Why races Join others

Survival. When there cause is hopeless they surrender to someone else. They never surrender to you if you’re at war with them, they usually surrender to highest military rated race they are not at war with I believe.

This is why the Alpha strike technique developed. Take out your enemy on one turn not allowing it to surrender to someone else or even fire a shot.

In a game of AP I recently played at normal difficulty, I was the top rated military and technology the whole game, though I never went to war.

The others were constantly at war, and many of them surrendered, but no one surrendered to me. Why?

Military is not the only factor your relations level also seems important. Keep the relations good by giving aliens the odd useless tech every once and a while. With good relations and high military you should have the highest likely hood for surrender. You also won't have to fight any wars until your ready.

From my experience they do surrender to you when your at war with them but very rarely....

VERY rarely, in my experience. Twice in all the games I've played. But it can happen. And it's SO nice when it does.

~SDC~

I believe it happened once with me
And yep it is nice when it does

Yes... indeed. I had some games where they have surrended to your might!!
The best thing to do in this situation... only if your diplomacy skills are very high, almost fully developed, or far beyond your enemies, is to trade peace treaty with their star systems!... they might do it!
If they not happy with it just try to through some Techs, and maybe some cash!! I mean, you dont have to pay them all the time, next turn you declare war again!
And repeat the peace treaty deal, afterwards!

Oh and yeah its good to have those saves, you always can come back and replay it, if that havent been a good deal afterall!

I prefer to do it slower... even if I have the ability for them to give me their systems quickly.

I've known my skills to be high enough for wars that end up in peace treaties that give me at least 5 or more systems at a time And then I could repeat it the next second as well. But this is all at the Simple level or below.

Its been my experience that culture is the third spoke in this wheel. If you have the strongest military, good relations, and are culturally superior, or any combination of the three, they are more likely to join you. For example, If your relations are low but your military and culture is high, they'll prolly join you. I know its gamey, but one tactic is if you know a race is about to surrender or just did, go back a few savegames and make that civ your best friend or start invading him culturally.

In the last game I played, I was a scientific and cultural juggernaut, on very good relations with the guys, then they up and joined the evil empire that had been busy bombing their planets! I swear, it's like being the kid nobody picks for the dodgeball game; I'm sitting around with vast, happy worlds and lots of guns and they're joining everyone BUT me.

I think it has something to do with "Popularity" e.g how much each race likes you.

I think it is like every thing else in the game, its a roll of the dice and all you can do is increase the chances of the out come in your favour but there is still a chance that the less likely thing will happen.

The AI seems to more readily surrender to another race at the lower difficulties. I do not remember the last time I seen a surrender when playing MASO. I do remember seeing surrenders happen almost every other game when playing normal.

A surrender seems to be linked to how badly they are getting beaten, how long the fight lasts and how weak that AI is compared to the ones they are at war with.

I really loooove espionage I have every majour race on my tail right now not quite at war but I just finished a war with the Altarians.... they took a system. However I fended them off with my evil espionage and stealing of their techs Woohooo

Yesterday the Altarians surrendered to me in a MASO game.

They were evil and at war with the Dregin (good).

I was saintly, too but not at war with them and had a lot of trade with them.

Before the evil Torians surrendered to the Dregin and they were at war with them, too

Thus it's difficult to tell what will happen ...

After reading through this thread I thought it might be fun to play as a very non-agressive empire where I use mainly diplomacy and culture to spread my power.

The Drath were quite weak, so I bribed the stronger Yor into war with them and they surrendered their last remaining system to me
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It is a viable maso strategy All my maso games are with no military (only colony ships, surveyor, freighters)
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I had two majors surrender to me in a game tonight and I had a zero military rating but high diplomacy with everyone. Rare that two races would surrender to me. I would say 1 out of every 10 games someone surrenders to me at most. They never seem to happy about it though. Usually the moral rating is 1 right after surrender. So I quickly buy colony ship on the planet and send half the population into space and the remaining group is quite happy about it. Must be sending their mother inlaws into deep space.

Now, now, ED. Be kind to your mother-in-law. Remember that your wife will soon be just like her. LOL LOL

Just put me out of my misery now then. (:(

shortly after my espionage stuff the drath surrendered to someone and the yor surrendered to the altarians and then when i wen tto war against the arceans which were left with the altarians the arcs surrendered to me then i was left with the altiarians and I nailed them with 3 terror stars with culture modules and all defense modules possible.... and culture punched them into submission

Heh, I once had the entire arcean systems surrender to me, because they were at war with the drengin and had no military, so i suddenly found myself with 20 extra systems

~SDC~