Why does the AI always surrender.... to another AI?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm still a little new at this game, but I've noticed that whenever I go to war and start successfully invading alien planets, the AI always surrenders before I can conquer their last planet (or two).

Basically, once they're undeniably beaten, they give their planets to another AI. The only AI player that has fought "to the death" has been the Altarians.

Is this normal? It's kind of annoying, but at the same time, I see the logic in it. If you're crushing one civ, it makes sense for the game to make the next one a little harder to beat. So, I'm not really complaining... I'll just have to learn to coordinate my attacks better, in order to conquer all the enemy's planets in one turn.
12,597 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've had the AI surrender to me a few times. It's not common though.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The AI will sometimes surrender to you. I play against 9 AI opponents, so it has lots of choices and rarely surrender to me. The Luck race attribute might affect the probability of them surrendering to you.

If you have a high influence bonus from starbases mining multiple influence resources, you could take over all their high PQ planets (10+) in 1 or 2 turns and then make peace. Then grow you population and influence on those captured planets and watch the remaining ones revolt to you. In my current game I'm playing I get a new planet or two each turn from planetary revolts.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It depends on alignment and your relations. I've had more-or-less friendly civs give their planets to me when we're both up against a stronger enemy. (Needless to say, I wasn't too thrilled, because these planets are almost always closer to our mutual enemy than me. I typically let them get what they originally had coming or trade them to the enemy as a peace offering.) On the whole, though, it does seem to be more common for another AI to get the lucky offering.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have had them surrender to me a few times but very rarely.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
in a 10 person game i usualy get atleast 1 ai to surrender to me before the end
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I got tired of the ai surrendering to others also, so I just try to time it when they get low on planets(4 or 5) I Blitz the rest in one turn. Gives them no choice.  
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does the AI ever surrender to you if you're at war with it? I thought it always surrendered to a friendly or neutral race. (Same with AI vs AI).

I've had the AI surrender to me before when it was losing a war with someone else...frankly it's a bit of a pain - suddenly you're fighting a war on two fronts with a bunch of isolated and undefended planets!
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The surrender system is just broken. I know everyone harps on about the secret hidden depths of the amazing surrender decisions... but all *I* see is someone starting a war, me jumping in YEARS later and contributing little (maybe capturing a few planets, slaping some fleets around etc), then the sap calls me up and says 'lolz we own you by surrendering to those guys that we really hate but haven't actually made any progress into our space! YOU LOSE!'.

Clearly, the way to get surrendered to is to suck at war. If you're successful, and you take many planets, smash their fleets... they'll surrender to someone else to 'spite' you (hiliariously, the surrender goes though INSTANTLY, so the target planets will now be owned by one of your allies with no chance to just interdict the handover with your MASSIVE FLEETS and BILLIONS OF TROOPS. LAAAAAAME). If you suck (like the AI does), you'll have a longterm war with little change in planets, and if someone else joins in they'll surrender to you. Because they're like battered wives who love you because you hit them. Remember: surrender is instant, you instantly have control, there are no surrender negotiations, you can't say no if they surrender to you, and it can easily drag you into conflict with another ally. FANTASTIC. It doesn't help that the trade system is broken, so the AI won't 'swap planets' even if the swap gives them better planets, closer to them, with more improvements. Why? Because it's broken.

I bet it's based on the broken 'military rating' that leads the AI to attacking people who can outproduce them many times over and expecting to win. Next to that, the instant surrender button is minor.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've had an AI I was at war with surrender to me...they said something like "we are totally owned by you, we surrender". Basically he was down to 0 ships and his home system, with my transports knocking on his door.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The Hall of Empathy galactic achievement (Good only) doubles the odds that aliens will surrender to you. You can only build it after you have researched "Concepts of Righteousness"
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The surrender system is fine. You have to actually *do* something to get aliens to surrender to you. Seems reasonable to me. If you build the Hall of Empathy (good alignment only), form an alliance just before they give up, and bribe them a bit, a race will surrender to you with pretty much 100% probability. The better strategy, as stated before, is to jump in there when a race gets attacked by another and take all their planets before they can surrender or lose them to the attacking race. I use the surrender system when my military is not powerful enough to conquer a race in one turn, but after that, I use the latter strategy.

For those that think aliens shoud surrender to *you* after you've destoryed their military, all I can say is there's no basis on reality here. The surrender system works the way the game designers intended it. I doubt it's going to change. I don't have a problem with that myself.

I've never actually tried to get a race to surrender to me through the surrender item in the trade panel so I can't comment on that.

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've never actually tried to get a race to surrender to me through the surrender item in the trade panel so I can't comment on that


I did, big mistake -- you can not ask for their surrender -- you can only surrender to them, rofl.

I have asked the Civ that the AI surrendered to, to give me the planets that were surrendered to them and they have never given them. Also if I just take them and then ask for peace, they have never accepted the peace offer. Not a big deal, just means I cann't catch my breath for a couple of turns before finishing em off.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Easy way to get aliens to surrender to you. (Stardock you better not fix this exploit.) I gift some techs or planets after really owning a race and because they have a good relationship with you even though there economy is destroyed. They surrender to you instead of the other guy. But if your relationship sucks and they have a differant alignment forget it. I wish though they would surrender to the human player more often it really sucks to see them surrender even sometimes to a race weaker then them.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does the AI ever surrender to you if you're at war with it?



Yes, I have had this happen when I was strong in ships but had no transports; I stripped the arceans of all their warships and had all of their planets within sensor range of at least one fleet. They surrendered 12 planets to me.