Allow enemies to lay down their arms

This should be in in some way, shape, or form. If not, I'll be a very unhappy intellect (for a while, then I'll go back to plotting world domination).

I agree that this should be an option, however with multiple variables.

For example a town with only 30 spearmen defending against a massive profesional army should never surrender if the towns loyalty to your empire is unwavering. However if the town(and the units) have low loyalty then there should be a greater chance of it happening.

I would also like to see less of the complete destruction of armies and more cases where survivors are able to flee and regroup. For example if the losing army has faster units why shouldn't they get away? What about flying units vs an army with no flying units? This will make the complete destruction of an enemy harder, as they can lose, then trade land for time to regroup. Sure they will probably lose anyway but if the diplomacy is good (read this post about normal game diplomacy vs "risk" style diplomacy https://forums.elementalgame.com/375780) the losses may not be worth risking getting ganged up on.

Create different unspoken rules for different factions, chivalrous vs chivalrous factions allow the enemy to flee (note that chivalry is not black and white, but includes shades of grey, and that factions don't always act chivalrous when you expect them too). Having chivalry gives a diplomacy bonus to other chivalrous factions. Non-chivalrous factions vs anyone else its fight to kill as many as possible. Non-chivalrous factions don't get a bonus or penalty. If nations can raise undead, they get a diplomatic penalty against any faction that doesn't raise undead, as seeing your family members as zombies in the enemy army may cause crankiness. Lastly make it like GalCiv 2, "good" does not always mean "nice".

This is why your army should be 99.9% zombies , and the last .1% made up of elite heros with an escape device.   There will be no cowardice in my army! Fleeing cowards shall be slain!

Only to rise again.......  

And let the cowards back into my army, even if they are zombies?! not likley! Thier bodies will be used as incubators for my flesh eating worms!

There is something like this in ETW but it's so badly implemented that I've never ever had a city surrender to me.

Hi,

actually the idea of yours would be one of the possible effects, that a morale system could have. I wrote a thread about it yesterday:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/375858

Do you mind if I take the idea of surrendering even before a battle as a possible effect of morale with you as the idea's credited ?

Katerchen

I've had it happen. Twice. The garrison evidently needs to be really small. It's a nice idea in general as you don't want to auto-resolve it because you can most certainly win with fewer casualties, but it's still a chore attacking tiny garrisons.

Ya, i recall one absurd situation. Huge army bearing down on the last enemy city, so he put a single peasent militia unit in every single tile leading to his city. Just one, in every single tile. And units lose thier movepoints after fighting. Some way to avoid similar absurditys would be nice.

I like the OP's idea, but we would need to flip side of the coin to work, too.  In other words, if your enemy has a huge army agains your small one, then your army might lay down their arms instead of fight.  So apart from some elite units, we the players ought not to be able to expect our forces to fight to the death to slightly damage the enemy.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

I am starting to think zombies are the solution to everything. Even a single zombie agasint 1000000 foes will still fight to the....(death? undeath? death of death?)...to the bitter end! Zombies are a superior soldier.

Fine by me I just want to end up with a cool game!

Great idea.   I've always wanted a game mechanic where the AI would surrender where it's smart to do so.   Nothing makes you feel like you're just running a program than having to hunt down the last enemy soldier.   

Nothing makes a game funner then playing "Hide the farm" right at the end. For those of you who don't know,  hide the farm is a time honored tradition in RTS games such as warcraft or starcraft where the losing player builds a very small, cheap building in an obscure spot which forces his opponent to find it in order to defeat him. Quite a fun game, assuming you are not the one searching.

This is a good suggestion.

Like it as it offers more options than fighting. Perhaps if you have enough gold they disappear from the enemy's forces and if you don't have the gold they are transported to a friendly city of theirs. 'Course there could be traits/diplomacy research/spells that affect this.

In all seriousness, however, such a situation might make zombies a tad overpowered if they stay comparitively cheap in large numbers. It's like drafting a horde of peasants to do your dirty work, but you don't have to worry about finding new farmers or everybody doing a 180 the moment they see a lance.

Naw. Zombies can never be overpowered. One dude with a holy water mister can lolPWN hundreds of them, and any kind of elite unit would be able to totaly trash them. Zombies are numerous and scary, but they are slow and really stupid. Anyone with training and decent gear should be able to rip through them. Thier only real advantage IS thier numbers.

The problem I forsee is when they cost less than or equal to, say, a peasant with a stick. That peasant could be duplicated into a hrode as well, but that horde will rout and the zombies wouldn't. Thus zombies become superior to pretty much any "mob" unit, and since even the best hero has his/her upper limit they are a very cheap way of beating elites as well (since a regular horde or a comparably-powered hero would take more time to make in an effective number.

I understand the concern. I was thinking that zombies would be incredibly cheap, but at the same time, be weaker then even a peasant with a stick. When i said the elite units would wrech the zombies, i was think a KDR of 1000+. The only limit on how many zombies a hero can kill would be how tired his arm gets from swinging his sword.

The real danger from the zombie horde would be the leaders. I would of saved big time on both money and magic by spaming the cheap zombie, so i can spend all the rest on my heroes, making them incredibly powerful. In major army vs army situations, the zombies are just cannon fodder to cover the heroes. the heroes are the ones who do the real damage. Or so i was thinking.

Plus, zombies can rout. You just need to cast a couple turn undead spells.