Surrender Button

I was burnt in one game (x250 player CoW frontline pioneer game), when one player had deep pockets and didn't mind using gold to produce 5+ units immediately from production towns they just took over 5mins ago, and bring units back from near death at 5% strength to 100%.

True I used gold in the game.

True also that this deep pocketed player didn't break any CoW rules.

I realise that CoW Hamburg love gold spenders and they need this type of player to stay in business, but I dont have to play against them. To me this just makes the game more about who has the deepist pockets rather than who has the best military tactics and strategies. I know some players will say that you just have to develop other strategies and tactics to defeat gold spenders - true - but that is not why I started playing CoW.

Please CoW provide in the Game creation phase of CoW the option of a. Pay-To-Play (with no gold spending in game), to allow players that want to play a military strategy/tactics game, but also allow option b. the Standard CoW game - free to play with gold spending allowed in game, for those that want to play - who can beat the player with the biggest wallet/deepest pockets, if one is playing in that game.

Sorry I am getting away from the post issue.

If you discover you are in a game that has big spenders in it, and you have spent gold, why should you not be able to pass this onto another player? CoW have got their money off you so they can stay in business.

I know there are issues of that some players will have that this is unfair on them if you give your territories and provinces to another player. Maybe it should be that you can only give your territories and provinces to another coalition member. Then you could argue back that they were fighting you anyway, and how unfair is it to other coalition members on the same side if you quit - how unfair on your coalition partners is it if you abandon them/quit?

I dont know the right answer, and you cant always please everyone.

The ease answer is just to archive our game, but are we not better than this.

BattleIvan wrote:

Can we please have a ''I surrender button"?

I would like the option to Surrender in a game = quit the game, but allow you to give your provinces/units to:-

a. back to computer control (become a computer player);

no , im against this .

some may use this to conquer countries even during peace period

surrender is clear :

get your units out of your country and allow your enemy to conquer it all

Surrender may not be the right word.

Someone help me out here.

You need to quit the game for some reason - family emergency etc, but you dont want to let your coalition mates down.

An option (surrender button or called something else) to allow you to quit the game immediately but allow you to transfer ownership of all your provinces to a coalition partner or a computer player control. A coalition win is a coalition win whether it is two players or one player in control of two players countries (one player having quit and handed ownership over to the remaining coalition partner).

Pretty sure the map you're talking about is the same one i was in. I knew the struggle, i myself spent some gold, although being a free player it doesn't really bother me much, it's just sad that i have to abandon all the time i've spent collecting the gold, building my economy and military, conquering nearby states, planning my next moves and convincing diplomatically for me to get favorable terms with the enemy all gone to waste.

I would support such surrender option, yet i'm not quite sure what kind of surrender mechanics is favorable so i will list of my opinion of want and not want:

- Like province trading feature, it should have a day set when we can began to use surrender

- I agree on the part where we can just quit and be replaced with AI immediately, sounds petty but it feels unfair when your casualty is still counted when you're fighting a battle you no longer wish to lead.

- Alternative to surrender, i would prefer an in-game treaty like mechanics (but can be broken with penalty) such as surrendering by paying reparation (by resources, territories or units) in exchange for timed peace

- I'm not quite sure about just giving away everything to coalition mate when surrendering, maybe both party have to use gold to transfer all the assets? The in exchange if the coalition won, both party got their gold back + earnings?

Interesting idea, but I think I've seen this in some other similar post.

There is a third option under the surrender/handover button.

Handover control options for all of your provinces and armies to:-

1. Another human player (if in a coalition);

2. A computer player - your country just becomes another AI country again; and

3. The conquering human player.

I don''t really like the third option, but in reality, in history countries have handed ownership to the conquering country rather than have all their armies killed/slaughtered.

There are different reasons why you may want to handover control of your armies/provinces to another player:-

1. Family emergency;

2. Leave a hostile/tense situation before someone gets banded from the game; and

3. Too much gold spending spoiling the game, and taking the game away from just a game of tactics and strategy.

Of cause people will argue that that one human player is now larger and more powerful and that is true, but make it only possible in a coalition, which is a group of players anyway, so it would not really matter if you were taken over by one player in the coalition or two or more in the coalition. The size of the coalition is not going to change if one player hands over control of his armies/provinces to another member of the coalition. In terms of coalition member numbers CoW maybe able to record the handover player still as another member of the coalition for a set number of days after the handover, before that position in the coalition can be filled by someone else.

If there was a surrender option to give away your provinces immediately, it should not be fully to one player. Some should go to AI, some go to allies, and others can go to neighboring/nearby countries. But if you divide the land like that, it must be reasonable (one person gets the northern land, another gets southern, AI controls rest). For that you may be able to get a mechanic where the provinces given to each player must border each other, or they must have high relations (alliance or just shared map). The host should also approve it to check for any other possible benefits, potentially resource hogging or uneven infrastructure distribution.

