Premature Surrender

[Pandur]

Let me throw this into the void... .

 

If CMSF2 gets another patch, maybe it would be good to consider to reduce the premature surrendering a little bit. Its not cool for the enemy to just surrender after you clear half the map, often the enemy has still plenty of killing power left.

They may be somewhat rattled but they can still kill you just fine.

 

On Factory outlet it was very noticable, i did not even set foot into the first buildings, after i smash the reinforcements they get and shot up the SF in the first compound a bit, they just surrender. The syrian SF still had rpg29´s and to dig em out of the building proper that would have been the most difficult part of the scenario to get it right.

 

On Rahadnak(?) valley search, a USMC scenario, the same thing, the enemy had 50 fighters and combatants left, one rpg29 and a few rpg7´s , and they where holed up in the walled compounds, that would again have been the most difficult and costly part of the scenario to get em out of these building in below 50m-60m ranges where they can do lots of damage. But they surrender with like 70+ turns still on the clock.

 

Just saying, it would make some of the scenarios more enjoyable i think.

[Erwin]

Designers can overcome this by scheduling enemy reinforcements to arrive after the end of the scenario.

[Pandur]

I know erwin, that is why the enemy in my Red Stream map do fight till the end...i alread did that back in 2008 in the original version, but in the stock scenarios or in mostly any scenario, hardly anyone does use it.

And it does not help scenarios that suffer from that problem that scenario designers "could" do that, they have to do it too for it to work 

Edited September 13, 2020 by Pandur

[nik mond]

There are other methods used which influence forces not to surrender so readily. An equal weighted occupy objective towards the back end of the enemy side with a vet battalion HQ occupying can work towards keeping the battle going longer. Safely nested in position to keep the morale up, and its worth a few points towards the balance until the player moves in for the kill.

Reinforcements arriving after the scenario works, but can be confusing to some as they have to manually end the scenario or keep hunting for the last man.

Edited September 13, 2020 by nik mond

[Anonymous_Jonze]

This is hilarious because there's been several threads saying the opposite. Perhaps not in CMSF2 though.

[Glubokii Boy]

6 hours ago, Anonymous_Jonze said:

This is hilarious because there's been several threads saying the opposite. Perhaps not in CMSF2 though.

witch answer are you refering to ? Erwin or nik mond

As far as  i know it has been the consensus for many years to use reinforcements to prevent early surrender.

 

[Uffest]

Premature surrender is a problem, yes. I play scenarios for the Reds on the side of the Syrian army and there are many controversial issues that make the game far from a simulator.

For example - The Syrian army's armored units does not see enemy armored units at close range. This looks like an artificial advantage for the blue side. 

P.S. Forced to give an order to an armored unit to forcefully shoot into an empty area on the map. 

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Uffest

[Pandur]

1 hour ago, RepsolCBR said:

...

As far as  i know it has been the consensus for many years to use reinforcements to prevent early surrender.

 

 

As i said above, others as well as i, as players, we have nothing from that workaround if it is not used. If stock scenarios end too soon that workaround a scenario designer could use, is doing nothing for me and all others as players of that particular scenario.

 

And the scenarios in question will not get better because a workaround exists, i talk about possible change that does improve the situation for any scenario in the game, not if some people could implement some measure to have it working differently in some few scenarios that use the workaround, that are two very different things.

Lowering the moral "threshold" that does trigger a surrender so it does happen a bit later, that is what is needed to make it better, not a crutch scenario designers use to stop it from happening at all, which has its own problems, like the player has to cease fire to end the scenario, something i can accept but it seems for many it is a nogo.

Lets not make the thread about workarounds, cause they are not helping here.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Pandur

[Glubokii Boy]

My question was actually more aimed at Anonymous_Jonz...

With regards to a 'fix'...i agree that that would be welcome. Tweaking the moral threshold as you mentioned is probably the easiest fix.

Having the option to specify a retreat- as well as a outright surrender threshold for each AI group (preferably at each induvidial waypoint) as well as a force-wide surrender threshold for the scenario would be even nicer imo.

Even better if the scenario designer could also asign the pullback locations for the AI groups if they are forced to  retreat. 

[nik mond]

6 hours ago, Pandur said:

Lets not make the thread about workarounds, cause they are not helping here.

OK. Are there other factors besides morale that influence surrender though? Such as a ratio change of assets remaining, or a weighting of objective points gained or lost.

[Uffest]

13 hours ago, nik mond said:

OK. Are there other factors besides morale that influence surrender though? Such as a ratio change of assets remaining, or a weighting of objective points gained or lost.

I recently bought a game CMSF2 on Steam and I am not an expert, but I noticed that the "soldier's resilience" is also influenced by the status of the unit, such as - veteran or ordinary recruits.

[CAS]

In the Afghanistan game the enemy was fleeing from the map (fighting retreat).

I liked that! Combine it with units surrendering when you get close.

 

In most scenarios I think the timing for the retreat / surrender of the enemy is OK.

I only play the scenarios once and see if I can win the campaign.

If the enemy gets much more resilient I have no chance to win...

 

P.S. Steam brought me back to the game! Good decision on Steve!

       Hope for the fire and rubble release on Steam! 

[Pandur]

On 9/14/2020 at 5:12 PM, nik mond said:

OK. Are there other factors besides morale that influence surrender though? Such as a ratio change of assets remaining, or a weighting of objective points gained or lost.

