Mission Ends Early

[Cotton128]

Hi everyone. Is there a way to extend mission or make it last longer? I played the first mission of American campaign which is 60 turns (60 minutes). I took my time during recon & initial combat phases. I eventually knocked out all of their armor & was set up to assault Government Center. And then the mission just ended with 20 turns left. It was a bit frustrating that I did not get the payoff of assaulting & completing objectives after all the 'hard work' of clearing the way. There was a full 20 turns left & just ended! Thanks in advance for the input on whether or not there is a way to extend missions. At least to the point it get to finish the turns shown.   

[Hister]

Looks like you killed enough enwmy for thwm to surrender to you.

That's hoq game works but I feel your frustration.

[Cotton128]

Thanks for the reply Hister. Mission did result in victory but would have liked to made the assault I worked forever to set up Oh well, still a really fun game!

[Rambler]

What Hister said. This is one of my pet peeves with the game too. Nothing more infuriating than being all set to bring the hammer down on the AI and the game ends. Cowards! For individual missions, you can fix it in the editor by creating reinforcements for the AI that arrive after the clock expires. The AI will usually fight until the bitter end with that workaround. Can't really do that with the campaign missions, though.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Rambler

[Fade2Gray]

When the AI surrenders, there is generally not much left.  Do you really want to chase down scattered AFV crews and infantry squads with only 1 or 2 men left?

Edited May 3, 2015 by Fade2Gray

[Nerdwing]

When the AI surrenders, there is generally not much left.  Do you really want to chase down scattered AFV crews and infantry squads with only 1 or 2 men left?

 

Agreed.  Doing this is the worst part of the game I'd dare say.  

 

When they throw up the white flag, you won mentally and physically.  Against an AI, granted... but yeah you know what I mean.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

When the AI surrenders, there is generally not much left.  Do you really want to chase down scattered AFV crews and infantry squads with only 1 or 2 men left?

 

It's one of the things that always drives me nuts about other games.  The enemy is done.  They've got maybe a tenth of my remaining forces, I'm on the decisive ground and still in pretty good shape, but no, victory is not secured until I have gunned down every remaining vehicle crew/surviving assistant MG gunners/mail clerks.  It's a bit abrupt though, like we're still at this point of "I'm about to kick his teeth in" then suddenly poof, battle is over gg.

 

In some sort of alternate reality CMBS, it'd be neat to give some incentive to losing well.  Like perhaps surrendering is wrong, but instead having a condition to move forces off the map after certain conditions are met, and to that end if you can pull enough forces off the map deny the enemy a major victory/perhaps even force a draw. 

[Hister]

panzer, such missions do exist already. Are present in Paper Tiger's campaigns in campaigns that launched with the CMBN game.

Not sure about CMRT since I haven't played it much yet.

Don't own CMFI.

[womble]

If the enemy surrenders before you press your major assault, especially in a campaign setting, you should be rejoicing. It means you don't have to lose any more troops who won't be there in following scenarios. It means you prep work for the assault was so efficient and effective that you beat him without having to closely engage him. The AI does't often surrender soon enough, IMO; the thresholds are somewhat obscure, but as Panzersaurkrautwerfer says, they're never in a state that could negatively impact your imminent control of the whole map, they'll just inflict a few more incidental casualties before you gun 'em down. Pointless nurdling.

[Rambler]

When the AI surrenders, there is generally not much left.  Do you really want to chase down scattered AFV crews and infantry squads with only 1 or 2 men left?

That's the beauty of the cease fire button. You don't have to hunt them all down once the objectives are clear and secured.

 

It sounds like this comes down to different play styles. I play the AI to crush it and run it off the map, and I prefer to manually capture all of the objective zones and not have them awarded to me due to a surrender. There's no satisfaction in seeing an objective awarded to you that you didn't take and still has a bunch of enemies on it when you review the map. So yeah, when the AI surrenders and I still have several more objectives to take, it kills the enjoyment of the scenario for me. Dueling Shashkas was the most recent offender*. I won the long range fight, secured the river village and made my way to the top of the hill on the opposite side of the map to take the last two high point objectives. I still had 95% of my forces left. Grinding down the remaining Ukrainian forces was going to be glorious. I barely started taking the second to last obj when the AI surrendered, and the Ukrainians still had a decent force left. Lame. Didn't even get to enjoy the fruits of my labor by using my overwhelming force on the last two objectives.

 

*The scenario itself is awesome and a lot of fun. Good job to whoever designed it!

[Cotton128]

Good discussion! I think Rambler hit the nail on the head when saying it comes down to play styles or even just personal preferences. While I agree with Fade2Gray that it would be terribly annoying if mission didn't end until every last unit was destroyed (ala early Total War games). I think enemy gives up a bit early in certain situations as it is. I guess some would rather mission just end but I like the payoff of actually conducting successful assault after spending hours setting it up. Yes womble, even if it means losing a few more men. Don't think there is a 'right or wrong' answer here, just matter of opinion. Thanks for the replies!

[Fade2Gray]

If you have shattered the enemy to the point of focusing a surrender...

 

there is nothing left to assault.

 

Okay, so there's maybe 2 under strength squads left (one of which is just a broken tank crew with 2 guys left) and 1 AFV with half its systems knocked out providing "resistance," how is assaulting that any fun?

Edited May 4, 2015 by Fade2Gray

[Cotton128]

Not always true Fade although again I understand your point. I've seen them surrender when me or you would definitely have continued the fight (as opposed to ceasefire). Last scenario I played, which caused me create to this thread, I would guess they surrendered with 25% of their fighting force (not tank crews) still combat effective. Was anti-climactic is all I'm saying. Still a great game & appreciate your point of view!   

[womble]

Not always true Fade although again I understand your point. I've seen them surrender when me or you would definitely have continued the fight (as opposed to ceasefire). Last scenario I played, which caused me create to this thread, I would guess they surrendered with 25% of their fighting force (not tank crews) still combat effective. Was anti-climactic is all I'm saying. Still a great game & appreciate your point of view!   

That is pretty unusual.

 

Edit: IME. Mostly Fade's point holds. I wonder whether there's some aspect of the way people approach engagements which results in different "surrender thresholds" being activated... We don't have a good grasp of what makes the AI chuck in the towel; I've seen evidence to shoot holes in pretty much every explanation that's been aired on here, including a few of my own tentative hypotheses

Edited May 5, 2015 by womble

[Apocal]

In some sort of alternate reality CMBS, it'd be neat to give some incentive to losing well.  Like perhaps surrendering is wrong, but instead having a condition to move forces off the map after certain conditions are met, and to that end if you can pull enough forces off the map deny the enemy a major victory/perhaps even force a draw. 

 

It doesn't need to be alternate CMBS, the tools are already in place. But force preservation and exit objectives are sorely under-utilized in most scenarios.

[womble]

Exit conditions are tricky to do, since any forces that don't exit, and are part of a "Destroy enemy forces" objective are counted as having been destroyed, so you could, by some miracle, hold your ground and "beat" the attackers, but still "officially" lose, because you kept your forces on the map too long.

 

Against the AI, there are  a few "tricks" a scenario designer can use to give the AI more or fewer VP depending on the time the battle endures.