Cease Fire Humbug in Campaigns

[WimO]

I have just about completed creating my Operation Boston - Ojective La Fiere campaign. I found a cease fire humbug that I am unable to resolve. It goes as follows.

The player is the defender in the current scenario.

The player is sitting on the Occupy terrain objectives with the associated victory points.

In turn one the player selects the Command "Cease Fire" and wins the scenario without even trying. Then jumps ahead to the next scenairo. It is an easy cheat that can be used any time.

FUBAR!

Any suggestions? Anyone?

[Combatintman]

You need to adjust the enemy VPs to compensate for it.  Let's assume in this instance that the player is Allied.  The Axis AI player needs to start with some points to make the Allied player work for their victory or whatever threshold you have determined for the player progressing to the next mission.  For the sake of simplicity let's say there is only one Allied objective which is the Occupy objective they're sat on and that it is worth 100 VPs and that to advance to the next mission the Allied player needs a draw or above.  The Axis side therefore needs about 130 VPs at the start which would give that side a minor victory on a turn one surrender.  The way I generally do this is to use the friendly force casualty parameter.  Again in this simple example, set it at 130 VPs but with an Axis friendly force parameter (number of casualties suffered) at a percentage that you know from your testing that the Axis Force will suffer at about the half way point in the scenario.  Again keeping this simple - let's say the Axis force has 100 soldiers and you know that the Axis consistently loses 30 of them by the half way point.  Set the parameter at 130 VPs for 30%. 

Obviously more complex if you've got a whole mix of parameter, unit and terrain objectives but testing will solve the problem along with @Ithikial_AU's excellent VP calculator.  There are other ways to crack this nut of course, but friendly force parameters are usually my go-to solution for this dilemma.

[WimO]

Thank you very much Combatintman.

[Combatintman]

No worries @WimO - VPs can be a PITA to get right.  Whenever I test anything I do a save every 15 minutes and after saving, hit ceasefire and take screenshots or notes of the number of dudes, equipment that have been whacked.  Of course, if you've already assigned VPs early on in the scenario construction process then you take notes of those as you go along too.  This data helps inform you where the tipping point in the scenario is and how each side is likely to look casualty and points-wise.  It makes the process of using some of the parameter victory conditions a lot easier and how unit objectives are shaping up points-wise or will shape up points-wise if you haven't allocated them at that point in your testing cycle.