Why must vanquished leaders be "beaten up"?

[Aendolin]

I can't tell you how nice it would be to have the option to merely hold a defeated leader as a "guest" in your palace. Think of this situation: The Partition of Poland. Russia, Germany, and Austria band together to conquer Poland and divide the land between themselves. Germany, conquering the last Polish city, decides to keep the Polish leader prisoner instead of giving him a black eye and launching him out of a cannon. Many years later, a war between the three countries ends in a stalemate, and the three leaders decide to bring back Poland as a buffer state. All Germany must do is to give the Polish cities under its control back to the Polish leader, and then engage in diplomacy with the other leaders to give back the Polish cities they have. Ta da, you have a nice neutral country in between all those belligerent nations. Of course, this would also require a more robust diplmacy screen. What's needed is a "give X to country Y" section, so you can force or bargain with countries to give things to other countries. It would work very nicely, I think.

Besides, I don't like having to see Elizabeth, Joan, and Cleo all beat up like that...

Edit: mispelled Belligerent (still not sure if it's right.. )

[Dis]

and why am I beaten up when I retire early because I'm bored of the game? I admit I wasn't in first place when I retired, but I wasn't in last place. And I never even faught any wars!

[Aendolin]

Yeah, I do that, too, just to look at my score or who my opponents are if I'm stranded on an island. Not very becoming, is it?

[Encomium]

Originally posted by Dissident
and why am I beaten up when I retire early because I'm bored of the game? I admit I wasn't in first place when I retired, but I wasn't in last place. And I never even faught any wars!

When a Civ II game got tedious (less common than with Civ III) I could always go to Cheat Mode and play out the scenario as the barbarian with the barbarian map. I could run through centuries fairly qucikly just to see where the game was going, if anywhere. But unfortunately Civ III has no Cheat Mode.

[Technoron]

Humans are by nature violent and bloodthirsty savages.

You can evolve the society all you want, but we will continue to murder/maim/batter ourselves for any number of reasons......"You can take the cowboy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the cowboy".... and other such sayings.

Why are vanquished leaders beaten up?

.....Some are thrashed because they go down fighting.

.....The rest are thrashed because they don't.