1. actually... if you want them to surrender to you just load up on the previous turn and reend the turn... they surrender to a different empire every time, after a couple of time of performing that they will surrender to you.

2. Yes human players do that on multiplayer... and its an entirely artificial mechanic to do and quite crazy from the immersion point of view... When the nazies invaded poland they didnt surrender to russia, when the nazies invaded france they didnt surrender to the USA. when the japanese were bombed by the USA with nukes they didnt surrender to china... The whole notion of surrendering to someone you are not at war with when an opponent is about to take you over is INSANE and SHOULD have consequences... thats the whole issue here, that the AI acts like a vindicative human GAMER (in a gimmicky attempt to seem human) instead of like a realistic space empire.

I would expect good empires to be much more concerned about their citizens and be more willing to surrender to save their people (ie, if you bomb lots of planets) and evil civilization leaders to be utmostly concerned with themselves (ie, if you conquer their home planet there is a chance of capturing their leader and forcing a surrender)

3. There needs to be a mechanic for refusing a surrender for both human players AND AI. I wouldn't want to accept the surrender of an enemy of my close allies either... Actually, if something like that happened I would like to have the option of "betraying" the surrendering party and turning their planets over to my ally... actually, it should be standard (ie, when a civ surrenders to you when its in war with another civ the conquerer civ should demand that you turn over the spoils of war)

Of course, Poland didn't surrender to Russia. But it was the attack on Poland that made England finally declare war on Germany. And today all different nations station troops in foreign countries for mutual defense and so on. I see the surrendering more like hoping to survive under the protection of a stronger race. Like protectorates in Rome, Greece etc. Civilizations didn't stop to exist, but they lived on under the law of their new "owner".What I would like therefore is that the race surrendered to gets at least the ships of the surrendering race. Maybe the money too - don't know what imbalances that could bring in certain circumstances. But you would have had to fight those ships anyway if they hadn't surrendered.
It would be realistic when the surrendering race would than emerge again at some point when they think they are up to the threats again - but that would be to complicates to implement in the game I think and it would get to complex with races "leaving" and reappearing on the map all the time. And their protectors could chose to not let them go anyway.
Maybe surrendering to another force is not realistic in our days/world, but this a game afterall - and a sci-fi game.

At some point it just has to stop being realistic and act more like a game. Creating a world that's realistic to the last detail is -at least right now- impossible to simulate. There would be more issues than just the surrender to deal with than. You just have to set a cut-off point for the gamemechanics.

This one game I was playing, the Iconian built a influence starbase outside of my homeworld, I had a big population and had kinda neglected moral, and they kept upgradeing it so it was haveing a bad effect on me, I saw they wernt that powerful, and they were right beside me, so I thought what the hell, Ill eat there planets, I attacked and destroyed the starbase, and they immediaty surrenderd (like 15+ planets) to the Torians (the most powerful race in this peticular game) I had been protected from them (Torians) cause they were on the other side of the gigantic galaxy, but the surrender put them right on my doorstep, I was like "HOLY SH!T!!!" needless to say, my stratagy immediatly did a 180 degree flip to survival mode lol, that was a fun game

ST

1. actually... if you want them to surrender to you just load up on the previous turn and reend the turn... they surrender to a different empire every time, after a couple of time of performing that they will surrender to you.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese

Actually, if something like that happened I would like to have the option of "betraying" the surrendering party and turning their planets over to my ally

You do have that option. Just trade the new planets to whoever you like.

I had an idea similar to the one in that thread posted above. They surrender to you, but rather than simply being absorbed, they still exist as a puppet state.

They automatically vote your way in the UP.
They keey keep whatever warships survived the war and can continue to build new ones. They go to war or not depending on what you tell them to do. If somebody attacks either of you, both of you are automatically at war with the attacker.
You get a big cut of their income (assuming they have any).
You get all techs they've researched that you haven't. If they research something new, you get that as well.
When "trading", they automatically give you whatever you ask for, with nothing in return.

I don't know how difficult that would be. Seems like it would be nothing more than a few tweaks to the trading screen.

Lol, there should be an option "I surrender to the UP", and there would be a motion voted about dividing the spoils of war...

I don't understand the AI surrender logic at all. I was playing as the Altarians and built a Hall of Empathy. Later on in the game the Torians surrendered to the Drengin. First of all, given the backstory, I would have thought that the Torian AI would be programmed to never surrender to the Drengin. Second, I would like a little information about why one civ surrenders to another.

It's simple, when your not playing the campaign the AI surrenders because the AI makes a quick computing calculation and the result is that it will never be able to conquer you or any other race. Most of the time the AI surrenders when it has virtually nothing left either by someone's influence or conquest upon them. Usually, I suspect when the AI sais that they had the best offer by someone else and so they surrender to them, it's because either they were at war with them or they got converted via influence and in any case it had no chance.

