The AI surrendered just to screw me, gah, help

from GalCiv2 Forums
Version 1.0x.1 //Huge galaxy Masochistic 7 oppenents

I'm doing the best I'd ever done on this setting. Holding my own. All powers about equal with maybe 2 races a little behind and the Yor a little ahead. About 4 years in I think I might be able to pull this off.

The weakest AI decides to surrender to the Yor (not sure why really, didn't look that bad). I'm like, OK, wow, going to be tough now. Next turn, the what was 2nd to last weakest civ says something like "Yor way to powerful for us, we can't resist them" and surrender. Now I know I can't win but I hit next turn. Same thing thing happens to another civ. Now like half the map is purple. A hopeless cause.

It's as if there were 3 civ's right on the edge of surrendering. Then as 1 civ surrendered the Yor became just powerful enough to scare another, and then another, and then me. A cascade effect. Bummer to instantly lose in 4 turns after thinking I was doing so well the last 3.5 hours.

Now, is this normal, did I honestly lose because I screwed up somewhere (if so need some advice), a bug, or did I just get very unlucky?
6,242 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Conceivably the Yor could have captured a Hall of Empathy from another race (it's a good tech so they couldn't have built it themselves), which would have boosted the odds that the surrenders went to them.

But it was probably just bad luck.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Bad luck? Go buy a lottery ticket, and let's see.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
not bad luck..

Frogboy and co. have definatly put something in the AI to make it vindictive and spiteful when surrendering...

last game I played everyone surrendered to the Torians... I figured it was cause thier influence was higher...
this game I boosted my influence to ensure I would get the benefit... and no the one surrender so far was the Dregin.. (i build a 4 way alliance dogpiling on them) and they go and surrender to the Drath who only had 1 class 5 planet... (crappy start for them and I'd already flipped their homeworld) who I was just about to take out so I could grab thier resources when I defeated them.

Royally pissed me off as the Drath got like 20 planets and made my little resource grab that I badly needed, ( an econ, and military resource) impossible... I ended having to buy them with a pile of obsolete ships
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Frogboy and co. have definatly put something in the AI to make it vindictive and spiteful when surrendering...


I've seen the vindictiveness. When I am about to whipe someone out they surrender not to me but to whom ever will cause me the most grief. So why did they all surrender to the aggressive most powerful Yor? They should have wanted to spite them. I'm not sure but I don't think 1 or 2 of them was even at war with the Yor.

I wasn't at war with anyone BTW, just hostile to Yor and Drengin.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sucks that happened nothing you could have done would have helped. However when you want to conquer another empire, don't give it the opportunity to surrender. Make sure you can take all the planets in one turn and spite the AI right back.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The AI purposely tries to mess you up. The AI doesn't lose graciously.....if your winning then the 1 team that you certainly don't want to get stronger will get the benefits. Thats why I use In fluence to win. I had a "Yor Incident" in my last game which was funny as I had 3 planets in 1 system and piled all my ships on the uber 26 tile planet. The Yor went after the 2 other planets and would fight and take both and they BOTH would literally flip back to me in 1-2 turns so they had to keep retaking them which was laughable. I had a restaurant of eternity on an influence boosting tile so I was unstoppable.

Other winning methods seem to result in an opponent gettung too much benefit from my work. With Influence if they surrender its normally down to their starting planet which I will assimilate as soon as they surrender anyways.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've found that some empires spite you others, like the drengin, surrender to you when you're on the verge of totally crushing them.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
blitzcreig is the way to go the more powerful and quick you take their planets the larger the percentage that they will surrender to u rather than someone else
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just curious, has anyone ever actually had an ally who you had good relations with surrender to you when another race was about to beat them, because as far as i've seen this never happens.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I believe the ethical alignment of the the race that is attacking vs that of the attakee has something to do with it. Certain alignments prefer to surrender to other certain alignments. I think nutral and good prefer good, and evil will do anything to to turn good. Of course, I could be wrong on that.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The problem is with how they created the AI - it doesn't model human 'diplomacy' very well. Imagine you'd been playing a multiplayer game. One player is defeated. Would he surrender to the Yor just to spite somebody else? Probably - if he has a vengeful personality. Is it likely that three players would do this? Not really. The game needs to model this. The AI should reflect different human personalities. Here is how it should be:

-Some AI's tend to give up easily. They will surrender to their conqueror.

-Some AI's tend to give up easily as well, but hate their conqueror and will do everything to harm him. They surrender to the conqueror's worst enemy.

-Some AI's NEVER give up. They will fight to the death even if the situation is completely hopeless.

-Some AI's are roleplayers. They will surrender to civilizations that share their ethical alignment, political alignment or something else (you get the picture).
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
happened to me just once.. and only once
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just curious, has anyone ever actually had an ally who you had good relations with surrender to you when another race was about to beat them, because as far as i've seen this never happens.


Yes, this just happened to me. The Torians were being slowly conquered by the Drengin, I was on their other front and had been occasionally gifting them worthless stuff.. I didn't want them to win but I wanted their worlds. It worked and they ended up surrendering to me after awhile.

I keep a constant eye on relations and have no shame about giving people stuff if they start to sour on my empire. I am everybody's friend right up until I stab them in the back.