Does the AI have a death wish? |
I'm playing with the latest Balance Mod, with the only tweak to the settings file being to increase the max number of planets to 255 (and the associated numbers assigned to the galaxy size upped somewhat). Playing single player against 7 neutrals and about 9 "active" AI races. AI difficulty and bonus both set to medium. And I've come across an interesting, if aggravating, problem.
The AIs that I've kicked the snot out of won't surrender to me.
I've beaten two neutrals and the Terran empire down to scraps and they won't surrender. With the neutrals, they each have one planet that I've stationed ships over (to blockade, although I can't tell if it's actually working or not), and the Terrans have two tiny planets and a half dozen badly damaged freighters. My intel is wrecking their economies and causing other assorted mayhem, and my fleets are moving freely through their systems (what's left of them, at least).
And the buggers still won't surrender.
This has gone beyond the "force a surrender to get their tech" stage, and now has entered a battle of wills. Doggone it, those ba... bad dudes... yeah, bad dudes, *will* surrender to me. But it's been over 10 turns, and they keep refusing.
Is there something I'm missing here?
Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
I thought Kwok made the AI more likely to surrender than stock. I've managed to get an AI to surrender in stock, but never actually played BM long enough to do the same there.
Although I could understand if some of the races, like the Sithrak, never surrender because they are an aggressive race, but certainly some AIs should. Humans like surviving, so they should've surrendered by now.
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Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
It depends on the race in the Balance Mod. It's usually around 3-5x their score plus a bit of randomness, which is about 50% that they'll say no at that time. Some of the aggressive races will have higher thresholds.
In AI team mode, none of the AIs will surrender.
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Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
Do you get their techs/ressources/ships/planets when they surrender?
Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
You get everything except racial techs when they surrender. During setup I think you can choose not to capture tech at all in this manner.
Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
In my normal game, v1.35 w/out any mods, I beat the "Magir" down to one planet with 10 million people, and they still wouldn't give up. And I had their homeworld, the entire system, with a total of about 8 mostly developed planets. Oh well, they wouldn't surrender, but they didn't put up much of a fight, anyuway. 
Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
Can you check the scores to see if you have 3-5x the score the opposing AI? You can bombard the enemy planets so that they have a few million people left and no facilities or units, then demand their surrender. If they refuse, it may be a bug or it may be that you're not too good.
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Re: Does the AI have a death wish?
The stock game and the BM can be very reluctant to surender, the IRM can be forced to just get 300% more than its score. I general give up and invade in these sort of cased Send in the PARA's