The way surrender is handled is marring every single game I play. Repeated scenario - I'm playing an insane map with 20-30 aliens. I mix up the AI so I have a few Godlike, bunch of Incredible, and heaps of Genius's with several Gifted chumps. 6-10 hours in, things are getting pretty hot, often very challenging, and then some douche-bag from the other side of the map surrenders and gives me 30 colonies, and all the shipyards, 70+ ships etc.
Two things at this point,
1) Either I go through making use of it - boring hour of microing the surrendered alien's stuff. If I'm careful and take the time, then tide turns and I now have an easy win which feels like a cheat and has ruined the game and I end up quitting because it doesn't feel earned.
or
2) I delete all their planets, then all their ships, then all their starbases/shipyards. Boring, painful diversion that can take 15-20 minutes to avoid accidentally deleting my own stuff. In this instance - taken care of, then I continue the game i was previously enjoying, only to find another hour or two in... boom, another chump who I've had no real dealings with on the other side of the map gives me another 150 things to delete. I can't be bothered and just quit.
This surrender concept doesn't work in aid of the spirit of the game! Please consider making surrender a switch-able option: checkbox = all aliens fight to the death.
Enjoying everything else about the game, except this, but unfortunately its a game breaker.
I get you. The problem is essentially sudden growth that you weren't planning for. I feel the same way about enemy factions colonizing crappy planets in my zone of control and then I inevitably annex them and have yet another low class, tactically insignificant planet to manage. But it doesn't stop them from trying.What's missing here is consent. A prompt pops up, 'Faction X has made some very bad choices, their civilization sits at the verge of ruin. Their leader comes to you and asks you to lead them out of their collapse. Do you want to accept the responsibility?'.
Try removing the chumps. Gifted ai is retarded.
I completly agree.
An option that would allow the AI to surrender to other AI players to make our work harder would be a good thing to have.
In GCII the AI oftain surrendered to other AI's, suddenly giving my latest war target a huge boost in cash/research/prod. etc and making me grind my teeth a little harder.
I the second I always played with surrenders off I would like to see that option back.
Theres abug that when the enemy civ gets to 6000 in military it drops back to 0 and they give up? I don't know if they fixed this with 1.1? In GC2 on the game setup menu they had a No Surrenders option which forced the AI to carrying fighting to the grim death which I always had on.
Totally agree. Need an option to turn off surrenders.
AI currently surrenders quite nonsensically. Often times, they say "you've been good to me" and just give you tons of stuff. As if the game wasn't easy enough already.
I echo a lot of critics for surrender. My first large game was ruined for me when my enemies would surrender to a larger faction I was at war with. Although my allies did the same thing and surrendered to me, I would have preferred if they did not surrender at all, it would have made a better, more interesting game for me. I will not be playing another game until surrender mechanic is redone or until there is an on/off option for surrender.
+1 There should be an option to toggle surrenders on and off, and also allow you to accept/decline surrenders to your empire. In RL, there would be negotiations about such a point.
Same goes for the "offer peace" message where one can only say yes or now during AIs turn, and not negotiate about the details.
I think they should make the surrender a bit more interesting than just "here's our stuff". A nice solution would be to make the surrendering civilization a vassal to your empire. "We surrender. Spare us. We submit to your rule." This could be implemented with the existing game mechanics so you wouldn't need to add that much new code to the game:
- If the capitulating civilization is a major one it's status is "conquered". This way the surrender counts towards a conquest victory.
- From now on it's considered a permanent ally to you regardless whether you have the tech for this diplomatic option or not. When you go to war, it goes to war with you. It won't break the alliance, either, no matter what you do. It's a conquered nation. This way the surrender counts towards a diplomatic victory.
- The vassal's influence is added to yours, thus counting towards an influence victory.
- The output of the vassal's ascension crystals go to you from this point onwards helping you towards an ascension victory.
- You and your vassal have automatic open borders, exploration, non-aggression, cultural, and free-trade treaties. You get all resources the vassal isn't currently using and any new ones it happens to get. You automatically share technological discoveries (or alternatively pour your research together). This will help you towards a technology victory.
- The surrendered civilization keeps its remaining planets and continues to administer them. Same with its ships and other stuff. This way you won't have to bother with destroying them or micromanaging its territory.
- To the rest of the galaxy, the vassal state is seen as part of your empire. They will attack it only if they want to attack you and the decision calculations include both of you and your vassal combined. The vassal has no independent foreign policy, either. If the others are mad to you they are mad to your vassal, too. If they like you, they like the vassal.
- In the UP the vassal votes with you.
Traditionally empires were built with many different parts. Having vassals as part of your empire would make it interesting and open up new ways to play the game. And all the mechanics is already there. It just needs to be combined into a "surrender package".
I really like the sound of that.
I remember in SMAC they had what they referred to as a submissive pact. The faction in question would admit defeat but would continue as a faction that did not participate in wars involving your faction. They would usually get wiped out by another faction as some point and if you totally tanked they could break the pact. Worked well with SMAC.
Not sure it would work with as many factions as there are in GCIII.
Surrendes as an option would be nice, but it would not adress the real problem.
