Surrendering of civilizations

I disagree.  At a certain point, you are steamrolling and then it becomes a boring grind to churn out transport after transport to take planet after planet.

In GC2, the AI would snub you sometimes ... if you are steamrolling them and taking planet after planet, they'll surrender -- TO SOMEONE ELSE.  That was sooooo very snarky and trollsome!

Hitler may have waited until Berlin was surrounded, and so its true that might not be realistic, in terms of gameplay it just gets to be a grind.  Once you take an enemy AI capital, if their ships can't scratch yours and they haven't a sniff of a chance, I find it incredibly boring to try to have to take every last world.  Its just not fun.

This ruined my last game. 

We were 7 civilizations, several were at war with each other. 

One of the civs was under attack and I saw my chance to step in and take some planet. But some other race captured ONE of their 4 planets, and one round later they handed over their complete empire to them. They still had their homeworld. WTF?

The same happened over the next 10 turns to other civs. In the end we had 4 colors on the map. Me (33% of galaxy), and the others dividing the rest between them. I looked forward to the challenges to come. Next round - BAM - another civ gave up everything to the YOR. Some rounds later, next civ gave up everything to the YOR.

I get it. Its a drag conquering dozens of worlds when you have already clearly won, but taking ONE of their outback colonies shouldnt make them give up their homeworld.

Thats insane.

It costs a LOT of resources from my planets to conquer another planet (and if its only the 3-6 population and the transport). By giving up those civilizations hand their completely unharmed population and all fleets to the conqueror. He doesnt need to invade, he doesnt need to bring transports. Thats IMHO retarded AI behaviour.

To my mind, if there are another opinion to this situation. it will be better to program some option - if you dont want "surrenders", you must go to the preferences and push some option. But default it must be avalible.

Kyoss, if I was the AI and could see that while, yep, you've only taken Outworld V, you've got such a good armada, such good manufacturing etc at your disposal that my defeat is all just a matter of time. Now, I can either wait until the last minute and surrender my homeworld to my friends the Drengin for 50bc and safe passage or I can give them everything I own now for a lot more bc and safe passage to another galaxy.

All of the above predicated on money being transferred from the surrenderee to the surrenderer (never being in a position to make an AI surrender, have no idea if this actually happens - it'd be logical if it did).

If no bc changes hands I guess it's just the humiliation thing...Either reason for doing it, I think it's a realistic thing for the AI to do.

VladiMIRfRUS, Allow Surrenders was a gameplay option in GalCiv2 so it should be available in GalCiv3 at some point.

There is no such thing as realism or humiliation for an AI... what matters is that this mechanic is promoting bad gameplay and taking the challenge or fun right out of the window.

There's no point in having extra credits, or suing for peace when the condition is self-destruction or total loss of any power with no chance anymore to win the map. The AI should always try its best to win, and if it can't it should stall or delay the defeat at long as possible  - because you never know what kind of random stuff will happen, stuff that, at that point, no AI or human player could have anticipated at all.

Looking back at GC2 there I got the impression that surrendering to someone always requires some positive affinity, either from having the same ethical alignment or being friendly diplomatically, or helpful (not having a trust penalty) in the past. So if an evil civ rampaged the map and grow potentially strong the good might surrender to their stronger (near-)allies in order to be able to form a much greater resistance. Of course there was no guarantee that it happened always like this but if it did then such a mechanic actually prolonged the outcome of a map, thus making it more challenging. Right now th eopposite seems to be the case....

I remember when in GC2 everyone would surrender to the Thalans. By mid-game they would have like 1/2 of the map because they looked at someone funny... on the other side of the galaxy! It prolonged the game, but damn did it become a grind (especially on immense maps).

I agree that surrendering should be an option...like galactic events, it is potentially high impact but also out of your control, both of which point to something that needs an on/off switch...

It does seem that surrendering has some limitations....for example, the evil Drengin were able to surrender to the evil Yor in my last game, but when the Yor were almost beaten they didn't surrender, presumably because there was no one with the evil alignment (or friendly relations).....

Well I dont mind them surrendering. But it should be with a warning. In my current game the map had lots of colors and from turn 250 to 300 it all went purple (YOR).

That was no fun at all. They also didnt surrender to some ally or friendly partner, they all surrendered to the attacker (who was at war with about anyone except me at that point).

Seriously, the losing AI should at least ask me, the player, OR their allies something along those lines:

"We are getting obliterated by faction A, please assist us or we might have to surrender." 

a) Of course we help you (declare war on faction A) to help you.

Who cares, get lost.

Or the game should give me a warning.

Or a mission depending on my alignment: 

(if benevolent, donate them ships or resource, if pragmatic -> try to benefit from the war, if malevolent -> conquer the weaklings yourself, or place a bomb on the planets to explode after surrender )

Or or or. Just not, whoops, looks like they surrendered and you didnt get a warning (or even a message)

The only problem I've had with surrendering.... I was beating up one of the AIs, and rather than surrender to me it surrendered to one of the other AIs who was barely even attacking him!

Better yet I had a fairly new non-aggression pact with the guy who gained all the planets, so I had to sit there and wait a good long time before I could renew the war.

Just a tad annoying is all

Quoting JakeAlmighty, reply 9

 

The only problem I've had with surrendering.... I was beating up one of the AIs, and rather than surrender to me it surrendered to one of the other AIs who was barely even attacking him!

 

Better yet I had a fairly new non-aggression pact with the guy who gained all the planets, so I had to sit there and wait a good long time before I could renew the war.

 

Just a tad annoying is all

End of JakeAlmighty's quote

It makes sense in that case, though. The AI is surrendering to the guy who is beating on him less to spite the main aggressor. It's like a kingmaker. 

Nothing makes sense about his mechanic. It didn't make sense in GalCiv2, and they decided to keep it in and it still makes no sense. It's incredibly daft, and really a silly way to surrender.

"O, looks like I lost..." *picks random AI* "Here you go, have all my planets. Sure it might break your economy, but tough shit." "Excuse me what?.. O look, I've got new planets!??"

No, there is no argument that can be put forward that would explain how this is logical.

The only thing I can't stand is surrendering to a faction that they are not at war with.

That is like Germany surrendering to Switzerland in WWII.