What the... ? Surrendering with Tigers still in play?

[John1966]

Well I was all lined up for the final strike on the German Tigers. Been getting everyone in position for over 10 minutes.

The plan was to wait for an arty strike (because you never know) and then hit the two Tigers from all sides with at least ten Churchills (patiently lined up to break cover at the same time). PIAT teams were not far from the hedgerow that was right next to them and I had infantry available for a close assault.

Then after a fairly innocuous turn in which little happened except for some arty landing on my pixeltruppen, the Germans surrender!

From my experience I don't think I've ever seen an AI surrender when it's still got armour left, especially if they're Tigers.

I feel slightly cheated...

[JoMac]

You must have KO'ed most of the German Inf, and so the Tigers decided to Surrender ?

[John1966]

1 hour ago, JoMc67 said:

You must have KO'ed most of the German Inf, and so the Tigers decided to Surrender ?

Well there was infantry left at the final objective as I'd not even got there. Several MG crews, HQs and scout teams I think.

What's more, there was also a Panzer IV I didn't know about as it was immobilized (I assume due to the wet conditions) out of anyone's LOS.

Just never seen the AI surrender with any armour left. Let alone two Tigers and a Panzer IV (plus a couple of MG platoons by the look of it).

[IICptMillerII]

If the AI suffers a certain percentage of casualties to its overall force, it will surrender. Not sure what the specific percentage is (I think it’s 60% casualties but I’m not sure on that) but you likely hit it before you had a chance to take out the enemy armor. 

[JoMac]

1 hour ago, IICptMillerII said:

If the AI suffers a certain percentage of casualties to its overall force, it will surrender. Not sure what the specific percentage is (I think it’s 60% casualties but I’m not sure on that) but you likely hit it before you had a chance to take out the enemy armor. 

Yeap, and most likely the case...

Edited November 6, 2020 by JoMc67

[nik mond]

Factors in the condition of your own force in comparison for sure. And objective points are weighed. I don't know this for certain, however I did a fair bit of testing to see what made this tick.

[John1966]

16 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

(I think it’s 60% casualties but I’m not sure on that)

Sure I've got the end game screen with the opposition having taken 80+% casualties before surrendering.

As I say, it seems the surrender often seems to be triggered when you get their final tank (if they have tanks in the game).

[John1966]

1 hour ago, nik mond said:

And objective points are weighed.

Interesting because all I'd got was a contact objective and one occupy objective. The Tigers were sitting on top of one objective and I hadn't reached the third.

The funny thing was that, assuming I got the Tigers (big assumption), I'd actually have been hard pressed for time to get the final objective.

[nik mond]

Yes I've had an AI pak line deployed once on an obj and they never came into play. They could have definitely gave me a run for a draw. I've also taken a fight to the last AI squad, actually a battalion HQ, and only then did a surrender occur. So there more going on there.

[John1966]

4 hours ago, nik mond said:

I've also taken a fight to the last AI squad, actually a battalion HQ, and only then did a surrender occur.

Yep. That reminds of one in a campaign where I didn't get the win because there were literally two soldiers (both leaders from different HQs) in the objective zone. They were both next to my tanks taking their time lining up their shots and I only got 1 minute of extra time.

[Combatintman]

13 hours ago, nik mond said:

Yes I've had an AI pak line deployed once on an obj and they never came into play. They could have definitely gave me a run for a draw. I've also taken a fight to the last AI squad, actually a battalion HQ, and only then did a surrender occur. So there more going on there.

The 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick may have been used in this instance - my experience is that an AI surrender is primarily triggered by numbers.

[Freyberg]

As I understand it, 'Surrender' is driven primarily by morale.

I think of it as the enemy being driven to flee...

[Erwin]

Broken units may as well be KIA and are not counted for that side.  But, the CM2 victory conditions are very "unstable".  In CM1 one could see the victory levels change at a moderate pace as the game progressed.  In CM2, have experienced many times (through many Cease Fires) that one may be even losing until suddenly one kills one or two presumably critical enemy units and the victory level swings abruptly to a big victory.  Reminds me of modern jets that are so unstable that they can only be flown by computer.

[John1966]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

Broken units may as well be KIA and are not counted for that side.

 

7 hours ago, Freyberg said:

As I understand it, 'Surrender' is driven primarily by morale.

Thing is, every German unit on the battlefield at this point would have had good morale.

The infantry on the final objective hadn't even been fired at (and no, I hadn't dropped arty on them) and the same goes for the two Tiger crews.

The Panzer IV crew might have been a bit dodgy in their immobilized tank but no-one had actually fired on them.

