Yeah like a 10 turn minimum duration. Only fair. Though they may likely start up again on the 11th turn but at least you have a breather.

This is only an 'exploit' because of the stupid 'one tech per planet' and 'no money ever' system in place. If you conquer whole worlds of a more advanced civ, you'll get one tech. Not tech related to buildings on the planet, not many techs from analysis of artefacts... ONE. Almost always something crap like life support. And no money! There are $2,500 things just floating in space, but conquering a whole planet yields jack.

Minimum duration on treaties is absurd. There are already 'trust' issues in the AI, and they'll usually surrender to someone else anyway. Once you get a decent amount of technology and money for seizing planets, it won't be such a big deal.

I believe that it was stated somewhere officially that the AI notices when other Computer players do this, and adjust thier attitude towards them accordingly. I could be wrong, but that is what I understood.

Also, I agree that it would make no sense. Who would/could enforce such a thing?

Come on. Anyone ever study history ? Treaties are just pieces of paper. If you capitualed a bunch of crap to get peace, and now they're attacking again shame on you.

The reverse, oh well. The AI's afterwards shouldn't trust you anymore. Not being able to attack for X turns is bull****. There could be fallout, like the rest of the CIvs stop trading with you, and don't trust you if you redeclare war.

Basically, hard artifical rules are always less desirable than consequences. It shouldn't be IMPOSSIBLE to break treaties, or form them in bad faith - it should be A BAD IDEA to do so. I haven't tried the latest betas, but I hear the AI is less tolerant of such behaviour. There is no need for a SM-style 'magic fairy' stopping you.

EDIT - AdmiralZ, all your concerns could be handled by an improved diplomacy system. If you could 'send' messages, like 'get your fricking constructors out of my space' or whatever, it would be good. Simply deciding you 'own' all the space under your 'influence' is ridiculous - indeed, it could be argued that sovreignity extends as far as one's ability to prevent incursion. In that way, your absolute 'territory' is that area of space controlled by your spacefleets and platforms - ie, the area around your planets, and within striking distance of your fleets. NOT in the middle of unihabited systems that happen to be green at the moment. The ability to threaten people with immediate action would allow you to define territory in a realistic fashion, and even provide realistic territorial disputes over starbases, fleet movements, etc. If you can't defend it, it isn't yours.

You can't have borders that exclude constructors, as that removes a massive part of the game. The whole POINT of influence starbases are to give a non-violent method of capturing planets.

I don't agree on the border discussion. I't really unrealistic when a civilization would allow to have huge alien fleets passing by their key worlds when they don't know if they'll fly by or suddenly turn on them and attack.

Instead of a very bad, unrealistic fix [closed borders], the developers could add more diplomatic options, for example telling the AI/player in question to get the f out of your space. Then the AI/player has a choice, leave the player's space or risk war.

As for treaties, as long as the AI take into consideration that the player or AI is a treacherous bastard, minimum-time treaties [also a bad and unrealistic fix] isn't needed.