A family feels like playing is pointless, and would rather end it and get to the next round.
The Solution:
Allow the family to surrender, at which point they either:
All get removed
Get split up and randomly distributed amongst other families
(Updated) Are unable to log in
When 1 non-surrendered family remains, round is over.
We already did #2 in The assimilation round, but on a schedule and with multiple families being auto-surrendered. The change here would put the power into the hands of the family, and let them do it whenever they want.
The code for a lot of this is already in place, we just need to hook a few things up and add a new galaxy setting.
Iâm going to see how viable this is, as some players are calling to end Black Eye 3 early. This would give the option to do so directly to the players.
This is partially a band-aid over larger issues. For the long term, we want to examine what we can do to empower players in these scenarios so they donât feel like their situation is so hopeless.
The redistribution hit unforeseen complications, and mass-deletion is problematic for its own reasons. The solution as it stands will remove the familyâs ability to log in instead.
To prevent abuse, empires must be at least 2 weeks old to be able to vote to surrender. By extension, this means that the round must also be 2 weeks old.
This is a âgood enoughâ solution to get us what we need for Black Eye 3, but we can and should iterate on it.
This is also a galaxy setting, defaulted to âenabledâ. We can disable the ability to surrender, and have done so in Virgo.
One idea for improvement: As for the âlast fam standingâ, when all others surrendered. It does kinda suck to login and see that thereâs no empire anymore (just the âjoin a galaxyâ-button), and not even a message to stating why itâs gone, what happened or something⌠Just have to guess that itâs probably because all opponents surrendered. (although this time that was pretty obvious).
I guess a message with: âYour galaxy has ended because all noobies have bowed down to your supremecyâ would be nice
This would be a reasonable addition to the round detail page too, which should also âcrownâ a winner to be displayed.
In the bigger picture, we need a proper event system so that a family surrendering can be part of history shared and permanently displayable across empire/family/round. That way, people who arenât playing (and guests) can also observe accordingly.