I disagree that Stellar Manipulation (WPO, Warp point opening) should be altered in any way.
SE IV prior to WPO could be compared to World War I. It is essentially a trench war. Everybody tries to defend choke points as good as possible. Sometimes the enemy gets through, sometimes not. You can always fall back or have additional lines of defense.
When WPO comes into play that all changes. Static defenses are useless, mobility is the key (WW II, tanks, Blitzkrieg). What's so bad about it? It's a great thing to break stalemates and deal out some serious (if not lethal) damage to your enemy. You have to adjust to that and make use of it, instead of thinking how to change it.
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originally posted by Magus38:
This has bothered me for some time actually, I am surprised that it has not been as issue before as it is so obviously destructive to strategy. All you can do in such a situation is react.
If you find this so destructive to strategy, why don't you make it part of your strategy and disrupt your opponents plans?
Honestly, if can grow a healthy empire and wage war against your enemy with "conventional methods", while diverting some resources to develop and build WPO (not to mention another fleet to send through) then you have done well and deserve to win. Just don't put too much into stellar manipulation or your enemy will crush you before you ever opened one warp point
. IMHO, this is one of the great aspects of the game. No need to change it. There doesn't have to be a counter measure (gravity well device) for everything in the game, let alone a counter measure against the counter measure (Intel project to destroy gravity device).
If both sides have the ability to do this and send a hundred base ships through. Well great, than we have nuclear war. No defenses, no survivors, mutual destruction assured, the end of all (Maybe, it's time to make peace and talk arms reduction?
).
Just my opinion,
Rollo