Before & After the battle

A few things that I'd like to comment / ask questions on about what happens before and after battle:

1. When AI threatens me (extorts money/tech) from me to "let me live", I don't see where I can do this right back at them. Sometimes I'm not that interested in going after a weaker opponent, but want to keep them in their place & make some $$ off them. How can I do that?

2. When the AI attacks me, it's so nice that they give me warning. It's always 2-5 turns in advance of when ships will start arriving, giving me time to prepare and defend. This seems counter-productive. I mean, why give me a warning? If they're going to give me a warning, then I should have to give them one. But I don't see where I can.

3. How to stop the AI from going to war with you when they "misread" the situation. I was preparing to attaack the strongest AI player in a Tough game and another nearby AI decided that all my transport ships were meant for them, so he declared war. I'd really like a way to assuage them that this is not the case. FFS, the ships weren't even close to any of his planets (and the AI whose planets I was going to attack didn't utter a peep)

4. This whole "I give up and am getting even by surrendering to another AI" is stupid! This frustrates me to no end. I mean, I've got the upper hand and they give their planets to an AI that I really don't want to tackle at the moment. I had this happen again & again throughout a game and it got really old. The game needs to be changed so they either surrender to me, or die trying.

5. If an AI attacks me and I am playing defensively, why does it surrender when I never attacked it? Or worse (see #4), it gives it's planets to another race???

6. When a battle is going badly, the AI will ask what will it take to end the war. It basically offers up all the tech it has and I can take all I want (unreal on how much it is willing to give up), but nothing prevents me from back-stabbing them after getting all this tech and continuing the battle anyway. There should be a minimum # of turns before you can attack again.

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1. You can try demanding money from them by not offering anything in return for what they give, but I don't think it works to well. Othertimes, I've had races just appear with bribes for me to collect without my prompting for being a huge military power. They say influence, but its more than obvious that they are saying "please don't crush us."

2. Not to defend the AI, sometimes it is rather bad about the whole, "surprise attack" thing. However, I've had AI attack me and then by the time their ships hit my influence, they've built a coilition of some 3 civs working to take me out. It can get a bit close when one race is trashing your trade routes while others are sending in the invasion fleet.

3. If the AI misreads the situation, that's their fault, not yours. If they want to declare war on you because you've got some undefended transports, that's their business. Of course, they're also probably factoring the other civ's war with you into how much you can take on. Still, the AI does like to overestimate its capibilities, even on intelligent.

4. Lets put it this way, when you invade a planet its entire tax base comes and fights you. Everybody. Basically, if you take all their planets by force it means that their species is wiped out from the universe. If they surrender, I see it more as a defensive partnership and as a way to screw you later in the game. If the terrans surrender to the Torians after I've taken everything but Sol, the population at Earth stays the same, and I'm assuming they just don't morph into freakish ET's. (No offense meant to any actual torians)

5. I think this can happen when its also fighting a war against another AI that you can't see. The surrender announcement goes to everybody, so its not always your fault.

6. The surrender/extortion thing happens in many tbs games, this is no exception. I'm not sure if their are diplomatic repricussions with other races when you declare war on a race in rapid succession, but they would act as a nice prevention method for abuse...

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Every time I read a complaint about how someone is angry that the Ai will surrender to a 3rd party, I am amused. I have had the AI surrender to me, and I have had the AI surrender to a 3rd party. I think that its a good thing that the AI will surrender to 3rd parties. The AI has no reason to accomodate the desires of the party that is attacking them. And I like the whole scorched earth philosophy that it promotes.

If you want to avoid having the AI surrender to someone else, the best way to do it is to occasionally offer peace to them, which will give you a bit of time to move your transports in closer, and probably extort some tech from them. Also, the AI will usually only surrender to someone they are on good terms with. So pay off some other civ's to attack them. Alternatively, before you attack them, pay them off to attack someone else.

Anyway, think about it. If your playing the Dregin and slamming the Torians into the ground, they probably arent going to surrender to you if you can help it.

END COMMUNICATION

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I think of it as the other civ has just entered a 'protectorship agreement' with the civ they surrendered to. It makes perfect sense to preserve their civilization and pi$$ you off at the same time.

If you are building your fleet up and don't want to worry one of your neighbors, start giving them gifts to get your relations up to 'friendly' with them. By the same token, if you have another civ that is getting hammered by a mutual enemy give them whatever it takes (and that you can spare) to help them withstand the onslaught.

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I once surrendered to the Altarians by accident. The game was getting stuttery and wasn't registering clicks immediately, and I didn't notice that it had put "surrender" down there. What I meant to do was give them money to help them fight the Drengin. ugh....

If they only have a couple of planets left, make peace. Then move your transports as close as possible to their worlds and take them out with a massive sneak attack. I've done that to the Drengin twice. Or find the best planets, the ones with percursor mines or 300% research bonus or whatever and sneak up on them. You don't want their crappy PQ4 planets anyway.

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