EleventhStar

Join Date 04/2014

+20

Diplomacy idea regarding Surrenders

Not entirely sure if this is the correct place to post this, and it might be a bit armchair game designer, but i have this idea that i think might be pretty nice.

The goal: Make you feel like you have some control over surrendering AI, regardless of whether you actually have control.

The "problem": The surrender mechanic is pretty cool and nice, I very much like it. However, I am sure everybody has a experience where a AI surrendered to "that guy", just before you captured that one planet you really wanted or not to you. If you look on any galciv forum i am sure you can find a example with some regularity. For whatever reason, it seems people are often unsatisfied with how a surrender plays out.

The Idea: Give the player a "not okay" button when a surrender happens, which has some effect. The effect can be anything, even nothing.

My ideal situation would be this:

You(first faction) are at war with a second faction, they want to surrender to a third faction.

A screen pops up for you that says: "Your enemy wants to surrender to Third Faction, are you okay with this?" yes/no

If you say Yes, the surrender proceeds as normal.

If you say No, Third Party gets a popup that says: "Second Faction wants to Surrender to you, First Faction is not okay with this, what do you want to do" accept surrender/decline surrender/negotioate.

If accept: Second faction surrenders to Third faction as normal, Faction one automatically declares war on Third Faction.

If decline: Second faction is forced to surrender to Player/First Faction.

If negotiate: standard diplomacy screen comes up that is basically a peace negotiation/threat of war. Third faction has to convince Faction one to be okay with the surrender by paying them off/threatening them/whathaveyou. If no agreeable trade can be made, it's war.

I feel like this would make surrenders feel much more interactive.

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Sounds like an interesting idea, however the AI for the third party would have to be able to seriously weigh the threat of war with you vs. the advantages of receiving the surrender.

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Quite honestly, unless the faction that is surrendering is allied with some other faction, they should surrender to whomever is pounding them to stardust, or possibly become a vassal to them for the remainder of the game. The way it is now, it often makes little tactical sense when another AI gets territory clear across the map from their primary location. Makes defense a bit of a problem particularly if they immediately have to defend it. Just sayin...

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I like this idea, but I would settle for a "No Surrender" option. It's too chaotic in a large game to suddenly have two major races surrender and join my civilization and then finding myself having to micromanage 30 new planets I didn't have before. I also agree that it totally stinks to have a race surrender to an enemy faction right before you completely conquer them when they almost obliterated your civilization (the Krynn in my case surrendered to Iridium after the war lasted over 100+ turns. It felt like an empty victory when they surrendered.) I will not be playing another game until a "No surrender" option is posted or some major overhauls like the OP suggested are done with surrender.

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Quoting Tohron,

reply 1

Sounds like an interesting idea, however the AI for the third party would have to be able to seriously weigh the threat of war with you vs. the advantages of receiving the surrender.

Luckily the AI can already do most of that. And if that isn't feasible, it can be replaced with for example a diplomatic penalty "-1: You stole our kill" or something, there is lot's of choice for what a consequence could be.

Quoting NightReaper822,

reply 2

yeah one of my biggest gripes with surrenders as they are now is that the surrendering faction has ALL the power, which i don't think makes much sense. I hope something like this can address that, even if just in a symbolic way.

My idea also includes being able to refuse a surrender to you, which you also hear horror stories about (i got 10 new planets and now im broke, etc). Ofc everybody has ideas so who knows if mine is good or not

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Quoting ,

quoting post

...

If decline: Second faction is forced to surrender to Player/First Faction.

...

+1 Up to this point.

If third party doesn't want to deal with the first party's wrath it doesn't automatically mean that the second party wants to surrender to the first party any more than it did before.

The whole point of surrendering their assets is "Look, we're done but we HATE the guys who "did us in" so we hope that you can use what we have left to worsen their day". Following that philosophy, the second party should then try to find a different recipient for their final "screw you Mr. Conqueror" act of desperation and if none could be found then make a choice between survival and enslavement by the hated ones or a suicide by "war till elimination" based on some kind of inner personality trait.

Also, let the third faction that failed to negotiate have a choice to back out.

Why should it be "Can we talk about this? No? THEN WAR!!!!" when it can be "Can we talk about this? No? Ok, we're out of here, don't mind us, continue your galactic conquest Mr. Conqueror, we'll just quietly move out of your way, have a nice day."

