asking AI to surrender

Nope.

peace treaty + all of their planets.

I have no idea if there can be a situation where this works. At least it would need lots of military overpower to do so.

Surrenders are an odd thing in this game. You never know when or to whom an AI will surrender. Some just won't. I imagine that part of a surrender is a die roll, almost like a planet flip, that even if all is lost, you may not get a surrender at all.

Ithink I've seen every combination of surrender and it doesn't seem to follow a pattern. Theres been surrender when I'm the aggressor or the victim to both me or another AI. And then some of those are to like-alignment civs but sometimes they're not. Sometimes the surrenderer will have a few ships left and sometimes they hold on when every ship they build is destroyed by me before they lauch.

I like thats it so unpredictable though.

The best you can do is what Dissection said and trde for as many planets as you can get for peace and maybe you can flip the remaining ones or declare war agaion but have fewer planets to invade.

It's a little dissatisfying for me too. The last couple of games I've managed to buy off militarily dead empires only through the offering of my complete tech tree ( :LOL: ), all my money ( :SURPRISED: ), and lots of space ships (which presently become pirates  :SNIFF!: ).

.. nothing else seems to do it, unless an empire only has a super small number of worlds left. It's a nuisance to have to clear up my own super ships after buying a victory like that.. and it'd be tedious to invade all those planets. I do wish there was a 'surrender, you're dead already' button on the AI's side  

I think this "missing" ability is one of the things that early on turned me off to trying for military wins. It drove me a bit batty to see what amounted to a puny little province thumbing their noses at my offer *not* to kill billions of their people.

But I can guess that coding for it might be pretty complicated (too little bang for the dev time?). And then there'd be fine-tuning debates with questions like would Korath ever accept a demand for surrender, would Korx all just go pirate to spite you, etc.

Tangentially related too this, is there a formula surrounding peace treaties? I have had a number of races that I have had on their knees, where they SHOULD be begging for peace, yet don't.

I always figured it had something to do with relative mights of empires, coupled with the outcome of X engagements. Possibly some rankings thrown in there and maybe a calculation based on previous dealings with the "offending" race, but I can never gage if a race is going to ask/beg for peace.

any ideas?

I don't have them asking for peace treaties, but I've found that if I go in and take a planet or 2, possibly blowing up some ships in the process, in a very short amount of time, they tend to be willing to give me a peace treaty. Though this probably only works if my military is higher than theirs.

In a game I was just playing I accidentally attacked the Drath when I was trying to attack the Drengin (they were both red), and they wouldn't sign a peace treaty from the beginning. I didn't have enough money to bribe them, so all I could do was go invade a planet, and as soon as I did that they accepted a Peace Treaty.

See, I find that, even if I am in a militarily superior position, some enemies simply will not go for the peace treaty. What I mean is, I can usually win 19 out of 20 encounters with no losses what so ever, invade multiple planets and not be able to elicit a Peace Treaty. Am I over-thinking it?

Current game I am playing (Thalans in a Huge Universe on Challenging with 5 opponents) I am in control of about 1/4th of the galaxy. My tech rating is something like 200 and my military is well over 100. My current ships have Mass driver weapons one below black hole and are doing 40 + damage (per ship). I have defenses (shields) capable of absorbing 90% or more of all incoming damage from the Krynn Consolate ships, basically ensuring that one fleet of 4 ships can wipe up number of waves of ships that the enemy can throw at me. I have invaded no less than 20 planets in the recent weeks yet they do not wish peace.

From my own perspective, If I were facing an opponent like I describe above, i would know that I was decidedly the looser and would pretty much beg for peace. But not these guys.

Oh, and the reason I ask is because I see peace treaties as a way to get extra tech and some coins while I focus on the next opponent on my list for a while. Basically keeping my opponents weak enough that they never become a threat to me until I can dominate them into oblivion.

Oh, some extra stuff, my over all rating in game is top of the heap. Krynn are 4th on the list. And I have never (yet) brokered peace only to attack the next week or so.

Any ideas?

This is the correct tack but there is a lot more to it.

Your relative military ranking has quite a lot to do with it. If you're stronger than the AI or 3 times stronger or 10 times stronger it makes a difference. Also since peace on your side versus planets on their side is simply a trade, albeit a large one, your diplomancy definitely comes into play as well.

Something like the Galactic Baazar makes your trades appear more valuable and that makes a difference as well. Finally at what point of the game and the nature of the planet makes a difference. For example a planet that the AI just colonized with 250 colonists is valued much less than their homeplanet with 10B on it and rightly so.

One thing that makes no difference whatsoever is any history between you and an AI. It doesn't matter whether you've just taken 10, 100 or none of their planets in a row. Also we've all seen the issue of quality over quantity. This occurs when your ships are so overpowered with respect to the opponent that you walk through them like butter and they can't scratch your paint. But that doesn't matter. For better or worse the AI determines your relative military ranking as shown in your Stats & Graphs section of your Civilization Manager and that guides everything else.

I have the impression time is also a key factor: I've often declared war and captured a few capital in the first year. It would take 6-12 months before the AI's started asking for a peace treaty. Probably when they hit war-weariness?

The way the AI calculates relative forces is quite dumb.
If they have a lot of ships with an attack of 2 and I have few ships with an attack of 40 and a defence of 20, the AI would still belive that they outpower me even if I'm taking out their planets one by one. So, even if it's a deadAI walking, belives is a superpower.

Generally speaking I do agree that the diplomatic screen is the one most needing improvements. I also think that Brad/Frogboy could code it using one hand while playing basket with the family.

This is what doesn't make sense to me. When evaluating how much I should grovel, I evaluate my personal weapons/defense strengths vs what the opponent is throwing at me. i also evaluate how many battles in a row I have lost, and how many battles where I didn't even take out one of "their" ships. I also look at how many planets I have lost to the oncoming storm. And then I kiss my dignity goodby and grovel like I was at work.

But it does make more sense to me now. I am currently cutting through the Krynn (my usual nemesis) like they were butter. They have lost no less than 40 planets to me in recent months and their ships can't touch mine. Yet they do NOT want to negotiate peace. Yet if I look at the stats, they still have Comp "Military" strength and influence. Guess I need to take out more of their infrastructure and blow away the rest of their star fleet.

Thanks for the info.