Why didn't the AI surrender?

[markshot]

I just finished playing a game. I only got a tactical victory, but I don't understand why the AI didn't surrender to me. The AI's morale is showing at 4%. I thought the AI is supposed to surrender when its morale drops below 15%.

So what happened? Why didn't the AI surrender?

Thanks.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/markshot/tempimages/CMBO1.jpg

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/markshot/tempimages/CMBO2.jpg

[ December 06, 2002, 09:18 PM: Message edited by: markshot ]

[Cameroon]

Well, I'm no where close to 100% positive, but I think it's a chance to surrender. If so, then it just kept "rolling" numbers that said don't surrender. I'd say consider it a fluke

On the other hand, could you have inflicted about 12% casualities on that last turn?

[Frunze]

I don't think it's random. But the second explanation might be right.

[YankeeDog]

There is also a minimum difference in Global Morale that is required for auto-surrender, so if one side's global morale drops below 15%, but the other side's morale is also very low (but a bit higher), auto-surrender will not happen. I forget exactly what the cut-off is, but it's in the manual somewhere.

The link (I assume a pic of your AAR screen) isn't working right now, but I assume if you only got a tactical victory, that your global morale was also pretty low. This brings up another question: Was your morale also below 15%? If so, the game should have initiated an auto cease-fire, rather than an auto-surrender.

Was there a lot of fighting and casualties on the final turn of the battle? That would explain things.

[Major Jerkov]

It shows his GM at 65% and the AI's at 4%. Odd.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Major Jerkov:

It shows his GM at 65% and the AI's at 4%. Odd.

Well, I'm stumped, then. Unless the AI took a lot of morale hits of the last turn (not necessarily just casualties, routing units, and also units that exit the map effect global morale), I have no explaination. It could actually be some kind of wierd rare bug.

[markshot]

Maybe it was a bug.

The last three turns nothing much had happened as I had already reached the final objective. So, I basically sat on the map for three more minutes waiting for the battle to time out.

Too bad. A surrender would have been a nice ending.

[ December 06, 2002, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: markshot ]

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

There is also a minimum difference in Global Morale that is required for auto-surrender, so if one side's global morale drops below 15%, but the other side's morale is also very low (but a bit higher), auto-surrender will not happen. I forget exactly what the cut-off is, but it's in the manual somewhere.

Auto surrender will kick in if one side's global morale is 15% or lower, and the other side is at least 4 times greater.

However, no matter how badly one side is being crushed, auto surrender will not kick in if reinforcements are due to arrive.

In the AAR screen, does it show a unit that appears to have just arrived?

[markshot]

Kingfish,

Thanks for that info. I did not see any newly arrived units. However, I went into the scenario editor. ("A Long Cold Day") I turns out that the axis had a couple of units with a very low probability of arrival (probably due to the 60 turn scenario). There may have been a tank that never showed up.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by markshot:

Kingfish,

Thanks for that info. I did not see any newly arrived units. However, I went into the scenario editor. ("A Long Cold Day") I turns out that the axis had a couple of units with a very low probability of arrival (probably due to the 60 turn scenario). There may have been a tank that never showed up.

This has happened to me, too--and I think it's evidence of a mistake by the scenario designer. That is, the designer, in my opinion, should NOT assign reinforcements with a very low chance of arrival, for the excellent reason that this is likely to defeat the autosurrender function--wisely included by BTS-- in an inherently gamey way.

IN fact, I favor 100% arrival chance in almost all circumstance. In my view, the designer should decide EXACTLY when the reinforcements should show up, and have them show up then. WBW, for example, is a master of the timing of reinforcements and IIRC, he pretty much always gives them 100% chance.

[xerxes]

Totally agree. I really can't see why a scenario designer would ever make reinforcements probabilistic. It's hard enough to get things balanced without making things random (which is a reason it's particularly hard to balance a scenario with significant number of aircraft).

[Silvio Manuel]

Auto-cease fire happens when both sides morale goes below 25%.

It can also happen in CMBB when the attacking side in a PROBE had their global ammo level go to low (NOT that you can check on this w/ some graphic, though).

[tar]

Originally posted by xerxes:

Totally agree. I really can't see why a scenario designer would ever make reinforcements probabilistic. It's hard enough to get things balanced without making things random (which is a reason it's particularly hard to balance a scenario with significant number of aircraft).

Well, balance is only one of several competing factors that a scenario designer must weigh. Some countervailing factors favored by random reinforcements are replayability, additional uncertainty in when or what will appear. The latter, particularly with very low probability reinforcements can be used to encourage players not to ignore the map edges and rear area security. Once you've identified all the enemy units, you can converge without having to worry about securing the flanks against possible intervention from off-board.

Random reinforcements make that a somewhat riskier mode of operation.

[demoss]

Actually, I can conceive of another neat trick you could do with variable reinforcements - turn off the auto-surrender if it's not appropriate (such as in many exit scenarios, where you should still have to EXIT!). Just put a couple sharpshooter groups that can enter at 1% at the end, and bingo! No auto-surrender for the defender!

[ December 10, 2002, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: demoss ]