Surrendering: What is the rationale???

The one thing I don't like with surrenering is that "Shock and Awe" doesn't work (poor Terrans, can't use USA legacy). If you quickly and painfully destroy enemy fleets, only thing that will happen is that they'll probably surrender to somebody else.

That's why I use different tactic:
-Fool enemy that he still has the chance
-Only destroy fleets on planets you'll invade in same turn
-with this, rarely more then 1-2 worlds have chance to surrender to someone else

Can this be an option to turn off? ... I've asked that some weeks ago. So far it's not possible. Would be be a good feature to be able to turn off surrenders to other ai (my opinion).

These surrenders are not really useful (in my case) to anyone:
- due to the disbanding of all ships it's even easier to take planets. i really don't care who's the new owner if it's a lvl15-planet with high bonus fields next to my lvl5 ...
- it's very likely that i'm not the only one interested in these planets => 1 surrender might leads to total chaos because the new owner might be attacked by several others. also questions sense of diplomacy system
- initially weakens the new owner because the ai tends to send fleets to his new colonies. the farer away from the homelands, the worse. (had it happen that the new owner moved his engineless fleets across the map while others were taking his planets)

Shock and awe has yet to produce any (positive) results in the here and now, so you could argue that that aspect of the game is quite realistic .

Nope, there is no option to turn surrender off. It'd be a nice feature, but I wouldn't use it. As for being irritated by it, it usually means your not properly preparing your wars. You usually give the enemy enough time to try and counter, but when it figures out it's a deadend, it surrenders. These can usually be evaded by either preparing your fleet much better, or asking a peace treaty when the race is at its last 2 planets or so.

As for Shock and Awe, I was able to utterly destroy the Iconians in one turn. But it took a lot of timing, 10 or so transports holding 3000 each and speeds or 25 persec, and a lot of generic ships. I can't really call it a success as I used all by transports and had to use mass drivers on the last planet (15->10) to ensure the Iconians didn't have time to respond.. Great game... Great game...

The rationale for surrender is the same as it has been historically, independants nations have become a vassal/protectectorate of a greater power to protect themselves from an agressor (or that greater power).

In theory this makes sense but unfortunately in practice in the game, as has been pointed out on this post, the AI often surrenders to an empire that is not in a position to defend them. Combine this with the fact that any surviving ships are disbanded it just makes the surrendering planets even easier to take.

If you are an aggressor, you have the transports there anyway you may as well use them before the planets become defended. You will still have time to send your warships off to the homeworlds of the empire they surrendered to before they can mobilise to counter you.

It doesn't do enough to discourage you from invading the planets anyway and nullifies the rationale for the empire surrendering to someone else.

Another point to remember is that your enemy may well surrender to somebody more powerful than yourself. You are then forced to pursue the war on them, if you want to 'cherry pick' their new planets.

I'd just like to say that if an empire would always surrender to you the game would be easyer.

I think it would be better if the AI only surrendered to civs that they shared a border with... I'm sure distance is already considered, but it needs to be made more important.

Or better yet, if other civ would refuse surrender if that means automatic hostility toward your civ.

It seems that the Civ would surrender to the civ closely related to it through culture, or actually negotiated a sovereign planet under the protection of a civ, whilst paying tribute.

I would like it if the surrenduring AI would transfer any remaining ships to the new owner. That would seem to be realistic..

I like the fact that I have now to make a choice of continuing my assault and turning it into a wider galactic war.

August 1914 anyone? Secret treaties anyone?

#3 by SephIock Monday, May 15, 2006 5:13 AM Trolling Insightful Shock and awe has yet to produce any (positive) results in the here and now, so you could argue that that aspect of the game is quite realistic .

Iraq fell like a House of Cards and will be a text book example of how to win an Invasion for years to come. The fact that we allowed most of the Iraqi Army to surrender rather than kill them (mercy...) and the surrounding nations are funneling in their terrorists by the thousands holds little interest for peopel who have been blathering Naysayers since before the USS Cole was attacked and the 1st Sanction was placed against Iraq.

Maybe we do agree, however.... Shock and Awe when combined with Mercy and Half measures do NOT work.

Shock and Awe should not result in the invaded Empire surrendering their assets INSTANTLY to another Empire that they had no prior Alliance with. If the neighboring Empire wishes to come to the assistance of the doomed Empire, let them send Ships and/or ask for a Resolution in the UN (I mean Federation). This part of the game is just plain annoying. It is the AI cheating IMHO.

