With all due respect, I personally think it obscures what is already an incredulous mechanic.  In its current rendition, who or what is doing the forcing of this outcome?  Is it the civilization that just got pounded into a bloody mud pulp that is forcing this?  Not believable.  Is it the rampaging leaders own populous forcing this outcome?  Also not believable. Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito all had to be bested militarily by external forces.  All were dictators who didn't give two poops for what their domestic population felt or thought.  One was not the slightest bit shy about simply executing those voicing dissenting opinions on the domestic front.

Nixon, in a democracy, was much more restrained in what he could do to domestic dissenters.  But even he had sufficient power to prosecute an unpopular war until he decided it no longer served his purposes; despite very vocal and robust domestic opposition for more than a decade.  Popular opinion is a force, but it is a minor force. Popular opinion has never in the history of the world taken on the mantle of commander in chief.  It shouldn't in Humankind, either.

So, again, I ask, who or what is forcing this decision to surrender or accept a surrender against the human players will?

I think war support (or the lack of it) has a place in Humankind.  But I don't think forcing strategic decisions onto human players algorithmically is a valid abstraction of that.  Most importantly, it's not any fun having software tell me I decided something when I most certainly did not.

> "once a player's empire loses all war support, it's own people (including military) force it's leader to surrender. "

In the real world, absent other circumstances, this has just never happened. Not at least that I know of. And certainly not in such absolute terms.  So it seems an unlikely contrivance to make this a primary force in the game.

Mussolini was eventually shot by Italian partisans, but not until well after Italy had been overrun by external forces.  Their will to fight was a moot point; their ability to project force had already been demolished.  So "the people" did not effect any particular outcome in terms of international relationships that wasn't going to happen anyway.  Mussolini was caught trying to flee to Switzerland so it is likely his impact on the world stage had run its course in any case.  Earlier than that, actually.  Because by then he was nothing more than Hitler's sock-puppet anyway.  And since Hitler was hastily rehearsing his own suicide for a final recital two days hence, Mussolini was pretty much already fully deflated as far as his ability to influence much of anything at all.

A contingent of Stalin's forces were so opposed to serving in the military that they risked, and in some cases suffered summary execution by Barrier troops whose military role included executing "in place" their own Russian soldiers deserting the battle front. It turns out that you don't have to murder too many of your own troops in order to make a lasting impression on the rest of them.  WWII was by no means a popular war in Russia.  Yet Stalin persisted no matter how many Russians had to die, either by Barrier troop actions or by Nazi combatants.  And he succeeded.  Had Russia failed, Stalin no doubt would have gone the way of Mussolini or Hitler.  But to suggest "the people" would have had a meaningful hand in shaping the international landscape in any possible scenario is just fanciful thinking.  In fact, it would have been existentially suicidal for Russia to just disengage from that war for any reason whatsoever.  Invading Nazis didn't much care whether you thought you should fight back or not.

A determined dictator is really hard to argue with; especially so during war time.  When it comes to military advertures, "the people" are metaphorically the tail on the dog.  And in real life, the tail never wags the dog.

I am saying the game should not force the human player to surrender or accept a surrender--ever.  I cannot force-fit that abstraction into anything remotely resembling reality.  What power in reality can impose peace between Israel and Palestine? I am saying that the game could and should impose a consequence to rampaging war-mongering.  Escalating instability in home territories comes to mind as a handy mechanic that could be employed here when war support fades.  The rampaging leader should have to weigh consequences of whether to continue the war or not every turn.  Modern media in later eras could accelerate that effect. Propaganda could counter that effect. So I'm not saying you should remove your algorithmic trigger.  I'm just saying it should trigger something that more obviously abstracts something in reality.  Likewise, a losing civ that has been overrun comes to the negotiating table hat in hand.  He does not dictate terms of surrender.  It is surreal to think he can retain territory that contains no surviving combatants against the will of the victor.

@Cind13, Only to add that the design should always account for the possibility that the losing side might be played by another human. In that scenario a "forced loss" can only be imposed by the winning player; it happens when the losing player is no longer able to project force either offensively or defensively. Triggered debufs should behave identically regardless of whether one side is played by a human or by an AI.

