swear a pact to serve me

scientific civ · November 11, 2001, 09:19

What I always found a nice feature in SMAC was that you could subdue other factions when you nearly eliminated them. They had to swear a pact to serve you. I always let them keep 3 of 4 cities and gave them all my techs. This way I could benefit from their research and had an ally when I was at war. When they became a pain in the butt I simply killed them.
I was wondering if this feature is also in civ3. I used it a lot and I think it's great to have this same feature in civ3.
Let me know,

scientific

Enigma · November 11, 2001, 12:36

No there isn't, you can get them to sign a peace treaty and give you tech/cash, but they usually backstab you. It is really pathetic seeing someone with 2 cities trying to defy my massive empire. The AI is quite silly about this.

Transcend · November 11, 2001, 12:50

Quote:

Originally posted by Enigma
No there isn't, you can get them to sign a peace treaty and give you tech/cash, but they usually backstab you. It is really pathetic seeing someone with 2 cities trying to defy my massive empire. The AI is quite silly about this.

I don't think it's too silly. Afghans have always braved mighty empires, from Alexander to Ghenghis Khan, and from British Empire to the Soviets. We are talking about Nations, not some factions here. How many small countries and nations have survived until today? I say plenty.

randomturn · November 11, 2001, 14:00

I'm really disappointed in this absence. To me, one of the smartest design features of SMAC was that you didn't have to go and clean-up every little odd-ball city of a defeated opponent, and you got an ego boost at having a slave state in the game.

Keyser Soze 0 · November 11, 2001, 14:11

I agree. This and the ability to broker peace treaties between civs were two diplomatic options from SMAC that I sorely missed in Civ III.

Roswell · November 11, 2001, 20:58

Of the two, if I had to choose it would be the ability to broker peace I think (including the ability to demand cessation of hostilities, e.g. the U.S., Iraq, and Kuwait, regardless of how poorly that often turns out IRL).

FeathersMcGraw · November 12, 2001, 08:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Transcend

I don't think it's too silly. Afghans have always braved mighty empires, from Alexander to Ghenghis Khan, and from British Empire to the Soviets. We are talking about Nations, not some factions here. How many small countries and nations have survived until today? I say plenty.

"Never give up, never surrender."

While it may be realistic, I'm not sure it really makes a whole lot of sense in terms of gameplay. I'm particularly tired of a civ that I've beaten into the ground (usually because they attacked me first) coming to me every few turns asking to exchange world maps while paying a premium of technology or gold.

Sniffer · November 12, 2001, 10:29

I sure do miss some of the aspects of SMAC that are absent in this title. Civ 3 is still a lot of fun to play, but it feels like a step in the wrong direction in a few ways. I just wish that the editor was a lot better so that we could have more power to change things on our own. I think a lot of rebalance issues are already being solved by the community (for units), but entire styles of play will still be weaker because of our limited capabilities to alter things--anyone actually using spies? The failure of the diplomatic system to allow surrender or broken peace between other nations is just another hit.

*sigh*

I'm not saying anything new, but I share everyone's dissapointment (even if I'm still having a good time playing).

Knasboll · November 12, 2001, 10:40

What's the difference between the two offers for a peace treaty, ecxept for the wordings? I can never get the AI to sign a peace treaty, even if he's down to 1-2 cities, if I choose "Our military is approaching your cities...", but he'll gladly sign a treaty and give me a lot of gold, tech or cities if I choose the "We seem to have overextended ourselves..." peace offer.

There must be some difference between the two, right?

Andrew_Jay · November 13, 2001, 17:01

I find the game is pretty good towards absolutely subjagating an AI Civ. Once I was at war with the Chinese and Zulus who had a military alliance against me. I beat up on the Chinese a good deal because they actually bordered me, while the Zulus were off on a little island on the other side of the earth. Anyway, the Chinese had three or four cities left, and I demanded that they sign a peace treaty, pay me a good bit of gold per turn (about 20 I think) AND, enter into a military alliance with me against the Zulus, and they actually admitted they were beat and went to war agaisnt their friends. That was pretty cool.