Any German whose morale would have been low had been eliminated.

Edited November 7, 2020 by John1966

[Combatintman]

As I said earlier - this dynamic is primarily numbers - why do you think scenario designers use the 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick to stave off a premature AI surrender?

[MOS:96B2P]

40 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

As I said earlier - this dynamic is primarily numbers

+1

[John1966]

5 hours ago, Combatintman said:

As I said earlier - this dynamic is primarily numbers - why do you think scenario designers use the 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick to stave off a premature AI surrender?

Obviously that would appear to be the case.

I was responding to the suggestion that morale was the issue. 

Still strange though. My experience of AI surrenders is they don't when they still have tanks. I've even had to go an finish off immobilised tanks that weren't firing (presumably with the MA out) to force a surrender.

And, as I say in the OP, they took no casualties in the preceding turn. Not a shot was fired. Some of my arty landed on my pixeltruppen (*sigh*) but other than that, nothing happened. There was no contact. I just moved some people about a bit.

Not suggesting it's a bug or anything, just an unusual experience. 

Edited November 8, 2020 by John1966

[John1966]

5 hours ago, Combatintman said:

why do you think scenario designers use the 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick to stave off a premature AI surrender?

I suppose the problem with that is you don't know what the designer may or may not have done. So you get what appear to be inconsistencies in AI behaviour. Hence my surprise at this one. 

TBH, I've never quite understood why it's such a popular trick. People often complain that casualties are unrealistically high and that's a good way of keeping them high.

I'd rather, if the enemy has been reduced to the point that you'd expect them to surrender, that they do.

(But having said all that, I'd still be surprised to see two perfectly good Tigers surrendering in RL - they were still more than capable of winning the battle)

Edited November 8, 2020 by John1966

[sburke]

Also an aspect of the player as god.  You know that but if this were a real battles isn't it plausible that they would not?  CM certainly has it's limitations.  Players however also have our own bias of too much knowledge.

We also look at every single battle as a crucial must win.  In reality a commander's decisions would be influenced by factors outside the scope of a single CM scenario.

[John1966]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Also an aspect of the player as god.

But isn't that an argument for the AI not surrendering in such circumstances?

Effectively the guys in the final objective zone will have noticed the radio chatter will have gone a bit quiet. But they haven't even seen an enemy soldier. Just heard gunfire not too far off.

And as for the Tiger crews... Well they'd have been court martialled if it wasn't for the fact they were in allied captivity.

Edited November 8, 2020 by John1966

[Combatintman]

There are a number of aspects to this which I probably won't cover off entirely but here goes ...

In the early CMx2 days, a lot of people complained vociferously and frequently usually in threads called 'Extra Time for Scenarios' about early AI surrenders along similar lines to your original post i.e., 'I'd tee'd up the perfect plan to nail the enemy only to have the scenario end' - or as you put it ...

"Well I was all lined up for the final strike on the German Tigers. Been getting everyone in position for over 10 minutes."

It took people a while to work out that if you added a few extra units that the player never saw, you could create a scenario that would allow the player to execute their 'perfect' plan.  That is one of the reasons that the trick is widely used by scenario designers.

From a design point of view, I admit it probably isn't perfect and maybe the game should take into account other factors such as objectives held or the morale state of the opposition, although of course with the latter - that only becomes apparent at end game and still leads to the frustration at not being able to execute the 'perfect' plan.  Having a morale dimension would also completely kill certain scenarios at birth - my Ap Bac Scenario for the Heaven and Earth module absolutely would not work if morale played strongly into the equation as about 70% of the total ARVN force have shocking motivational and leadership factors.

Conversely to early surrenders, players don't like schlepping across the map for half an hour having knocked over the enemy and secured all of the objectives at the end of a mission to root out a single unit in a tactically insignificant location, and slot it, in order to achieve a victory.

FWIW, my scenario design philosophy has always been about the narrative and I am mindful of the fact that anybody who elects to download and play a scenario is making a choice.  This means you have to accept that it is transactional between player and designer and ultimately you have to try as best as you can to satisfy player needs.

That means your narrative and design concept has to either hit, or balance some quite often divergent factors and of course no scenario is ever going to tick everyone's boxes, but the closer you get to achieving that aim the better.  As a simple example of this - if I call a scenario 'the Battle of Waterloo' then it ought to include things like La Haye Sainte, an allied defending force, a French attacking force and some Germans rolling up late on in the game because that is what the player is expecting.  I would also do my best within the editor to make sure that the map and forces resemble the real thing as well as ensuring that the moving parts in the AI plan bear some resemblance to real events.  If I fail to do this adequately, the transaction between designer and player fails because the player is expecting to refight Waterloo.  Similarly, if I call a mission (or have as its premise) 'Platoon attack' I would design that mission so that the player gets to execute a platoon attack and can actually culminate that attack.  This means that the enemy doesn't surrender when it loses a handful of soldiers.