The real problem is, that GalCiv still lacks convenient tools for macromangament - meaning handling lots of stuff (planets, ships, starbases ...) in way that does not give you tendinitis or make you go insane with the boredom of a massive clickfest.
I bet if AU_Armageddon had a convenient way to handle all the ships and planets so he would need only minutes to incorporate the new stuff into his empire, than he would be happy about surrendings.
If the tide turns because of a surrending, than this is a problem with the AI because the surrending AI was obviously still way to strong to give up. Also the remaining AIs should react to the surrender, after all the player is now a bigger threat because of the resource gained. The remaining AI should build up pressure on the player, so he does not has the time to develop the new stuff in peace and use it to dominate.
A surrender should be an event that makes the player happy because he gets free stuff - and it should also be a challenge to use it correctly. But it should not be a dreaded chore because of bad ergonomics.
I agree the surrender option needs to be able to be turned off. But I'll go one step farther, if Surrender is turned on then we should be able to adjust what constitutes a surrender in our game without having to go into the programing to do it.
For example: When a Empire surrenders should: 1) Surrender to only Human players. AI players or both. 2) When Empire surrenders does it: 1) Surrenders to one Empire or To many Empires (aka: Germany after WW2) (What ever is picked the Game would randomly choose who the surrender goes with.)
What percentage of the surrendered empires assets to the players get etc.
This option will come in time. Of that I am sure. I know some of you probably won't want to mess with it but there are a few tags in the xml related to surrender that you could mod.
In GalCiv3AIDefs.xml
<FactionPowerRatioBeforeSurrender>0.25</FactionPowerRatioBeforeSurrender> <PopulationRatioBeforeSurrender>0.25</PopulationRatioBeforeSurrender> <TurnBeforeSurrender>100</TurnBeforeSurrender> <TurnsIntoWarBeforeSurrender>20</TurnsIntoWarBeforeSurrender> <NumPlanetsLostToInvasionBeforeSurrender>1</NumPlanetsLostToInvasionBeforeSurrender>
I assume the 3rd tag to be the minimum turn # before surrender is allowed so you could just change it to like 1000. I am unsure but I thought I would expose these to those interested.
about happy from surrenders. Hears the problem you just stole the war from me I didn't. Earn anything. You jerk I was fighting you now I don't. Get anything without declaring war on someone else. I was singing do WA Diddy da, and now there is one less opponent that never lost. How about this one when your navy is significantly more advanced than everyone else. Yor huge hulls a ton of transports three times better weapons than anyone else. Your neighbor has no money, and four planets. Hey here's. A gift my navy. Then he surrenders on the next turn. He would have beaten the other guy if he would have hung in there. These are the reasons I don't. Like surrenders. Don't. Get me wrong I don't. Mind free stuff as long as it not a game breaker. To much free stuff is bad. This is talking about surrenders I like anomoly I play as abundant.
A thought comes to mind: Maybe turning a percentage of the surrendering planets into minors (maybe even multi-planet minors like the jagged knife in GalCiv2) would also be an option to adress the feeling that surrenders break the game. It could be explained as minorities within the failing empire cease the opportunity to declare independence.
I like the idea of making them vassal states, that way you can still barter with their technology. When they surrender you only have the previous turn to trade any technology they have before they disappear.
Another perfectly good game was ruined again today because I got four crappy planets on the other side of the galaxy who I would have sold to my friend but guess what? I couldn't talk to them because of the retarded diplomacy mechanism that only let's you talk to folk once every celestial orbit!!!!! Of course they can bother you asking for tech tho which makes it even more stupid.
I'm sorry VladelMC but this seems whiny to me. Than just wait till you can talk to someone, what's the problem?
Or better yet, use the planets as a foothold. Develop them, acquire more planets in the neighbourhood. After all, expanding the empire is the game.
What? It is too difficult to develop small planets that are far away? Hm, funny, it seems every second thread here is a complaint about how the game is too easy ... but at the first little challenge people quit?
Come on guys!
Well, there's the "destroy planet" button in the Govern-screen which solves exactly that problem and let's you feel a bit better about it...
"Cowards! You should have stood your ground and fought to the bitter end! Now burn! Burn, all of you, burn! Mwahahaha!".
Well, there's the "destroy planet" button in the Govern-screen which solves exactly that problem and let's you feel a bit better about it..."Cowards! You should have stood your ground and fought to the bitter end! Now burn! Burn, all of you, burn! Mwahahaha!".
I like your style.
I prefer a consolidated empire and any out there planets I have I'd rather be of my tactical choosing not because of a shitty game mechanicism that we should be able to turn off.
I would rather have more clear-cut/better guidelines or mechanics on how to get factions to surrender and how to negotiate it than just an on/off switch. Some times it makes sense when a faction surrenders, but most of the time, it just seems random.
In my latest game, the Altarians surrendered to the Thalians around turn 200 and gave my faction all of their stuff, which blew my mind as it came out of nowhere. Their power difference was less than 1000, and the Altarians had only lost two planets at the edge of their influence out of a fifteen total. I ended up with control of nearly a third of the galaxy almost quit because my faction was already first in everything but approval and military.
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