If you were to divide it, the divisions would vary among player land area and map size.

22-player map (40 VP start)

Small Players: (1-55 VP)

1. AI gains any conquered provinces if they exist, unless you want to surrender provinces back to previous owner (player surrendering chooses). No non-core provinces given to any other players.
2. If player wants to give some to an ally (max of 8 provinces & 12 VP).
3. Give 1 city with a few rural provinces nearby to an AI (max of 8 provinces & 15 VP).
4. The remaining land is dispersed among small AI players (averaging 5 provinces and equal VP each).
5. Option to report a surrender gives moderators/bytro-approved players (would mean bytro starts approving consistently fair players) a chance to check for any potential concerns.
6. If an unaddressed report was made, restrictions are made on how provinces are dispersed.[list=1]
7. No AIs made out of non-core provinces, they return to owner, if the owner is gone, then land forms an AI of at least 2 provinces (min of 1 city) or at least 5 provinces. If an AI cannot be formed, then it goes to closest nation (each province is independent). All core land creates an inactive, computer-ran state.

Division isn't such a bad idea, to be honest as much as i would give my support to my ally in a coalition, but i cannot continue playing and have to surrender. I wouldn't like it if was the enemy having the surrendered party's territory just fully absorbed.

True we need some kind of 3rd party approval with gold use as an addition. But that "could" lead some problem where the surrender is too late or the process is too complicated that players would use it. Is there a way to balance realistic of real life surrender + gameplay fairness for both party + ease of access?

I like the idea that players have a switch we they can give the control over here nation to the AI. (Maybe with a gold option to get the Elite-AI instead the normal AI)

But it will be good not only for surrender, maybe it's a good option for a "week off", where we have no time for playing CoW. Sometimes it's better to have a AI that controls my nation that a inactive player.

But no option to spend provinces/troops/resources to any other nation!!!

Xarus wrote:

I like the idea that players have a switch we they can give the control over here nation to the AI. (Maybe with a gold option to get the Elite-AI instead of the normal AI)

But it will be good not only for surrender, maybe it's a good option for a "week off", where we have no time for playing CoW. Sometimes it's better to have a AI that controls my nation that a inactive player.

But no option to spend provinces/troops/resources to any other nation!!!

If CoW allowed people to leave game and give away their land completely, they probably should not allow it to be given at all to real players. That could either be abused, or make quitting more comfortable (they are a company after all).

From me a clear "no" to any kind of surrender.

I understand very much your longing for it in case you have to quit a match because you don't have time to play any more. But CoW cannot be able to distinguish this case from a player who wants to quit for reasons within the match. If you want to quit (which you usually do when realizing you won't win), there may not be a way out of it that's easier than the one you already have - leaving for two days during which your statistics will be torn down by your enemies. That's the prize you have to pay for bringing your nation in a losing position. You could also say it this way: No suffering for the loser means no delight for the winner. And that we don't want to have.

Option to give control over your units to AI while you're offline taking care of real life might be nice (I would make it a free option, since it's still a very bad one compared to actively directing your armies yourself - so will be only used by players who don't have time indeed); probably not easy to implement, though. But please not over your building and unit production - nobody would want that.

Thank you for your comments.

In the game that started this question of the "Surrender/handover" button, I had already spent over $500 to get gold for defence, as the main opponent to the coalition I was in was spending more, and pushing everyone back. To make things 100% worse she/he told me that rather than play this game - I should go and play on the highway. Yes I reported it. A lot of warnings from CoW - eventually I got banned from the game.

Main point here, was that I had spent a lot money, and felt I was letting the team down by wanting to leave the game, and thought it would be good if I could give my units and provinces to my coalition partners. I had been giving resources, provinces and units to them anyway to the very restricted limits of the game. I was able to hang on for a week, but eventually my share frustration with this players seemingly unlimited gold usage, in every avenue of the game, and how she/he telling me how bad I must be in my real job, and how weak my real home country must be, eventually got the better of me, and I got banned from that game.

Maybe it would be better to say that this "Surrender/handover" button, can only work if you are in a Coalition, and the resources/units/provinces stay in that coalition, and that you have spent gold already in the game, or if not are prepared to spend gold to make it happen.

In the player game creation before the game commences, like spending gold to get a better AI, CoW could have the Handover to coalition partner option that you could also pay gold for before the game, if it is easier for CoW to do this before game than during the game. If players can see before committing to the game that this option has been selected, they can opt not to join that game, or join and accept that players can leave and hand over their resources, units and provinces to another player in their coalition.

If there is ever consideration in surrendering territories to allies, it should be an option for custom games ONLY, and it MUST be mentioned in the game details. Now the other option to do a temporary handover to AI may be able to enter larger, non-custom games, but that is the extent of which I see this idea being implemented.

We could make it so when you surrender, all you units are destroyed and the enemy has to capture your territory. This could be an alternative to damaging your stats, but there could be an extra thing on your stats that shows how many times you surrender.