Hi. We're always happy to answer noob questions.

Unfortunatly, the diplomacy system doesn't allow you to threaten the other civs. You can't demand things like money and other things (you can only politely request), though they can threaten you. If you really want a foriegn starbase gone, you can either destroy it (and start a potientally long and costly war; do this if you have a good military), or you can be more diplomatic, and buy it. You should have good diplomatic skills and a LOT of money. Civs can charge a lot for handing over a starbase, because of their potiential power. Hope this helps.

In earlier versions of Galciv you could park a ship near a starbase you want gone, then surround that ship with more of your own vessels, but leave open a path via the starbase then sell it to a race that is at war with the starbase owner and it will kill the starbase when it tries to return home. Nowdays such ships generally stedfastly refuse to kill the starbase in this situation, the way the pathfinding works now, prevents that from happening.

So you could do the whole selling an offending starbase to the AI civ? Say I'm the Terrans and I park a influence starbase in deep Yor territory, someplace not really useful to me. They say 'I want it gone', I say 'sure, pay me 300bc.'

Think it'll work?

How much does a Constructor cost?

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!

You can't really threat, only request. The "threat" response is likely only dialouge.

GeneralEtrius -

I agree that the dialogue the player sees may or may not seem threatening, but that was not my point.

Try this:

1) Early in a game, or in an existing game where you are not yet the dominant power, note where you are in the relations meter with a race, then

2) Try what I said above, select  BC amount and hit send

3) See what their reaction is on the screen

4) See if the meter moved any

There may or may not be any move in #4 right away, but their response will generally be something like "You do not have the power to enforce your demand" - - SOunds like they think they were threatened.

I may have to try it when I am the dominant race.  Maybe also try it on some minor races.

Wellll, if you consider that the words of diplomats, including promises and threats, are w/o value, then the situation is the same both for the AI and you. 

In most games, unless i jump early to elevate my military rating, I will get random threats.  In some cases, I cannot even see the enemy planets, but have encountered only a scout.  Heck, in one game I wanted to test something (unrelated to this) and specified which races were in the game and their starting attitudes.  In that game, i was threatened by races I had not even met yet.  Those threats are just shake-down attempts.

I doubt seriously that the AI modifies its behavior in terms of where it builds what if it is not actually at war with you.