And if the AI is war-mongering, it should at least appear to suffer the debuffs as well; even if there might be a little cheating going on under the hood ;)

I more or less agree with everything both of you are saying about how the game shouldn't force a player to make these decisions, which is the primary motivation for wanting to add a mechanic like this in the first place. So as I'm understanding it, you do want forced surrender out of the game, and in it's place some kind of war mongering penalties?

Cind13 wrote:
Reducing the winners war support to continue the fight would just go against this very reason as war score is based on war support (also it would make it possible that both parties have 0 war support and what then). Additionally, reducing war support by such abstract means would again make it possible to force you out of a winning war which is what WarBaby10 so passionately hates (rightly so)

This is something I sort of overlooked. A possible solution would be that your war score after winning a war you continued by spending war support receives a bonus to make up for the amount you spent to continue the war. Basically, your people didn't support continuing the war as much (I understand and mostly agree with WarBaby's criticism of this mechanic, but this is what I had in mind anyway), but you still managed to win the war, which "recovers" your people's war support that was lost, or something like that. And if you continue a war this way and lose all of your war support, then maybe you get to keep the occupied cities, but cannot make additional demands for war reparations, vassalization, and non-occupied cities.

But I guess this all hinges on whether or not the devs at Amplitude would actually overhaul their warfare system in the first place. I assumed that they would most likely not remove the forced surrender mechanic, so I wanted to work around that.

@Cind13 the asymmetry of allowing the successful aggressor true human decision-making capacities, yet still forcing AI-imposed decisions onto the loser would relegate this game to a single-player experience only. In a multi-player scenario you are treating the successful aggressor as a first class human player while the loser is treated as a second class AI-managed human hand-puppet. You might be right about breaking the game if it's done differently. I suspected that might be so yesterday. For me, I think it's a moot point anyway. I've pretty much given up on the idea of ever playing this game against a human opponent. I don't think it will ever be more than a single-player experience for me. It was obviously never designed to be played competitively, and I think that gap is too wide to span with a few mods; no matter how cleverly designed.

@WarBaby10 Its very poetic to go for "lower class human" here. Games force lots of things on the player for various reasons and often times this can even add to the fun.

Being forced to surrender based on some number that keeps track of your war success and preparation but does not take into consideration the actual position and power you still have in the war is not fun, I agree. But its not a crime on humanity either.

Being forced to accept a surrender of the loser if you still wanted to continue the fun combat is kind of dissapointing. Being denied war score because the enemy surrendered to early punishes success, is frustrating and can be abused in PvP. 

All in all I think the war system can perform quite well in multi-player, but allows to cheese your way out of a war by killing your own war support.

Well, yeah, no . .  .

My point wasn't about the winner being forced to accept the loser's surrender.  You said the forced surrender for the loser could stay.  That's the problem.

I'm more concerned about the human loser (so-called loser, anyway) being forced to surrender.  It's the same problem we've been talking about all along; just from the other side of the looking glass.  Once you introduce a second human into the equation there is never going to be equal treatment.  Who is first class and who is second class is situational depending on temporal circumstances; and will change throughout the game.  It would work, but kind of like a square tire would work.  Kinda, but not very well.

I don't think you can design an algorithm that can declare a loser that would match what a real human would think is a losing position.  Some of the most brilliant chess wins in history have been made from seemingly unwinnable positions.  But in any case, we do agree that no crimes are being committed here!  ;)

I am quite content to keep this game on my single-player shelf, but I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone who wants to allow a computer onto their team to oversee their decisions.  To each their own, aye?  

Of course you are correct in your assessment.  There is nothing inherently wrong about forced anything.  A game has to have rules.  "Forced Surrender" is just a simpler short-hand label for discussing a bone-headed minder algorithm that makes decisions for me and then blames those decisions on me. It goes way beyond setting out some straightforward rules and then playing the automated referee role that it should be playing.  It's a referee that blocks and tackles too, and then makes a call against you 3 turns later than it should, and then retrofits a penalty to your current turn for supposed past misdeeds.  There is just so much wrong with it that I'll probably just keep hanging my complaints on the "Forced Surrender" label, even if it isn't totally precise.  Besides, it's a lot more polite than $^@(!-head-moronic-0#&!%@$_dunderhaededsonsonofa&^#%@$!---hole! :)

Good discussion!  And best of luck to you in your efforts.