The “Race for Germany” achievement is not triggered

[efpies]

This achievement is kinda tedious, because I'm literally forbidden to call any of my numerous allies, so I always check the save file to see whether it has the GER_lost_core_state flag.

It says: capitulate Germany before anyone (yep, even countries from your faction) took its core state.

Ok.

I conquered Netherlands, Norway and Denmark and tried to push from the north. Saved on 94% capitulation progress. There's no GER_lost_core_state flag.

Germany capitulates. And... I don't get the achievement. Why? Because Germany got balkanized based on warscore, Poland and Czechoslovakia got their cores back, Britain and freaking LUXEMBOURG took cores from Germany (probably it killed a million of German troops, idk).

How can this happen? I myself capitulated Germany, then AFTER it got capitulated the cores were distributed and I have this in the save file:

GER_lost_core_state={
value=1
date="1949.9.16.1"
}
germany_lost_the_war={
value=1
date="1949.9.16.1"
}

Well thanks. How am I supposed to get this achievement? Basically rush Germany before the Allies got any war participation? I think this is a bug...

 

[AndrewT]

Over 1% of the player base has this achievement, so we know it is gettable and not bugged.

I'll move you to the main forum for a wider audience of gameplay experts.

 

[efpies]

Well, as a programmer, no, it doesn't mean that. There could be false positives and false negatives we don't know about. Some scenarios may have been overlooked, and the flags checks or flags setting may be done in incorrect order, and this 1.1% may have stars aligned for them because they follow the standard scenario a wider audience of gameplay experts may have suggested. And/or, BBA may have introduced changes in gameplay mechanics, and the achievement system was tailored to pre-BBA game mechanics.

I don't recall states being distributed based on war participation pre-BBA, maybe I'm wrong. If that's the case, the achievement check was tailored for the older capitulation system. If that's not the case, well, this 1.1% probably got it before Britain ever did something to increase its war participation (as there's a year long time window after the Fall of France when Britain is hardcoded to not even try).

Back to my situation. I attach the save game file right before the capitulation happened, anyone can check it themselves and try to see what happens after they load and unpause.

Are the criteria met? Yes. I capitulated Germany before any state took a core state from Germany. Flags from the save game show that I'm correct in my assumptions. Is the achievement triggered? No, because Germany loses core states at the very moment it is capitulating because it's capitulated. Because the flag germany_lost_the_war is set after GER_lost_core_state. So the game assumes that Germany lost because the states were taken by different countries. Which is not true because it's vice versa: it got states distributed due to capitulation. Chicken and egg. Anyway, these flags have same date, so if the code checks for germany_lost_the_war.date < GER_lost_core_state.date, this check won't work.

In plain words, the description of the achievement is clear: “capitulate Germany before anyone takes a state”, not “capitulate Germany without any help from Allies whatsoever”. Given history of WW2, “Race for Germany” is a derivative from ”Race for Berlin”, which suggests it's the 1st option.