Auto Ceasefire

[John1966]

Bit puzzled by an experience I just had regarding the "auto" ceasefire.

As far as I understand this happens when both sides morale drops below a certain level but I was under the impression that both sides had to be below (about) 50%.

I was playing as the Germans against the Australians (SPOLIER - "Airbourne Assault on Hill A" - END SPOILER).

The victory results were at 66/34 in my favour with both sides controlling one flag and one with the "?".

As my morale was at 86% and the Aussies were looking a bit desperate with a few turns to go I was confident of taking both remaining flags.

And then I get the auto ceasefire. Looking at the map after the AAR, the Aussies morale was 31%.

Is it normal to get the auto ceasefire with morale at 86% and 31%? Maybe I drive my men too hard but I thought 86% late in the game was fairly good order. I would have thought that the Aussies surrender (or at least rout of the map) was more likely at this stage.

Is there other factors (like ammo levels, for example) that get taken into account before auto surrender gets agreed by the computer? Is there a random factor?

Any thoughts apprerciated...

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by John1966:

Is there other factors (like ammo levels, for example) that get taken into account before auto surrender gets agreed by the computer? Is there a random factor?

Yes, yes and probably no. The type of battle plays a role, appearently a big one.

Unfortunately this is all we know. Given the number of aborted games that are reported on this forums I wonder when BFC will break down and post some more details so thats cenario designers have a chance to have a battle fought to what they think would be a conclusion.

[YankeeDog]

To expand a bit of Redwolf's comments:

BFC has confirmed that remaining ammo definitely affects auto-ceasefire. They have not revealed exactly how much, though, and it probably depends on battle type. Some previous threads (in CMBB) have brought up evidence that the remaining ammo for high point value units (like armor and arty spotters) seems to affect the 'remaining ammo' calculus more than the remaining ammo for low-point value units like simple squad infantry. This *might* explain previously reported ususual auto-ceasefires where a player's infantry still had plenty of ammo, but the player had blown most of his off-board arty and DF HE.

BFC has also confirmed that battle type affects the auto-ceasefire calculus. Probes, for example, being more likely to auto-ceasefire than Assaults. To my knowlege, they have not released more specifics, though. Logically, it should depend on side (i.e, attacker vs. defender) as well as battle type. For example, in a probe, the attacker should probably have a lower auto-ceasefire threshold than the defender, since a probing attacker would be unwilling to take heavy losses or expend a lot of resources. I don't know if this is the case, though.

Cheers,

YD