Edit:

All that said, teaching the AI to deal with this might be a nightmare.

I mean it's a trade, and how the beep is is supposed to know what it's trading for?

How do you make it compare the variants of:

A ) Not getting the new assets.

B ) Getting new assets at a price.

C ) Getting new assets and a war.

Depending on how advanced it already is, that can be almost the same as the functions it currently uses or almost as hard as making it advanced.

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If they become a vassal nation, they just go on taking care of themselves. The payoff is that they ALWAYS vote for you in the United Planets stuff, and every half of a Star Year they tithe you a research or "x % of their credits on hand or BOTH! Who wants the micromanagement when booty is better? You might have to decide whether to defend them if they get involved with some other nefarious AI, but hey, that's your call for another day.

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In my last huge map game one of the factions surrendered to someone totally across the map just to spite me, which I found annoying. I would like it if they could only surrender to people they have shared borders with so I don't have to fly back and forth across the galaxy to kill all of these people.

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When the French were initially defeated by the Germans in the 2nd World War, a significant portion of their military assets went over to the British, not the Germans, in fact their entire naval fleet couldn't decide who they should join when the land forces were defeated (until the British made up their minds for them) so there is a precedent for the existing method.

So, you're going for making it a more enjoyable experience for you as a player, I get that, but you're also asking to make what's already a pretty easy game even easier. I don't think that's the best focus for AI improvement at the moment, but then again I like the way the surrender option works as-is.

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Quoting Reianor3,

reply 5

Also, let the third faction that failed to negotiate have a choice to back out.

Why should it be "Can we talk about this? No? THEN WAR!!!!" when it can be "Can we talk about this? No? Ok, we're out of here, don't mind us, continue your galactic conquest Mr. Conqueror, we'll just quietly move out of your way, have a nice day."

Both of these options are accounted for. Both faction 1 and 3 have a option to avoid war (at the cost of not getting free coloines). War is the obvious outcome if you challenge someones sovereignty (which is essentially what you are doing when you say you are not okay with the surrender).

I think we just think of surrenders in different terms, you think the surrendering is a choice, i think the very definition of surrender means you do not have a choice. (Well there is the choice of fighting to the end, but that is exactly what the surrender mechanic is meant to avoid)

Quoting NightReaper822,

reply 6

a vassal nation

Vassals are super cool but also a lot of work, i think that might be on expansion lists.

Quoting ChaosGuy,

reply 8

We are talking about unconditional surrenders in the face of total annihilation here. Tho i do remember ships in galciv2 surrendering to different factions and/or going pirate, that was cool too.

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Vassal states and occupied territories ought to become a feature of the game. A race which is forced to forfeit full sovereignty, but is nevertheless not totally annihilated ought to be able to make offers to become a dependent state or protectorate of a large empire. These vassalage treaties would last 100 turns (depending on game speed) and would be renewable, with certain conditions imposed on the conquered state (no ships allowed above a certain size, no transports allowed, diverting a %age of wealth, science or production, etc.). In return, the non-vassal power would be obligated to defend the defeated state from foreign incursions. In order to fulfill this obligation the "greater" power would be able to station ships on the vassal state's planets, starbases, and shipyards along with the vassal itself. The vassal would maintain internal sovereignty and would have a state apparatus that continues to function, and could carry on diplomatic relations with other powers (but would lack the authority to declare war).

Military occupation would be similar and would by default come with ability to use the defeated race's installations to dock ships. However, a race under military occupation would be almost completely broken, so the military chain of command would not work - there would be some who swore loyalty to the occupier, some who would continue under the aegis of the defeated power, some who would go pirate, others who would continue resisting the occupation until definitely annihilated.

In addition, as mentioned earlier there ought to be rebellions against central government occurring due to poor performance in war, low approval, etc.

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Besides being extremely funny .. the Federation surrendering to Darth Sidious of the Galactic Empire, they are also on the opposite side of the map, I have had zero dealings with them, and I guess they are probably at war with everyone else, hence surrendering to me

I have just defeated the Klingon empire and the Sith Empire of Darth Malgus. This puts me in the undisputable #1 position. I still have to knock over the Khanate, one of my custom factions.

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I also wish there was an option for NO Surrender like they put in the expansion for GC2 or do we have to wait for them in the future DL patches.

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