I had two races surrender to me in my current game. One was an ally, we were fighting an enemy and he just gave up and suurendered to me. Later, I was fighting another civ and they surrendered to me.

I liked this and both surrenders felt logical at the time.

the problem is that the surrender is arbitrary and doesn't take into account your relationship with the race to which they surrender. The whole protectorate idea doesn't take into account the ability of the other race to stand up to you.

Nations surrender so that their people be spared. This is nothing but a cheesy mechanic to make the AI look more human by making it do something that is very annoying that certain human players do out of spite because they know its a game. The key here is HUMAN PLAYERS DO IT BECAUSE ITS A GAME. An AI shouldn't act like "this is just a game", it should act like its real aliens concerned with their survival. The only reason for the AI do treat it as a game is if you are playing a multiplayer game...

Interesting. I like where this thread is going. I am curious what will be done in regards to this thread.....

It seems funny that, for example, empire a surrenders to empire b, and empire b get's full control over that empire even if empire b has never even seen empire a, I think that would have to send troops and ships to the new planets to set up a government. So I think that you could prevent the surrendering empire from surrendering by barricading the empire from everyone else and then slowly take apart the dying empire and completly capture it.

I think it works well now. However, I do not believe that a Civ on the brink of extinction should be allowed to surrender to a Civ who we all know will just exterminate them after their surrender. A Civ surrendering to the Yor for example. We all know they hate flesh bags and will kill them all once they raise the white flag. I would rather see them fight to the last planet, instead of skipping past the executioner, grabbing a smoke and blindfold, putting his head on the chop block of a guillotine and kicking the release lever himself.

Surrendering to a friendly, allied or ethical Civ should be the rule of thumb here.

I have always hated the surrender mechanic, it should be an option you can turn off, like in SEIV's no surrender option.

Often times i've had games where AI's are surrendering left and right without even waging much war. I pick the number of civ's in a game to be high for a reason, if they all start surrendering without much of a fight, it takes some of the fun out of it from my point of view.

-EDIT

Reading through on this topic and this idea:
https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=162&aid=109724

Is similiar to crusader kings method of surrendering (a paradox EU2 clone), take a look if you haven't already.

Yes, surrendering to someone who would massacre you makes no sense, or someone whom is out of range of your ships. How exactly do they manage that. Personally I would GREATLYY appreciate a no surrender option, and even more a REASONABLE surrender script. (but at least a no surrender option)

For that matter, atomatically accepting a surrender doesn't make sense either... If I was the yor i'd rather annihilate all them fleshbags then accept them as citizens of the empire.

They shouldn't surrender to their Allies AT ALL.

Really now. In World War 2, when Hitler took Paris, did the French say "Fuck it - England, you take our tanks and guns and fight our war, we're going to to Galapagos for a few months. Let us know how it turns out."?

Doesn't the term 'surrender' mean 'giving up to your enemy' anyway?

What the crap.

the problem is that the surrender is arbitrary and doesn't take into account your relationship with the race to which they surrender. The whole protectorate idea doesn't take into account the ability of the other race to stand up to you. Nations surrender so that their people be spared. This is nothing but a cheesy mechanic to make the AI look more human by making it do something that is very annoying that certain human players do out of spite because they know its a game. The key here is HUMAN PLAYERS DO IT BECAUSE ITS A GAME. An AI shouldn't act like "this is just a game", it should act like its real aliens concerned with their survival. The only reason for the AI do treat it as a game is if you are playing a multiplayer game...

The AI behave like that beacause like real aliens, they do care about their survival. Faced with utter extermination, they will naturally crawl to another power for protection.

This does happen in history aswell, when the city of Thessaloniki was besieged by the Ottomans, they actually surrendered to Venice, placing themselves under a Venitian governer in order to survive.

did the French say "Fuck it - England, you take our tanks and guns and fight our war, we're going to to Galapagos for a few months. Let us know how it turns out."?

Pretty much, yes.

Okay, this a surrender story...
I am Terran and #1 civ in all graphs (military, econ, etc)
The Torians are #2 and the Dreng #3. The Dreng actually have the best ships, that is the best weapons and defense... and Toria and the Dreng are at war...
But it is a "phony", no battles or invasions yet...
And for no reason I could figure, the Dreng surrender to thier enemy the Torians !!!
(I had many spyships and was closely monitoring the situation)
I do admit it spiced up the game, the Torians became my main opponet and did put up
a pretty good fight (but I won !!)
It just did not feel right (the surrender)

it never feels right, because it makes no sense whatsoever.

and no, i am pretty sure the french surrendered to the GERMANS not the ENGLISH!

I have a game where the Torians surrendered to the Drengin (but well, to be honest, theyd probably suffer a worse fate in my hands, but they got conquered anyway ). Thats annoying yes, but I find it easy to make peace with the AI too. Often I can cancel the most crucial war with just including some tech or two that doesnt really help the AI.