If you want to make it difficult then have the Neighbor Empire Declare War or threaten War if your Fleet doesn't withdraw but please get rid of this tactic.


At the end of the Iraq war, many Iraq Pilots and Planes flew to Iran (those that weren't burried under the sand for later use). Iraq also sent other items to other nearby "Empires" (Does WMD ring a bell?). They did not and could not suddenly cause their Empire to become part of Russia or France and thus stop an invasion in its tracks. Assets could and should be stripped and sent to other Empires. Last minute Alliances could and should be formed. Desperate tactics should be employed but a cheating AI tactic should not be used.

Iraq fell like a House of Cards and will be a text book example of how to win an Invasion for years to come. The fact that we allowed most of the Iraqi Army to surrender rather than kill them (mercy...) and the surrounding nations are funneling in their terrorists by the thousands holds little interest for peopel who have been blathering Naysayers since before the USS Cole was attacked and the 1st Sanction was placed against Iraq.




I must point out that a successful invasion would already have quelled the rising violence in iraq... but lets not debate on this, we're on Galactic Civ forums, so please.

Thanks

that being said, i do think the ai surrenders a bit chaotically, especially since they always give me their ressource starbases as tribute... but this can be most likely worked on for future patches

I dont know about the surrender being a bad thing. It seems to me that they surrender to the lesser of two evils. I know I was part of a three way alliance my tow allies were aggressively attacking another race while I stayed behind them going for the tech victory. When things got ugly the losing faction surrendered to me. Reminded me of the Germans who tried to surrender to the Allies rather than the Russians. I mean I had excelent diplomacy and was respected by all and was a "good" race. Perhaps it makes sense for them to surrender to me? Or maybe it was chance and I am giving the AI to much credit?

For a good civ you get a special wonder that is suppose to help civs surrneder to you...darn..cant remember the name..if its the Empathic wonder or not...so far though..after having built it..I have yet to see it help much. Alot of times on surrender though..you can tell from the text, that the civ you are attacking surrenders to another power just to spite you. And IMHO, it seems like they always pick the one that I would prefer at that time, not to attack. While annoying, I can understand it, as it could be deemed a last ditch effort to spite me lol.

I don't understand why don't those other civs refuse that if they are your friends, since they know that it would lead to future blodshead.

Surrender to someone else only makes sesne, if that other civ is either powerful, but neutral with you, or if not so powerful, but wary or hostile towards you.

Your friends should not accept surrender from your enemies.

Two thoughts here.

1) If an AI is going to surrender to an invading force, a 'scorched earth' policy should be implemented. That is, the surrendering AI should scuttle all defensive ships in orbit and in space, cancel all Trade agreements, set all starbases to self destruct, demolish all planetary improvements and have the fleeing government abscond with all the credits in the treasury.

2) If an AI is going to surrender to a Non-invader, they should, depending on the difficulty level, gift all surviving ships and starbases, continue any routes between current trading partners and the new regime (excluding those that were with that new regime), surrender all planetary enhancements, release all tech advances to the new regime and donate the empires treasury.

#2 should be modified by the difficulty level so as not to provide too great an advantage to the Player who might be the beneficiary of this.

#2 can be modified by not only the Difficulty level, but also by alignment and Diplomatic relations state between the two AI Civs so as to further limit this as determined by Devs/playtesting.

Cheers,
Reaver

And IMHO, it seems like they always pick the one that I would prefer at that time, not to attack. While annoying, I can understand it, as it could be deemed a last ditch effort to spite me lol.

Hmmmm. Kinda like a REAL player, eh?

Cheers,
Reaver

demolish all planetary improvements


This should probably lead to military coup and then surrender.

The AI surrenders are hard to figure.

In a weekend game, the Drath and the Iconians surrendered to civs that were kicking their ass while the Korx surrendered to the goodie two shoes Iconians while I was kicking Korx's ass.

It was all going to boil down to the two strongest, the Drengi and me and I had a small power lead. It would have been logical for the 2 neutral civs to merge with me and the Korx to merge with the Drengi. This would have created a fairly balanced game.

Some people complained about the AI caving in too early and so the game was changed and now it seems that no one surrenders to the human player. The law of unintended consequence strikes again. The surrenders should have to do with similar ethics and diplomacy or who is winning the war, not "anybody but the human player".