Since I learned the 'reinforcements that never arrive' trick I have found that it gives me more control over achieving my scenario narratives.  It certainly isn't the only trick by the way but it is one that I consistently use with what I would like to think are fairly successful results.

The transactional piece for me looks vaguely like this:

• Players want to win.
• Players want to feel challenged.
• Players want to feel that they are a commander in a realistic environment.
• CM players expect scenarios modelled on real engagements to bear some resemblance to them.

To achieve that, you give them the tools in terms of time, forces available to them (e.g., sappers if there are minefields), clear mission command-style orders, a strong narrative, a realistic setting and you set the objectives/VPs accordingly.

It is usually the latter that is the most nuanced mainly because objectives and VPs are how victory is judged and what the victory-focused player will therefore judge the outcome.  It is also nuanced in terms of surrender points - I'm happy that the AI will trigger a surrender at the point where the player has closed in on the last objective but will make absolutely sure that it doesn't happen before that because the player rightfully feels cheated.  The same is true of unit objectives of any description - you can't give a player the goal of 'destroying all the Tigers' and then have the AI surrender before the player has even seen them.

Your comment about reaching the point where you'd expect them to surrender is absolutely valid but is subjective - some will call a scenario/surrender unrealistic if it doesn't happen at the point at which the force suffers 30% casualties - CM has it modelled at around 60% - yet this didn't seem right to you based on the fact that some gucci armour was on the map in the engagement you were fighting.  There is a lot of truth in what @sburkesaid - you only know you were 'cheated' after the scenario ended and to a large extent are judging based on that godlike information given to you at ceasefire.  I recall testing one of @George MC's scenarios recently and had got to a point in the scenario where I thought - "I'm not getting anywhere here, I'll hit surrender and see if I can edge a win," - an excellent example of how friction and the essence of manouevre warfare works - shattering the enemy's will (or in this instance mine) had come into play.  As it happens, I thought - "I'm testing this scenario so I should play it through in order to give the best feedback" and about three turns later I got the sense that the enemy had culminated and that I could actually continue with a reasonable chance of achieving the set objectives.  About five turns later, the enemy surrendered.  In short - a brilliant example of scenario design which ticked most of the transactional boxes for me.

To conclude - balancing these factors and explaining it in the narrative to manage the player's expectations and then testing the scenario to make sure that the thing works is key to the whole scenario design piece.  Adding a few extra dudes that the player doesn't see to stave off the early surrender is a proven and effective tool that people use to best deliver a 'really good scenario which I recommend' comment versus 'the AI surrendered early' comment.  Not perfect of course and it would be better if the designer could control the ratios and maybe use a combination of tools.

[John1966]

3 hours ago, Combatintman said:

yet this didn't seem right to you based on the fact that some gucci armour was on the map in the engagement you were fighting.

Thank you for detailed response. 

I think I have it in my head that infantry like having friendly tanks around. Less inclined to surrender while they're there.

Partly because that was what I'd read. But also because there was an optional rule brought into Squad Leader for "battlefield integrity". The idea being that a force that had taken a mauling could easily turn into a unleadable rabble.

I forget the details (this was about 30 years ago), but essentially the rule meant that as the amount of infantry on the board dropped (you had to keep a tally), at certain points, your cardboard warriors' printed morale would go down in steps.

But what stuck in my mind about it was if you still had armour on the board, the morale losses were offset (again I forget the details).

In the rules' notes, basically it said because they'd read that in books too. Soldiers like a friendly tank. Reassuring presence.

So yes, that presence of "gucci armour" was the thing that made me raise my eyebrows. 

Incidentally, I have no idea if "battlefield integrity" (or similar) is modelled in CM. I assume it's just tied up in C2 and auto-surrender.

Edit: Worth mentioning that I appreciate we all play these games for slightly different reasons. Mine is a re-enacting history bent. I didn't actually feel "cheated" by the surrender because I didn't get to execute the "perfect" plan. I had no idea if it would work (winning was looking a taller order) and I normally greet the surrender screen by punching the air (which is a bit sad ). So it was more a case that I didn't feel it was a very "authentic" end to the game. The Tigers alone would have put up more of a fight. They only fired their MAs once each (to get each member of the scout team that didn't spot them).

Edited November 9, 2020 by John1966