point out that even with this kind of spacing, you're still looking at lots of most of those (it's no longer a sufficient volume for a complete Ringworld or Dyson Sphere, but you could still build ~40,000 Death Stars or ~2X10^14 GCII capital ships with what you put into the minefield).

By the way, all of this is being sunk into something that 1. can't move and 2. is easily bypassed (even on the 2-dimensional grid; if we're looking at a 3-dimensional space then it becomes even easier to bypass). I'm fine with accepting certain things which are completely unrealistic at the present time, but I am not willing to accept minefields that, in order to have even a hope of becoming practical, must involve an amount of mass on the order of entire star systems, or worse billions of star systems. I realize that these arguments also apply to one extent or another to GCII's space stations (immobile, so you can bypass them, and so small relative to the scale of the tiles that it isn't really apparent why you have to fight them if you move into the tile), but at least those are something that I might reasonably want to engage, and also have some kind of magical ability to influence battles/economies/etc within a certain radius of the station (or mine things which magically make everything better for one faction).

I was thinking about the minefields. I don't know if they r practical or not. I Think these ideas r insightful. I do think we need to take into account inflation, technology, and the mathematics of

     First r we talking about regular mines. Then we would have to have a high orbit otherwise they would burn up in the aptmosphere. Unless they were heat shielded enough. Then they would eventually hit the ground and explode. Someone is unemployed, or maybe in jail for this idea. I would figure that mines would have to have meneuvering jets and radar to pull this off. Radar for 2 reasons to find the ships, and to know if they r friendly or not. A low planet orbit would mean that u need less mines, but would require more fuel because of gravity restraints. While a higher planet orbit would require less fuel, but u would need more mines. Remember the higher the altitude the more time u have to stop the ships. Lets not forget about radar jamming ships. If this would require some kind of hub then this could be a target to go after.

     Second u have to take into account fuel the type of fuel would make a difference.

     Third is what kind of explosives, and how big r the mines. Size affects how much fuel u can carry. Which could be a factor on speed. Yes u should take speed into account. How much fuel u could carry could affect range. Both the fuel and explosives could affect how big of a mine u need to take dowm what kind of ship. Both the hulls, hitpoints, and logistics could be taken into account. The bigger the hull, and the more hit points would affect how much damage u would take. Remember if u r expecting a bunch of small or medium ships coming through your space it would not make sense for u to pack the explosive power for huge hulls. This could be taken into account if u r the first person to research a hull design, or get hitpoint techs.

     Fourth we need to take into account inflation, and materials needed to build them. I would agree that there would have to be a lot of mines, but if inflation has made these so cheap this could be affordable.

     Fifth how about a planetary defense like starwars instead. Why can't mines be lasers instead.

     Sixth assuming they r not lasers. U would need to remember that the ship has only a 2 degree that they could enter the planet this may shorten how many mines u would need.

     I figured it would be so obvious that the invisible force fields were a reference to how Civilization 4 worked out its borders. They made it that u could not enter a  enemies territory unless u have a right of passage agreement. I don't like this method of get out of my space. I preferred Civilization 3's method where u could tell someone that they were trespassing, and u had 5 choices on how to respond you could comply and leave the territory, u could say no, u could sign a right of passage agreement, u could ignore the request and not respond, or u could declare war. If the person didn't like the response you had the option to declare war. I think if I enter your territory, and u don't like it then u should make me stop not raise an invisible border I cannot cross. Another thing I didn't like about Civilization 4's method is that when I broke a right of passage agreement it took 20 turns before I could do anything.I'm guessing u never played Civilization 4.

     I think neutral ground should also work on people following the law. That u should also have the option to ignore this law. I'm not saying the Ai should not have repercussions. Maybe the players should vote to throw u off or not. There's always the diplomacy option. Trade embargo. If the computer wants to be but hurt if u snead attack then that's their perogitive. Even though I would vote against this I would like to call a vote on wether the Galactic council van raise an army to enforce these laws or not. Starbases and mines at least explains how these things r being inplemented. I would also like the armed freighters have to fight it out; even if they r the best ships on the game. Remember that the technology would not be so advanced that the council could not build it; because no one knows how to build these ships.

     This does not  nessarily change your argument, but the calculations don't make sense to me even if U apply volume and not area. The Dyson sphere Is a million kilometers in diameter; while,the earth and the mine field is only about 13,000 kilometers in diameter. This is not even 1 Dyson sphere per minefield, but we would have to account for area not volume. The mines would move making 1 kilometer a little close for a mine with a prewarning because of some interstellar communication that I don't understand. The area of a Dyson sphere would have to be a whole bigger than the diameter difference. If u can explain this further go agead. U might of added up all your planets to come up with this, but u also have a lot more resources. I like the weapons platform idea also. Even without all that stuff there is still alot of material required. I would like to point out that the Iconians would convert energy to matter; instead of manufacturing the mines.

