AI capitulation

[Molon Labe]

What factors influence an AI capitulating? Are some more likely to capitulate than others or does it depend on units they've lost and power rankings?

In my last game as Pericles on Monarch Big and Small/Standard size/Epic speed, I was doing a lot of late game warring, essentially from industrialism on I was never at peace. Generally I was at war with several civs at once and with a couple of exceptions, I didn't declare war. Huayna had enticed a lot of other civs to attack me after he declared so it turned into a world war.

It wasn't too much of a problem because I had the production and tech lead and was able to wipe out quite a few civs and get a few vassals.

I was going for a domination win but eventually got tired and built the UN and got the diplo win by a ridiculous majority. The problem was that some AI's just wouldn't capitulate. All the way to the bitter end before they were extinct, they said they were doing fine.

Some of them I nuked, and I now suspect that means they won't capitulate. A couple of others were obstinate and the only reason I could think of was that I had already warred with them once or twice and sued for peace.

I'm just curious if there is a formula to know for capitulation when pursuing a domination victory.

 

[Silence101]

I'm sure that the power graph as a whole lot to do with it - I've gotten some decent sized Civ's to vassalize just because I had an absolutely huge military. (Or at least that was the only explaination I had as to why they would be so willing to vassalize.)

Also, your relation with the AI Civ and that leader's personality will probably play large roles.

If we're speaking just strictly "capitulation" (not vassal) then I'm not really sure how much relations play into it... I mean, you're at war. How good can your relations really be? In this case, how badly the AI is losing the war will probably play a large role as well.

I don't have any hard numbers - just what I've observed.

 

[Molon Labe]

I think relations must be the key variable. My military strength was ridiculously greater than theirs. My level 4 battleships were sinking their frigates and caravels because I denied them oil.

The AI's that wouldn't capitulate were all the ones I nuked, even if I didn't nuke a city. One of them, Peter, I nuked a naval stack and that was apparently enough. Another one that wouldn't capitulate was Zara and the only reason that I could think of was because it was our third or fourth war.

Then there were a couple odd ones, vassals of either Gilgamesh, Zara or Huayna who got dragged into the war because of their masters. Some of them were able to break free when I destroyed their masters, but they wouldn't capitulate to me no matter how many of their cities I took.

Thank God for the colony feature. I owned several continents and was hemorrhaging over 600 gpt at one point. I had thought I would give back cities when they capitulated but ended up just creating new colonies to save the money.

 

[slobberinbear]

Slight sidetrack: Molon: please explain your experience with Colonies. In my current game, I vassalized Joao after a series of wars and have about 8 of his cities on his former home continent. I have put some serious effort into making them economically viable, but my expenses are high. It's essentially a breakeven if I put all of those cities on wealth for production. Unfortunately, I missed Versailles and already used the Forgotten Palace.

My experience with capitulation is that the enemy civ has to be around 1/3 or less its original size and you have eliminated most of their military units.

Then again, I don't use nukes.

 

[Molon Labe]

Slight sidetrack: Molon: please explain your experience with Colonies. In my current game, I vassalized Joao after a series of wars and have about 8 of his cities on his former home continent. I have put some serious effort into making them economically viable, but my expenses are high. It's essentially a breakeven if I put all of those cities on wealth for production. Unfortunately, I missed Versailles and already used the Forgotten Palace.

My experience with capitulation is that the enemy civ has to be around 1/3 or less its original size and you have eliminated most of their military units.

Then again, I don't use nukes.

I'm not sure if you can liberate colonies while the original owner is still on the continent or not. Mine were all after the original tenant had been evicted. The worst belonged to Gilgamesh because I had previously sent him a couple of corps that he spammed. They did cost me quite a bit of money so I liberated them, about 8 cities worth and Julius turned up in charge.

One weird thing was that I took over another continent that was originally shared between Asoka and Gilgamesh. There were four cities that I took and I couldn't create a new colony with them. I even had the option to do so, but when I clicked it, nothing happened.

The best I could do was liberate each one individually to a previous colony, even if they really were nowhere near that other colony. I'm sure the maintenance cost killed them but better them than me.

In your case, if Jaoa is your vassal, you should just be able to give them back to him. That was what I had intended to do with Gil, he was just stubborn and refused to capitulate even when I had reduced him to a couple of random 1 city islands scattered about. He started the war with 10 turns to industrialism and had 111 turns to go for the same tech by the time I finished him off.

I'm learning nukes can be useful in isolated situations and small doses. Anything more than that kind of makes them more trouble than they're worth.

 

[zienth]

I've read other people saying that using nukes causes AIs to resist capitulation much longer. I'm in the same boat as slobberingbear in that I don't tend to use nukes so I don't have any personal experience along that line.

Zienth