So, to summarize, our collective experience suggests that the logic is:
- Surrender is a way to save the taxpayers, not the government
- Surrender appears to be to the civilization most highly ranked in military other than the 'major' enemy killing you (who may also be at war with the surrenderee)
- Relationships, alliances, and alignment do not seem to affect who surrenders to whom
- The logic here is that the aggressor MAY be scared off by the reputation (military power) of the new owner. If surrender was always to an ally, it would be more likely that this would do no benefit to the taxpayers as the aggressor is likely at war with them, and would keep coming.
- Perhaps it should be called a revolt against the incompetant loser government, rather than a 'surrender'.

Anyone confirm/deny the summary?

#15 You are an evil man. Are your a lawer in real life?

In my last game, the drengin were at war with everyone but me - drengin were in first place, i was second, and the others were getting mauled. I wasn't at war with any of them, but they all surrendered to each other instead of me.

Grr. Oh well, at least it kept both sides busy while i sent some combat transports in

well let us Brad to clear this up or else
Cari.

-Doug

I've not seen this pattern myself. I know when I beat the daylights out of the Yor, they said they will surrender to the Acreans just to spite me. Funny thing was I was pretty much allies with the Acreans anyway. Took the alliance victory. Won the latest round.

SeanB

Near the end of my last game.

The Acreans were wiped out.
The Alterians were evil with 1 systems
The Yor where evil with 1 systems
the Torian were good with 1 systems
and the Dregin were good with about 8 systems.

In the span of 2 months, the Alterians surrendered to
the Yor Then the Yor surrendered to the Torians.

I actively and recently faught all the empires, while
the goods AI's had a long history of fighting the
evil AI's.

Specially the Yor vs the Torian, long long brutal war
between them before I snuffed them both down
to insiginifigance.

I had about 45 systems and had militarly snuffed out
of existences everyones military and was extoring
planets within their sectors to culturally flip the
remaining planets.

Destroy every ship they have, offer peace in exchange
for a couple planets, few turns later those planets
culturally flip the rest of their empire. Obviously
it was utterly irrelevent to me who owned those planets
as they all flipped to me rather quickly anyway.


Anyway, some data on surrendering for ya.

All incrediable AI's

Ok, further insight into the game logic: I have seen two different types of surrenders now. The first one is just a general announcement of an AI: I am surrendering. There seems to be no rhyme or reason who they pick in this instance. The second one is the "You can't fire me I quit LOL" surrender, where the AI chooses to surrender to whomever has the best chance of beating you. The message received at the surrender tells you which one it is. Now, maybe, it's possible there the same surrender, but the difference is that the surrender has nothing to do with you (ie the surrendering AI is not trying to stick it to you, but another AI). Although that still doesn't answer our questions... :notsure:

I was playing a medium maso game, had a bad start and was getting creamed. I was down to one system when suddenly the Arceans surrendered to me. I was able to survive another year thanks to this out-of-the-blue gift. I was the weakest player in all respects, so it was really a surprise.
[Message Edited]

I recieved a surrender from the Altarians because the Yor and Drenigen were wiping the floor with em- this was somewhat strange as I had so-so relationships with them, while the Torians where their allies and stronger than me by far- I was 3rd in military at this time. On the other hand, I was the only one not involved in a war, so it makes some sense that they would prefer not to fight anymore.

In my last game, I controlled most of the bottom portion of the galaxy. The Yor was "west" of me. The Arceans were "east" of me. The Torians and the Altarians occupied the middle part and the the Dregin the top part.

The Arceans (while fighting the Yor) gave up first to the Dregin. The Yor, while fighting the Altarians, gave up to the ... Altarians!

War broke out between the Dregin and I and I quickly occupied the planets that they "adopted" from the Arceans. I, therefore, controlled most of the bottom to middle part of the galaxy. Then the Altarians declared war against the Torians and I (allied).

Wouldn't you know it? The Dregin called up a few turns later and surrendered to ... me??!! They still had 4-5 planets! Unfortunately, these planets were on the other side of the galaxy with the Altarians in between. Worse still, all the planets were undefended! I was certain the Altarians would come in and take them. Fortunately, I was able to put up a thin defense and hold them off.

Ironically, I won an alliance victory along with the Torians and Altarians.

I also would like some clarification about how surrenders work. I find it very frustrating when I'm helping the underdog civilization with tech and ships but they give themselves over to the guy beating them up. I've seen it quite a few times when struggling races give up to the biggest civ. (myself or AI) and therefore give them more of a lead. I would like the civs to stay closer in power to keep the game interesting. Please could a Dev comment on this.

I think alot of who they surrender to and when depends on how much respect they had for you. In my most recent game, I was pleasantly surprised when the Torians and the Drengins both surrendered to me instead of someone else. The big difference here was that they were treated relatively decently by me for most of the game leading up to the war, at which point I just flat overwhelmed them.

It's either that or my saintly alignment did it (the rationale being, they're surrendering to someone who'll treat their people well I suppose)

Same here with the Yor surrendering to me while fighting the Arceans and the Torians, maybe more. Altereans were already gone. However....got into a fight with the Dregs (since the other two are buddies) and beat them down till they surrendered....to me!


Quite the surprise overall. Maybe that is what's intended?

happened to me too. i alterians where getting there asses kicked by the drengin bad, they were down to just 2 planets on the other side of the galaxy from me.

i wanted the alterians to stay in the game so that way the drengins would be preoccupied with the alterians instead of me. i gave the alterians all my techs for nothing, and i also gave them a lowely level 15 planet thats deep in my territory to give them an economic boost -next turn the planet turns out to be owned by the precursurs, and becomes a level 32, just my luck. well anyways, the drengin and alterians make peace -not what i wanted, so i paid the alterians to continue there long drawn out war with the drengins. However this was my mistake, i should have never gotten such a week empire to fight the drengin -the alterians surrendered to the drengins the very next month. not only did i loose an ally and an empire that was keeping the drengins off my back, now the drengins had a level 32 planet deep inside my territory! i wasnt expecting the alterians to surrender so quickly, especially after they gained all the techs i had given them and a level 32 planet, but i deffinetly wasnt expecting them to surrender to the drengins.

well, i learned 2 things from that game.

1. never get a very weak ally to fight a strong enemy
2. empires surrender to who is random (im just guessing this)

Grrr. Well, unlike some of the examples people have given, the summary (#27 above) seems to be working for me.

Just had my ally the Alterians surrender to the damn Arceans. Arceans are coming 5th - their only claim to fame is that they are NOT at war with the Alt's foe, the Torians. (I am in first, with the Tor's in second, and other anti-Torian forces in 3rd and 4th.)

Perhaps the summary holds only at maso, and at lower intelligences, they make wierder decisions about who to surrender to!