     I so would like to vote at the Galactic council to define boundaries please. There may be an issue of plants getting trapped out of influence I guess these would have to be new civilizations.

     Well to my opinion this should not make u the bad guy when I'm trespassing. As long as u r required to send out a ship and catch me then that will be fine. U still will only to see the territory that is lit up. I Think this is reasonable. The only thing I am arguing is this I don't think that u can block me from your territory without force. The obly time I thought it was wrong was in Civilization 4. Where u couldn't enter someelse's territory without a right of passage agreement, and if u declared war after u broke a right of passage agreement u couldn't enter the territory for 20 turns. I think u should give the players as mech dialogue as possible. U want to arrest me that's fine as long as u can catch me.

     O yeah that influence starbase thing. Please give me the chance to blow up other peoples starbases my own territory.

Personally I think this is really a matter of point of view. Some AIs, particularly allies, would have to be taught to recognize this as potentially a defensive action and some AIs, particularly belligerent ones, would have to see you as being a bad guy. But then, that is already how they see you, so how has their point of view really changed?

I think that depends on the size of the borders. A space 2-3 hex fields around a planet shouldn't hamper yout scouting abilities a lot, Only in dense inhabited space, you'd find a solid "block" you'd have to move around.

Regarding the mines: Of course it's impossible to mine a complete cube with an edge of a parsec. Mines in space do have a purpose in my opinion only if you know on which vector your enemy is likely to sail by, so you could greatly decrease the volume to be mined.

And you don't need a distance of 1 km between two mines. A mine would consist of a passive(!) sensor array (using radar would be a good way to help the enemy to eliminate them, screaming "I'm here, kill me!"), a very strong one-shot laser or graser driven by a strong energy device, say a fusion bomb. A laser or graser fed by a pulse of such a detonation could easily hit an enemy ship (and inflict damage upon) over several thousend kilometers, so no need to place them in a 1-km grid. No one expects a ship to literally collide with a mine to take damage.

Such a mine would be cheap to produce, so you could easily lay several thousands of them. Still, it would not suffice to mine a complete hex field of GC, it would just be enough to 'secure' the direct approach to a planet or something valuable and if you know which way the enemy ships will take (because they have no other choice) which normally is unlikely.

Mines are only usefull in small '2D' areas (land-based) and around small 3D objects (space-based).

I'd just like to be able to issue an edict to other species (per race, to all major or minor races and to all races). If the warned races violate it, I'd like to be able to warn them and if they ignore it, destroy the offending ship/fleet without starting a full-scale war.

Ok this is reasonable as far as I'm concerned, but Jack does have a point that as far as a diplomatic incident, or what the other races think this is diplomatically dependent on what the other species relationship with u and the offending species.

Id like to close off boarders, But that does not mean a ship could not enter.  It just means you are crossing into my space, and i am declaring any ship that does so, an act of war..

you could set it so you get a flag, that says a ship is in your territory (if detected) and the option to start a war.  This could lead to a deeper diplomatic game.

your territory is closed, even if not going to war, a species colonizes some planets in your systems. How other species veiw this would be the strength of your influence , along with military in that region, how you deal with the situation ect.

there is a lot that can be done with this to add more depth/flavor along with strategic game play

There doesn't really seem to be a concept of 'territory' in Galciv like you find in EuropaUniversalis or Civ. Might add interesting gameplay.

You are mixing up two different things here: In real life, the immigrants you mean are private persons, trying to get a new, better life. The gouvernments of the nations they come from didn't send them and they are acting on their own.

We're talking about ships belonging to a star nation here, which will cross the official borders only with the explicit order of a gouvermnent to do so. So any such ship crossing a border closed to the nation it belongs to is a deliberate action to violate this space so it becomes a matter of diplomatics.

I don't think this would run into the same problems as a mine field since at most you would probably need 1 sensor per tile at lowest tech level and possibly upgrade the sensor's to a range of 5 or so through techs

I think that these sensors should have some kind of maintenance cost although fairly low 1 credit per ten sensors or something

I almost think that it should have a specialized ship to make them or possibly be deployed from a military ship.

I would like to see some kind of mechanic where I can "draw" a line and say place 1 sensor per X tiles on this line