 

Honestly i dont know, i only know what i see after i look over the map after i got a totaly victory by enemy surrender, and what i see most of the time is things that could still deal quiet some damage. And in the 2 scenarios i described above, they where in quiet good locations, hard to dislodge.

 

On 9/15/2020 at 11:48 AM, CAS said:

In the Afghanistan game the enemy was fleeing from the map (fighting retreat).

I liked that! Combine it with units surrendering when you get close.

 

 

I do not have CMA, that sound nice, but i would already be happy if they would be a little bit more stubborn and surrender later. I dont ask them to fight to the last man, just a bit longer.

[Combatintman]

As far as I know - the surrender trigger is overwhelmingly driven by the number of AI forces on the map and when the figure reduces to about 40% of the original force, the surrender is triggered.  That is why designers use the 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick.  Unfortunately, a lot of the early shipped and user generated content was made in the early days when designers were still getting to grips with the engine, hence a lot of early surrenders and player frustration.

The issue with changing that figure, say to 30% of the original force is that all of the shipped content would need to be updated.  The second-order effect on campaigns will require all of the campaigns to be reworked again - remember you've only just got the British Campaign upgraded to CMSF-2 standard and the other campaigns were also a long time coming.  This is because it is a huge amount of work and therefore I suspect that this will be a tweak too far for Battlefront.

[Glubokii Boy]

Maybe the old stuff needs to be left as is...

But couldn't they not  add a 'slider' to the editor now that would allow the designers to specify the surender treshold on the future scenarios...

If the slider is left untouched it would default to 40 %....

Allowing already released scenarios to work as before but give some options...going forward .

[Zveroboy1]

This would work, a new entry in the editor under the mission data tab where you pick friendly map edges, intel level etc.

[Glubokii Boy]

10 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

This would work, a new entry in the editor under the mission data tab where you pick friendly map edges, intel level etc.

yepp...

 

[aleader]

I'm noticing this right now in the Dutch campaign.  I'm on mission #3 and so far, both have ended in very early surrenders where I hadn't even cleared half the map.  I am seeing the opposite on Mission #3 however.  I've seized the bridge approach and am now just sitting there waiting for the time to tick down.

Edited September 20, 2020 by aleader

[SlowMotion]

I don't know if my problem is what this thread is about, but:
While playing a CMSF 2.04 scenario I've noticed cases when an enemy unit seems to be surrendering (the enemy soldier is on knees and hands up, so your units won't fire it), but as time passes the surrender doesn't happen. The enemy unit does not switch back to normal fighting mode either. Just keeps hands up. I have some old soldiers nearby, just outside the building making sure the enemy surrenders and disappears. But at least 10 minutes have passed and this seems to never end.

In my opinion this is a bug. Either the enemy unit should surrender after a couple of turns or start fighting. Not pretend to surrender but never really do it.

[chuckdyke]

1 minute ago, SlowMotion said:

Not pretend to surrender but never really do it.

I found that it is a give away that enemy units are still in proximity. Some scenario designers may use it to lure and trap your units by entering inside a building to be shot to pieces. One of the reasons I stopped playing SF2 think it is gamey and pathetic. Once you know it you play surrendering forces not what I call fun. 

[Ultradave]

13 minutes ago, SlowMotion said:

I don't know if my problem is what this thread is about, but:
While playing a CMSF 2.04 scenario I've noticed cases when an enemy unit seems to be surrendering (the enemy soldier is on knees and hands up, so your units won't fire it), but as time passes the surrender doesn't happen. The enemy unit does not switch back to normal fighting mode either. Just keeps hands up. I have some old soldiers nearby, just outside the building making sure the enemy surrenders and disappears. But at least 10 minutes have passed and this seems to never end.

In my opinion this is a bug. Either the enemy unit should surrender after a couple of turns or start fighting. Not pretend to surrender but never really do it.

What happens when you go into the building with the surrendering units? I don't think they'll disappear until you are there and "take custody" of them.

Dave

[MOS:96B2P]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

I found that it is a give away that enemy units are still in proximity. Some scenario designers may use it to lure and trap your units by entering inside a building to be shot to pieces. One of the reasons I stopped playing SF2 think it is gamey and pathetic. Once you know it you play surrendering forces not what I call fun. 

The fact that surrendering OpFor units don't quickly disappear is a give away that other OpFor units are in proximity to the surrendering unit.  But not for any malicious scenario designer reasons.  It is to give the other OpFor units a chance to rescue the surrendering OpFor unit.  It generally adds fun to the game as a mission within a mission.  Just like doing buddy aid to leave no man behind etc.  It is explained on page 65 of the 4.0 engine manual.     

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, MOS:96B2P said:

It is to give the other OpFor units a chance to rescue the surrendering OpFor unit.

  Area target with a HE weapon.....Problem solved! 

Edited November 28, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MikeyD]

Have scenario designers found whether monkeying with scenario 'Parameters' (casualty, condition, ammo threshold %) affects the AI's willingness to surrender, or does that just affect the points total? Noticing a difference may just be 'observational bias' on my part

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

The fact that surrendering OpFor units don't quickly disappear is a give away that other OpFor units are in proximity to the surrendering unit.  But not for any malicious scenario designer reasons. 

Highland Games first mission. I posted the 'Checkpoint' as a bug when the game concluded the Syrians were still in the surrender position but I was not awarded the objective. Even though all Syrians surrendered on the end of the game. Now I realize that according the AI the Checkpoint was still contested. Better in CM 1 you could order the surrendering units to your rear.