Mumble, please see my above post. This option is how it works in DA.

~ Wyndstar

I agree with this but the reason is generally fairly clear. Situations like this happen when you have a high military rating and you've killed off most or all of the AI's ships. Even thought they may have plenty of planets and resources they will surrender.

However, knowing this allows you to continue taking what you can and then offer peace before ending the turn which will be accepted and thus the surrender is averted.

I do believe that as Wyndstar mentions that DA could be a little more surrender happy but as long as you get a chance to make peace or even pay their attacker to make peace and thus avoid the surrender then the case between DL and DA is not all that different and I would favor leaving it always enabled.

If the player can be suddenly confronted by bulk surrender without any recourse then I would favor leaving it always disabled.

No. If you are at war you can't talk to them for 16 turns minimum (that was changed I think in Beta 1.6 of DA)... but they can and often do surrender the very next turn to someone else. While surrendering to my empire is... irksome and makes the game go too quickly, typically several weaker AIs will suddenly turn into one large AI in a flurry of activity as everyone surrenders to whom they think can keep them the most safe. You can't go back to peace with a race save the UP event in less than 16 turns with anyone in DA (and TA). This is one reason the Drath super ability can be so powerful used between AIs.


The player should not be able to choose. As I said originally, it has a real effect on my playstyle... if surrenders are on I go to great lengths to keep my military rating near zero and go for a blitz win... it'll happen anyway. With it off I build huge militaries and take my time and score grind. The problem is, with the trade fatigue and increased chance of surrendering it has to be a part of your strategy.

This is just one of the differences that isn't going to be easily leveled between the two versions (like mega events, super abilities, allowing custom races). Personally I favor randomly setting it by round, but if you find that distasteful surrenders should always be enabled, because that is the harder variation.


Only when at war, but any war will do. A typical, weird outcome will be like this: Turn 1: Thalans declare war on the Snathi. Turn 2: Thalans say, "the snathi are just too powerful" and surrender to the Korx. Turn 3: The Korx were already at war with the Altarians and Torians, now that the Korx are larger, the Altarians immediately surrender to the Korx. Turn 5: The Torians also think the Korx look big, and surrender to them. The above happened to me three games ago while I was playing the Iconians. Less than two months had passed, and the Korx more than doubled in size. During this time period my trade fatigue was up with everyone, so I couldn't even open the diplomacy screen. I lost to the Korx. Hence why leaving it on is harder. Harder isn't necessarily a bad thing.


This is the situation I try to avoid by turning it off, and is always a worry. It will either end your game very early as everyone caves to you, or as is more likely in my game, suddenly everyone but me joins one other empire and I'm crushed under numbers. It makes score grinding very difficult. However, it isn't predictable either. Sometimes the cards will fall just right and no one will surrender. Sometimes the AIs all surrender in a fashion that seems to make sense. But in DA you are really rolling the dice, as once the surrenders start they usually snowball... because whoever gets the first surrender (and their ships and planets) suddenly looks big so everyone just caves to them. The player has no control in this situation.



They will.


I agree you should have one way of dealing with this option. Always dis-allowing surrenders just makes score grinding a breeze because you give the AI one planet in the corner and pray and pray that they don't influence flip to you while you grind (and building the MCC doesn't help this... its very sad - although many people seem to believe having this building stops flipping). With surrenders ON the game most of the time will be over quickly, once you have about 60% of the planets the next war declared will be your last, and you can't control when the game ends. This just means that because you don't know if you can score grind for 2 years or 5, its better to blitz and avoid the situation.

Hope that is a little more clear. I'm always happy to help.
~ Wyndstar

Edit: By the way, in my above game, the Snathi had NO military when the Thalans decided to surrender because of that war. I think the way the AI checks in DA is if it is at war it compares itself to every civ to see if it is on the low end and needs to surrender. That is just a guess.

Yeah, I also give influence starbases when score grinding... and I also give every influence tech I research to the last AI. And I also usually make sure the last planet I give them has the restaurant of eternity on it. Its still a constant problem... too much influence that is.

I know you won't get it soon, but in TA many of the Drengin buildings come with a - influence effect, which as you would imagine helps a lot in score grinding situations.

I consider myself taunted. I'll see what the next game involves and what my team thinks they need when the next round starts. I'm a team player first. This time, in our thread they were concerned with getting some fast games out.

~ Wyndstar

Actually I give the last AI a PQ3 with the Re-Education Center which *does* prevent culture flipping along with some cheap innocuous super project/wonder like the Secret Police Center and take all their other planets and kill all their ships before giving them peace. That way all I need to keep around to kill them off is a single transport.

In DA I dont think you have the option of peace. Whenever it happens to me, the little screen pops up and tells you they surrender to you or whoever. If you click the "speak to" button, it says they aren't a sovereign governing body or some such mumbo jumbo and they are gone.

I agree, which is why I support randomly setting it per round. Lots of opinions...

Glad I'm not the one who has to make the final call

~ Wyndstar

Like I said, I'm pretty much OK with any option *except* letting the player choose. I can see valid arguments for any of the three other combinations and I personally would tend to defer my opinion to those that have more experience with how it plays.

As far as who makes the final call it's really a democratic decision which implies we should vote on it. I do worry about the percentage of folks that participate, the last time was OK (~75%) but the first time was rather anemic at less than half.

I suppose I should setup a vote on this at the Core. Hopefully people will respond. Please note that this is defined in the OP of this thread so this won't be changed for *this* round but we may as well start on this for future rounds. People that feel strongly should make the strength of their opinion known because that may influence those of us that may otherwise be ambivilent between some of the choices.

Anyway please cast your vote in the MVL DA Surrender Setting Vote thread.

Please cast your vote in the Voting Thread at the Core. That way it will get counted.

As far as DA versus DL the idea was we didn't want to exclude anyone and we are still fairly new and didn't feel that we had enough folks for two separate divisions. Also I do kind of like the idea that some folks may go back and forth between both. I think the fact that separate divisions would probably mean double the work involved in organizing things would tend to keep things combined as well. Finally I assume that once TA is out and metaverse worthy we will probably acccept TA games as well although this does warrent some discussion.

As far as empires and the MVL, the empire system itself is very old although some empires are newer and more active than others. There are not necessarily the same levels of activity or communication within an empire as there is within the MVL. Also the idea that everyone is playing the same random and changing settings one month to the next is a major difference. Simply that games are on some kind of schedule is a major difference as well. The MVL is still very new and is being continually defined and refined as we speak, hence the need for votes and discussions and such.

That's cool although if you have an opinion you should express it without regard to being new or not knowing enough. In any case if you really do want to go this way that's fine but please put in an abstention in the voting thread, that way your presence is counted.

best. god. ever.

...

actually, maybe not. Śiva ("Shiva" in english convention) is kinda cool. a toker, you know. but also totally ascetic. so, wine and sex, or pot and abstinance? think i'll stick with Dionysus after all

Neilo will be unavailable for the next few days due to a family situation. May I suggest that FireBender make a ruling on this matter in his stead.

Again, we do have some precedence on this issue from Round 1 and it doesn't actually affect the game at all as it currently stands (since we're not in the AltMeta).

I would suggest an slight admonishment but thats it.

also...if FireBender or Neilo are unable to get respond in a timely manner, how does this affect Ferrel's submission time since he would have posted when he made the mention of it being under the wrong character.

I'll fight you there. I worship Ishtar. There is no god ever better than Ishtar.

Female goddess of love, fertility AND war? Sacred prostitution rituals? Do I need to go on?

~ Wyndstar


Edit: Wiki on Ishtar