How do you get a major power conquered before it surrenders to your enemy?

They have to be at war with everyone to not surrender.

In my last game I could take out every single Drengin Planet without them surrendering. That was obviously because they did not like any of the other guys.

That is simple. The word is: blitzkrieg! Just have the fleet of transports with necessary attack and defense ships around each of the few planets the fool has left, and simultaneously strike and invade them all on the same turn. Be sure you have more than enough to do the job. This has to be one shot, one kill. Works well when the alien only has 3 or less planets. But the bad news is that I have seen an empire 5 planets strong surrender before. This approach requires quite a bit of preperation, but in my style of play, I always have stacks of transports and escorts sitting around by mid game, ready to pounce on any targets of opportunity if any brush fire wars erupt.

thanks

Also, don't kill all of their ships. If a civ loses all its ships it will surrender much more easily. So what you do is just kill barely enough of their ships to give your transports safe passage.

What the AI needs to do is start looking at where your transports are and surrender based on the position and strength of your invasion force. If you have no transports, then it should not surrender.

Surrender can be good for you though. I had the Altarians surrender to me after they lost all their ships in a war with their Drengin neighbors. My diplomatic relationship with the Altarians was 'close' at the time of their surrender. The Drengin then declared war on me shortly thereafter though.

I had the Alts surrendering 7 systems to me after they had 20 Tor Overlords rip their fleet to shreds. I didn't bother defending those planets as I was reaching FF. Didn't lose any of them as the Tors were slow to follow up with transports. There were a few Tor invasions but they didn't managed to conquer any.

I've noticed that an AI will surrender to whatever Civ they are friendliest towards (makes sense). I've only had them surrender to me once.

You'd think they'd surrender to you in a hopeless war, even if you're the only empire left.

Miquel, you can demand all of they're planets as tribute, and if you're trouncing them hard enough, they'll accept.

I wonder what would happen if you give them a colony ship at the same time?


~SDC~

I have been trying various endings to the same game. FINALLY got through the Military Victory last night. The win was a forgone conclusion, but it took for bloody ever.

Anyway, right at the end one turn before the finish the Chigs' last planet defected. It (1.03) still classified it as a Military Victory. I guess if you're technically at war when the end comes it's a conquest, even though the mechanism was a culture flip.

BTW, the Metaverse points only advanced from 650 (Alliance) to 795, even though my final population was nearly triple in the Conquest win.



~SDC~

I wish I had remembered this last night. There were three of us left, with the Yor and the Altarians (my allies) being the other two powers. The Altarians asked me to join their war against the Yor, and my battleship fleet tore up the Yor's fleet too quickly. They surrendered their remaining 5 planets to the Altarians before my transports could reach them, and even sent me a message to say that they were doing so to spite me!

A cutural win requires not being at war and having cutural domination over a certain amount of teritory, which in some galaxies can mean that if you don't have enough influence in uninhabitable sectors (barren stars or simple void), you will need alot of starbases in otherwise utterly useless positions to actually be able to get a cutural win.

~SDC~