Submissive voting

[gwillybj]

Have you read this book?

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
... If they're pathetic to begin with, sometimes they'll surrender without firing a shot - which can be kind of funny when they started the war...

The Mouse That Roared, by Leonard Patrick O'Connor Wibberly (1955). It was taken to film in 1959 by director Jack Arnold and starred Peter Sellers.
I wonder , is it possible to surrender to a faction that is entirely inferior to yours? And then quietly work your way back up and turn the tables ?

[Blake]

In one game I had a well developed Zak (about a dozen bases - atleast as many as me) surrender to me.

I had been isolated on an island, and i found Zak's island just a few tiles away from mine. His base with the HGP was coastal and just a turns boat ride from my island. Zak was friendly to me, but I decided to take the HGP base anyway, and did so in a one turn sneak attack, I also took another of his largest bases in the same turn. To my considerable suprise (and slight annoyance) Zak then offered to surrender, and altough I had been hoping to snatch a few more bases I accepted (because if I declined it would have become a fight to the death).

Because Zak was still largely intact and a usfull submissive under any situation I returned the non-HGP base to him and teched him up.
By surrendering early Zak greatly improved his lots, otherwise I would have crushed him to a few bases in one corner of his continent and left him to rot.

The AI's motive for surrending, I believe was:
I had a slightly better army, certaintely better weapons tech.
My attack was swift and irrestiable (and taking more than one base in a turn certaintely helps convince an AI to surrender - you spook the enemy, so to speak)
My Reputation was unblemished - other than the sneak attack.
And, possibly most important, Zak had no other contact, with no potential help from third parties, the AI determined surrender to be the only way out.

[Shai-Hulud]

Reputation is very important if you want your opponents to surrender. If you have betrayed them, they never seem to surrender, not to even think of atrocities which seems to rule it out completely. My most powerful fast-attack against AI was me playing Believers in war against Drones. I took six of his 15+ bases in one turn and four bases next turn(without using Drop Pods). I was by far the most powerful military might and I had been in alliance with Drones. They never surrendered, nor did any other faction...probably because in the end I was using Nerve Gas and had double-crossed many of my former alliances.

Does anyone know any kind of formula AI uses to determine whether to surrender?