This ruined my last game. 

We were 7 civilizations, several were at war with each other. 

One of the civs was under attack and I saw my chance to step in and take some planet. But some other race captured ONE of their 4 planets, and one round later they handed over their complete empire to them. They still had their homeworld. WTF?

The same happened over the next 10 turns to other civs. In the end we had 4 colors on the map. Me (33% of galaxy), and the others dividing the rest between them. I looked forward to the challenges to come. Next round - BAM - another civ gave up everything to the YOR. Some rounds later, next civ gave up everything to the YOR.

I get it. Its a drag conquering dozens of worlds when you have already clearly won, but taking ONE of their outback colonies shouldnt make them give up their homeworld.

Thats insane.

It costs a LOT of resources from my planets to conquer another planet (and if its only the 3-6 population and the transport). By giving up those civilizations hand their completely unharmed population and all fleets to the conqueror. He doesnt need to invade, he doesnt need to bring transports. Thats IMHO retarded AI behaviour.

Kyoss, if I was the AI and could see that while, yep, you've only taken Outworld V, you've got such a good armada, such good manufacturing etc at your disposal that my defeat is all just a matter of time. Now, I can either wait until the last minute and surrender my homeworld to my friends the Drengin for 50bc and safe passage or I can give them everything I own now for a lot more bc and safe passage to another galaxy.

All of the above predicated on money being transferred from the surrenderee to the surrenderer (never being in a position to make an AI surrender, have no idea if this actually happens - it'd be logical if it did).

If no bc changes hands I guess it's just the humiliation thing...Either reason for doing it, I think it's a realistic thing for the AI to do.

VladiMIRfRUS, Allow Surrenders was a gameplay option in GalCiv2 so it should be available in GalCiv3 at some point.

I remember when in GC2 everyone would surrender to the Thalans. By mid-game they would have like 1/2 of the map because they looked at someone funny... on the other side of the galaxy! It prolonged the game, but damn did it become a grind (especially on immense maps).

Well I dont mind them surrendering. But it should be with a warning. In my current game the map had lots of colors and from turn 250 to 300 it all went purple (YOR).

That was no fun at all. They also didnt surrender to some ally or friendly partner, they all surrendered to the attacker (who was at war with about anyone except me at that point).

Seriously, the losing AI should at least ask me, the player, OR their allies something along those lines:

"We are getting obliterated by faction A, please assist us or we might have to surrender." 

a) Of course we help you (declare war on faction A) to help you.

Who cares, get lost.

Or the game should give me a warning.

Or a mission depending on my alignment: 

(if benevolent, donate them ships or resource, if pragmatic -> try to benefit from the war, if malevolent -> conquer the weaklings yourself, or place a bomb on the planets to explode after surrender )

Or or or. Just not, whoops, looks like they surrendered and you didnt get a warning (or even a message)

Quoting JakeAlmighty,

reply 9

 

The only problem I've had with surrendering.... I was beating up one of the AIs, and rather than surrender to me it surrendered to one of the other AIs who was barely even attacking him!

 

Better yet I had a fairly new non-aggression pact with the guy who gained all the planets, so I had to sit there and wait a good long time before I could renew the war.

 

Just a tad annoying is all

It makes sense in that case, though. The AI is surrendering to the guy who is beating on him less to spite the main aggressor. It's like a kingmaker. 

The only thing I can't stand is surrendering to a faction that they are not at war with.

That is like Germany surrendering to Switzerland in WWII.