I'm split. I kinda want it, but to a certain extent it makes no sense to me so I don't want it. I'm wishy-washy. It's my nature.

Put ships on every tile of your border?

I'd like to see some kind of "border control" such that you can allow/not allow people thru "your" space.

It's a bit annoying in GC2 to have AIs and minors tromping all over "your" space.

It would add more diplo options, since you could negotiate/charge/tribute access to "your" space and stuff like that.

You could have an extra wrinkle of not having this magical all knowing boundry too.  What I mean is, if you don't have something (starbase/ship/planet) with sensor coverage on "your" space then you can't really enforce any of your decrees of "trespasers will be phasered."  This opens up the potential for you or AIs to sneak thru parts of "your/their" space that are not being monitored.

So what happens if one of their planets gets isolated into your space when your space suddenly expands to envelop it? And vice versa.

In my ToA game last night, I had a Thalan Colony ship sneak into my home system and colonize one of the planets there.  I was focusing on planets in other systems, and it was only a PQ4 world...

Anyways, due to the Influence strength of my home system, it flipped pretty quickly to my control.  So nice of the Thalans to build that colony for me!

Back on topic, I guess I'm not too worried about 'cohabitation'.  Influence bonuses tend to fix this soon enough, or allow you to establish a beachhead to use your influence bonuses to flip other worlds...

As for 'crossing influence borders', well that's an interesting excuse for relation penalties... especially if warships are involved.

Why do you want to close your borders, after all your space will soon become my space

Is "Your space is my space, and only my space, so get out now, or I will bomb you" your national theme song?

I tend to think that a better way of defining territorial borders than the influence boundary would be to have a United Planets standard range-from-owned planet boundary line (and if two planets owned by different groups would produce an overlapping region of 'national space', the international standard would be to have the border at the midpoint), and a nationally-claimed boundary that you can set, in the same way that the United Nations recognizes territorial waters to be those within 12 nautical miles of your coast, with overlaps resolved by placing the border at the middle or by treaty, and several nations claiming various other distances from the coastline as their territorial waters. So perhaps the internationally recognized boundary is, say, 3 parsecs from a planet, while you claim everything within 5 parsecs of a planet.

I say this because I really don't like the Influence borders as representations of imperial borders - no rational person is ever going to claim that a system that I never colonized or controlled and which was originally well outside of my area of influence is within my territory if someone else has well-established colonies there, and yet I can make the influence borders shift so that, based on the influence borders, that area is "mine" even if that area happens to be the home system of some other faction and I don't have a colony within 10 parsecs (note that this is a relatively extreme example - by no means do I expect this to be a common situation in any game where the human and computer players are reasonably well balanced against one another).

Additionally, having an internationally recognized standard border gives an interesting issue for United Planet votes - where should the border be drawn - and also provides a potentially interesting point of contention between players by allowing you to lay claim to areas of space in some official fashion, and it provides a way for the players to clearly communicate to others just how much of a safe zone they want to maintain around their worlds (presumably, the national claim would be presented somewhere in the diplomatic relations menu, and the internationally recognized limit would be presented either there or within the United Planets overview, or in both locations). Preferably there would also be some form of indication in the main map of where these borders happen to be, so that you don't need look into the diplomacy menu and then start counting tiles, and hopefully with a way to see both the national claim and the internationally recognized boundary (either at the same time, or switching between the two).

(fires shotgun) GET OFF MY LAWN YA DAMN ALIEN KIDS! 

Depends, on what you will give me, the more you throw at me (technology, money ect..) the more I'll beat my head against others before I eventually betray you for all your planets.

I will control the "Great Galactic Empire" races "Will tremble with fear when they see the destructive power of this battle station"

The Influence boarders are part of what goes into influence victories. If you build up a high amount of influence over much of the galaxy, you can win an influence victory. I don't remember what percentage of the galaxy it takes, but I think it is up in the 80s or 90s.

I hope someone can find where the different types of victories are explained. It should be in one of the databanks. The hows and whys of each should be illuminating reading.

I would like to have this diplomatic option. Just influence is not sufficient and not realistic in my humble opinion. I would also like to see that relations drop significantly if you cross other races' territory without their permission. Perhaps already if you park your fleet close to their border. It would also nice to have civilian ships such as in Distant Worlds.

Well, you know that a system that prevent any alien ship enter from your lawn is not realistic enough. Not everybody love to obey the rule even in our real world. There are a lot of trespassing to another countries border that happen in our real world. The only way to protect your lawn is by committing a force to guard it. So I think it was not the AI fault if they found a colony inside your Zone of Influence. You didn't put any force / presence to that planet. So if they stole it from you, it's your fault, not theirs.

But, I guess the system is still needed to be improved. Ok, you have committed a fleet on an empty planet. So how could your prevent the AI from building a colony inside your lawn, without shooting them down and wage a war with every AI in the game?

I guess the game need a feature that make your ship to capable of detaining the AI Ship. So you want a planet to be yours, put a patrol ship there. If the enemy comes inside your sphere of influence and arrived at that planet, you can warn them to get off or to be detained. The AI can choose, either they back off or escalate the conflict into a war. If you are weak, then, they can just ignore your warning and go inside. So it's up to you, to escalate the conflict or back off. If both party choose to escalate the conflict, then the area will become a conflicting zone, and i can be escalated into a full blown war if it can't be cooled down. In order for you to make the AI think twice before escalate the conflict, you need a strong military and / or maybe Allies; and the game diplomacy feature need to be enhanced.

This reminds me of Civilization 3 and 4. I like the 3 version better, so I can still walk up to cities and take them at the start of a war. The 4 version was annoying; because, U would either have to have a treaty to go into someone border or when u declared war all your forces were forced out of the territory. Influence, culture these r technicalities as far as I'm concerned. In dark Avatar I was playing the Yor fighting the Krunn with the Altarians getting in the way when they turned around and threatened to remove my ships, and I continued to attack the Krynn, and they declared war on me, so da had a way to do that.

I too would like to be able to "enforce" my borders (in some way that doesn't require me to actually patrol/defend every single millimeter) -- during peacetime, that is.  Obviously, it doesn't apply when you're at war with someone.  

Fully agree with Martok with this. I also concur with "Brainsucker" that trespassing should still be possible, but of course this shouldn't be without consequences, unless it concerns an ally.

I liked in when in GC2 the AI would signal to you when they noticed you building up an armada next to their borders or when crossing their systems with fleets. But this could be further enhanced in GC3 (e.g. diplomatic options).