As usual the war monger gamers are starting to dominate this game and I suppose that is to be expected since they are the majority.

I have played my last big map. I just don't have the patience to take out every single planet. I like some war mixed into my games but in the end, when the issue is no longer in doubt, I want an influence victory or a quick surrender.

In the aforementioned game I had 5 fully loaded (nerfed) influence mines, (3 of which I took by conquest and not rush) and I had no chance of a reasonably quick influence victory without spamming the galaxy with shopping malls.

I don't really like diplomatic victories but the evil Drengi were close to neutral me so I allied just to end it out of total bordom.

On the regular difficulties and with proper diplomacy you can wipe out any lesser civilization in a single turn. Build enough troop transports to take every planet they own, and park them 1 turn away from the worlds you plan on taking. If your ships are too slow, the AI will see through this tactic, usually you need to have speeds of 12 parsecs/week or better. Next, open up the trade window and buy all of their ships. Offer them every tech you have (minus soldiering techs) all the trade goods, and your influence points, etc. Once you've purchased all their ships, just invade each world and keep your new navy. (Yes this is super cheesy, but diplomacy in general needs an overhaul anyway)

Alternatively, you can buy all their ships, but not invade and sometimes the AI thinks it's done for because they have no ships and they surrender. This works especially well if you're good because often they surrender to you. You do run the risk of them giving away your techs though, so it's easier to just invade each of their worlds.

Yeah, the 'buy all their stuff, then invade' tactic is pure cheese taking advantage of an obvious AI flaw. This should be addressed asap by making sure the AIs don't sell off all their warships (I mean, what PLAYER would do that), just like they won't sell weapons tech to you now if you are already way ahead of them.

I would only sell outdated stuff that I have already surpassed in building, like ships I didn't upgrade due to cost. So why would an AI?

I wouldn't sell off all my fleets, reducing my Military Might to 0, while increasing someone elses to Their MM + My MM. So why would an AI?

I have seen the AI do some smart things at the lower levels and some dumb things as well, but certain things should'nt happen at all on the higher levels of difficulty.

Cheers,
Reaver

by Franco fx Monday, May 15, 2006 12:34 PM : "As usual the war monger gamers are starting to dominate this game and I suppose that is to be expected since they are the majority. I have played my last big map. I just don't have the patience to take out every single planet."

I totalllee agree. This forum is too dominated by warmongers.

I hope that Brad Wardell will consider, for GC 2's expansion CD, that a significant minority of his customers are less aggressive civ-builders and role-playing gamers.

Amazing!! They will sell all their ships but they won't sell a resource mine for 100,000bc and a half dozen high pq planets. Go figure.

I think that unless the code is set to zero (mining starbases) the AI puts too much value on cash since they seem to rush buy almost everything. The price for rush buying anything but basic improvements should be raised and there should be some bonuses to decrease the cost of upgrading ships.

I'm really getting into this change thing

you can wipe out any lesser civilization in a single turn

Yes you can but cheese aside let's say you are playing on a huge/gigantic map and the AI has 30+ planets. You need to build 40-50 transports that will deplete your population by 50mil (okay so far). This will probably take at least 5-6 turns (okay so far). Then you need to calculate how long it will take to get the transports into position. This will take maybe 3-4 turns. That's not a problem but it will take me how long to plan that maneuver? It would probably take me an hour of planning. Maybe I am slow but this is just too tedious for me. If you don't do the cheese part you must spend weeks (20-30 minimum) clearing out the defenses and that's assuming that you can afford to send irrisistable force to all planets simultaneously.

I am sure that some are fine with that style of play and many would not waste their time playing my impatient style but somewhat plodding style. I am not saying my way is right but the current build works against my long term enjoyment of the game.

Hmm, well I guess you could declare war on them, and knock them down to about 10-15 planets, then annex 1-2 planets in the peace treaty. Then it would be easy to build just a few transports and buy their remaining warships (which they won't have many of) and do the cheese strategy of buying all their ships so they don't surrender.

To be honest, your complaint is totally legitimate, and I hope they rethink the AI a little bit here. One of the other things I've found while messing around with the game is that if you set your autosave to every 2 turns, you can just reload the game and they'll possibly surrender to a different civilization, sometimes you. You can also reload the game when a civilization declares war on you and sometimes they won't when you reload. It seems like those events are random. I don't recommend it because it's cheesy and it ruins your production for a turn, but it was one of those funny things I discovered when poking at the limits of the game.