How do auto surrenders work?

[cole7]

Curious as to the mechanics behind the enemy surrender that ends the battle (not individual unit surrenders)? In most of my battles the enemy fully surrenders but on a recent one I wiped out all of the enemy on the map (not one unit left) and held all the victory points/conditions but there was never a surrender. Is this just a random thing or can it be forced?

[Karp_K]

I primarily have experience in quick battles against AI and I've noticed that generally the enemy side surrenders when roughly 70-80% of their total points in units have been destroyed.

As far as scenarios go, I believe there can be set conditions by which the enemy forfeits. While I can't give you a full, determinate answer I'm sure one of our more experienced players around here will answer soon.

[A Canadian Cat]

Scenario designers don't have direct control over this but they do have some tricks they can use. The auto surrender uses the condition of all forces in the scenario. A designer can create a reenforcement group that arrives after the time runs out and those forces are part of the condition of the AI forces. That means they can arrange it so the surrender is never triggered due to casualties of the forces actually in battle.

[chuckdyke]

9 hours ago, cole7 said:

Curious as to the mechanics behind the enemy surrender that ends the battle (not individual unit surrenders)? In most of my battles the enemy fully surrenders but on a recent one I wiped out all of the enemy on the map (not one unit left) and held all the victory points/conditions but there was never a surrender. Is this just a random thing or can it be forced?

I think after observing enemy forces after a full surrender is their soft factors. Rattled to Broken if they are in that state they no longer follow the orders of the AI Plan and could surrender but forces off map obviously do and in those instances you are forced to find a lonely straggler hiding in a cellar. This is just my theory about it. In a Campaign it may work against you as cease fire may cost you victory points.

[PEB14]

17 hours ago, cole7 said:

Curious as to the mechanics behind the enemy surrender that ends the battle (not individual unit surrenders)? In most of my battles the enemy fully surrenders but on a recent one I wiped out all of the enemy on the map (not one unit left) and held all the victory points/conditions but there was never a surrender. Is this just a random thing or can it be forced?

I had this experience in the third mission of The Scottish Corridor campaign: I had to wipe out ALL ennemy units. I think there was no surrender in this case because the last unit I destroyed was a StuG; I think he weighted a lot in the total points, which probably explains the Germans didn't surrender.

[Combatintman]

On 7/17/2023 at 12:44 PM, PEB14 said:

I had this experience in the third mission of The Scottish Corridor campaign: I had to wipe out ALL ennemy units. I think there was no surrender in this case because the last unit I destroyed was a StuG; I think he weighted a lot in the total points, which probably explains the Germans didn't surrender.

Nope - it is as @IanL has explained.  If I don't want one side to surrender in a scenario I am making then I bung in reinforcements that do not arrive.  It has nothing to do with point values it is about the number of troops and auto surrender is triggered when the side in question loses about 65% of its starting head count.

[PEB14]

2 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Nope - it is as @IanL has explained.  If I don't want one side to surrender in a scenario I am making then I bung in reinforcements that do not arrive.  It has nothing to do with point values it is about the number of troops and auto surrender is triggered when the side in question loses about 65% of its starting head count.

I see, you suggest that @Paper Tiger had some reinforcements hidden behind the clock in this game. That's fine for me!

[PEB14]

On 7/18/2023 at 6:13 PM, Combatintman said:

Nope - it is as @IanL has explained.  If I don't want one side to surrender in a scenario I am making then I bung in reinforcements that do not arrive.  It has nothing to do with point values it is about the number of troops and auto surrender is triggered when the side in question loses about 65% of its starting head count.

@Combatintman

I thought about it twice and, in the case I depicted, it is not the case. Indeed, the AAR shows 100% casualties for the German size. Not 99 or so, 100%. So there is no reinforcement hiding somewhere, as they would appear in the final casualties calculations.

The last defenders to fall were the StuG crew. These 5 guys amount to 18,5% of the German head count, so more than 65% of the Germans had already been killed before I dealt with the StuG. So why didn't the Germans surrender in that particular case?

- AFV may be treated differently in the head count? Like a separate AFV vehicle count?

- is auto-surrender automatic ? It may be that it is random, checked each turn once the critical head count is reached?

[Combatintman]

14 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

@Combatintman

I thought about it twice and, in the case I depicted, it is not the case. Indeed, the AAR shows 100% casualties for the German size. Not 99 or so, 100%. So there is no reinforcement hiding somewhere, as they would appear in the final casualties calculations.

The last defenders to fall were the StuG crew. These 5 guys amount to 18,5% of the German head count, so more than 65% of the Germans had already been killed before I dealt with the StuG. So why didn't the Germans surrender in that particular case?

- AFV may be treated differently in the head count? Like a separate AFV vehicle count?

- is auto-surrender automatic ? It may be that it is random, checked each turn once the critical head count is reached?

In which case you'll have to ask @Paper Tiger who made the scenario and the campaign as to how he managed to create this situation.  All I can say is that never arriving reinforcements is a well-known trick employed by scenario designers to prevent an early auto surrender.  When I started making scenarios - early auto surrenders were a frequent problem that needed a workaround to solve.  The 65% ish figure I quoted is what testing showed me to be the there or thereabouts threshold.  Building extra non-arriving reinforcements around that threshold has always worked as a solution.  Probably the easiest way to test it is to just play a few QBs to get a sense of the whole thing and then knock up some tailored tests from that.  It all depends on how much detail you really want to know.  Personally, for my scenario design purposes, I'm happy with my understanding of how it all works.

[chuckdyke]

Much appreciated now it has been properly explained.

 

[Ts4EVER]

I mentioned this before, but:

In my opinion, in addition to this system, there should be an AI trigger that let's the designer trigger an action for a group once its strength falls below X%. In my view this would make it possible to create drastically more realistic defense missions, where the AI does not automatically go "all in", but pulls back or stops forces once certain casualty rates are reached.

[Paper Tiger]

I had a quick look at the 'Tiger' mission and the attacking Pioneers' morale is Extreme which is probably why they don't give up. There are some very weak units mixed into the German OB but the majority are good quality and so they won't surrender. It's definitely not due to reinforcements that never arrive.

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, Paper Tiger said:

I had a quick look at the 'Tiger' mission and the attacking Pioneers' morale is Extreme which is probably why they don't give up. There are some very weak units mixed into the German OB but the majority are good quality and so they won't surrender. It's definitely not due to reinforcements that never arrive.

Thanks mate - every day's a school day and all that ...

[A Canadian Cat]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:19 AM, Paper Tiger said:

I had a quick look at the 'Tiger' mission and the attacking Pioneers' morale is Extreme

Oh good point. I totally forgot that motivation will effect this too. Duh