To TDM Guys: AI surrenders

[TerranC]

I was wondering if you turned it off somehow since:

I have a been in a single player game for 146 turns by now, and My race is at war with the Jreanar and the Cue Cappa.

Now this doesn't sound something special but:

When they made first contact with me, they directly declared war at me! Without any reason!

That, I can blame on the AI's stupidity.

The war has been going on for about 100 turns now, and I have destroyed the jreanar homeworld in a blitz in order to get a surrender out of them: NOTHING!

Bloody nothing. 90% of their worlds are rioting, their shipyards can't make ships because lack of supplies, and my 3 main assualt fleets are right next door.

While this is admirable, it is downright suicide; even in the normal game this hasn't happened, and the AIs there are dummer.

Did you turn it off in order to give the player a heck of an headache or is there something I'm not seeing?

[Baron Grazic]

They have turned their surrender off. Check out the politics file, in particular the lines :-

Score Percent To Accept Demand your surrender := 5000
Will Accept From Friend Demand your surrender := False
Will Accept From Enemy Demand your surrender := False

Lines posted from the Jraenar_AI_Politics.txt file.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Most TDM races either turn off surrender or make it very difficult to force surrender. This gets around an exploit where a human could force a chain of surrenders by causing a weak race to surrender. That would increase the human's score, so the next AI could be forced to surrender. After a couple of iterations, stock AI's could be forced to surrender on first contact.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Alpha Kodiak:
Most TDM races either turn off surrender or make it very difficult to force surrender. This gets around an exploit where a human could force a chain of surrenders by causing a weak race to surrender. That would increase the human's score, so the next AI could be forced to surrender. After a couple of iterations, stock AI's could be forced to surrender on first contact.

100% with you Alpha... For this my reaces are not very friendly.

I have spent more hours doing AI files, than playing SE4, and after all this time TerranC, only can say that you can't expect "intelligent" actions from the AI.

Specially the AI have big big problems to take strategic decisions: doesn't know when to surrender, or when is good to trade something, or when is good to attack the undefended enemy's Homeworld instead send back the fleet to resupply, or when is good to include more ships with PDC cannons when the enemy is using lots of fighters/missiles.

Not be confused, still I enjoy playing against the AI (specially in small galaxies), but if you really want to play against intelligent opponents, go to PBW!

[God Emperor]

Yes, I have to confess, I set the Jraenar up to minimise the chance of offering a surrender.
Although seemingly stupid, it does avoid the problem of early or mid game, having a surrender significantly enhance the winners (ie the human players) position.
With respect to AI declaring war upon first contact, there have been several theads dedicated to the topic. It seems me to be more than just a function of the anger/politics files (ie if they are at war already, they seem less inclined to start another one). Having said that I must admit that I havent fully grasped all of the subtleties of the anger/politics files and have been content to make my races pretty aggressive (xenophobic?) in general, in order to promote tough galaxies.
Regards,
GE

[ September 08, 2002, 02:40: Message edited by: God Emperor ]

[TerranC]

Ahh.

Thank you very much for the answers.

Guess I'll have to adopt a scorched earth policy.

[Suicide Junkie]

Just use troops to capture the planets, forcing their surrender one planet at a time.