What are the game mechanics behind surrendering?

[Tritio]

What are the game mechanics behind surrendering?

Sense. This picture makes none.

As you can see, France has surrendered to me (Japan). Now, I'd like to know how and why the French AI came to such a decision. I did not have any troops in Europe (I am busy enough with Asia, thank you), and the only French VPs which I occupied were the two in French Indochina, which I occupied weeks before this surrender occurred. (i.e. the latest VP capture which 'tipped' the French's surrender progress over 100% must have been a German or Italian capture) I didn't capture Paris, the Germans did.

Diplomacy: I am in the Axis with Germany. Germany went to war historically as per the 'Danzig or War' event. I followed a month or two later with my own limited DOW against the UK (which of course made me at war against all the Allies). Then I called Italy to arms. How is it that the French are surrendering to a country which DOWed them later, captured fewer VPs, and did not occupy their capital? I had to figure out how to fire the Vichy French event manually and cede French Indochina to me (Japan) manually.

 

[AlanC9]

Wow. Never seen anything like that. I don't even know why France is surrendering -- they haven't lost very many VPs at all.

 

[Hidole555]

French Diplomat: I knew I should have taken a left at Albuquerque!

 

[Normalguy]

42

 

[unmerged(185688)]

Hmm, I'm wondering why France surrendeed how it did? Regardless of who too, the option to annex or puppet should not have happened? France has a scripted surrender event that is activated in the event of war with Germany, Italy or NatSpain. And as the OP has stated France was at war with Germany and Italy, but he had to figure out how to manually fire the Vichy creation event which also happens to be part of the scripted French surrender.

Even if that wasn't the case, I don't understand why they would surrender to Japan though? Unless, would you happen to be the faction leader of the axis? I thought I read somewhere that it will happen if you become more powerful then the origanal faction leader ( more global VP's, larger military?). I'm not sure though, so don't quote me.

cheers

 

[Tritio]

@Hidole555
Lol!

@Normalguy
Gee, thanks for telling me what I already know. I appreciate how the mechanisms typically work. I was wanting to draw attention to this specific situation. It might be true that I took the first French VP (I don't know), but a surrender based solely on that is ridiculous. I can imagine the Germans and Italians going "YOU STOLE MY KILL!!11!!". And obviously, I did not take more French VPs than the Germans.

@chervois
Nope, I am certainly not the leader of the Axis. Germany is that.

 

[Angel Walker]

Hmm, I'm wondering why France surrendeed how it did? Regardless of who too, the option to annex or puppet should not have happened? France has a scripted surrender event that is activated in the event of war with Germany, Italy or NatSpain. And as the OP has stated France was at war with Germany and Italy, but he had to figure out how to manually fire the Vichy creation event which also happens to be part of the scripted French surrender.

Well, I've taken a look at the surrender.txt files, and this is what should trigger the Vichy France event:

trigger = {
	tag = FRA
	war_with = GER
	not = { exists = VIC }
	or = {
		FROM = { tag = GER }
		FROM = { tag = ITA }
		FROM = { tag = SPA }
	}
	not = { has_country_flag = fr_signs_peace }
}

I'm not 100% sure of what this means, or what would activate this event over the normal surrender, but as you can see the "war_with" condition requires Germany, not Italy or Spain.

However, I think the real mistery comes with those "FROM =" tags. Does anyone know what they mean? After taking a look at other events, it seems to have something to do with which country activated the event. Maybe it means that Vichy only fires if France surrenders to either Germany, Italy or Spain? Scrolling through the whole event one will notice that there are a few more lines of code regarding Italy and Spain, mostly about giving any conquered provinces to Vichy, yet there's no mention of Japan. Thus I think it's same to assume that, in case Japan get's too involved in the war against France, something bad is gonna happen

Still, although that would explain why does Vichy not fire when France surrenders to Japan, it doesn't really make it clear why they surrendered to you to start with. I myself have never had any problem with "odd surrenderings" in any of the few games I had, but reading some posts in this forum, it almost seems like from time to time the A.I. goes nuts and decides to pick a random member of the faction to surrender to. :-|

 

[menasure]

france has usually a very low national unity. they're targeted by almost every spy and their counter espionage is quite terrible.that probably plays a big part in this unusual surrender.
i'm not really sure anymore because it's been a while since i played but imo the current intelligence script rarely triggers actions to raise national unity, but even if it would do that then i've no clue if it would really help because all the majors and every nation in europe sends spies to france by default.

 

[Normalguy]

Thanks for all the fish.

 

[Jazumir]

´spank her´ and ´blunt´ ? ;P EDIT: BTW - PM stuff, isnt it?

 

[unmerged(34917)]

That picture of the Fall of France seemed unhistorical. And indeed, France surrendered easily in your game. In my games I had to capture almost the entire country before Vichy fired, even with spies, bombings etc.

 

[xtfoster]

Well, I've taken a look at the surrender.txt files, and this is what should trigger the Vichy France event:

trigger = {
	tag = FRA
	war_with = GER
	not = { exists = VIC }
	or = {
		FROM = { tag = GER }
		FROM = { tag = ITA }
		FROM = { tag = SPA }
	}
	not = { has_country_flag = fr_signs_peace }
}

I'm not 100% sure of what this means, or what would activate this event over the normal surrender, but as you can see the "war_with" condition requires Germany, not Italy or Spain.

However, I think the real mistery comes with those "FROM =" tags. Does anyone know what they mean? After taking a look at other events, it seems to have something to do with which country activated the event. Maybe it means that Vichy only fires if France surrenders to either Germany, Italy or Spain? Scrolling through the whole event one will notice that there are a few more lines of code regarding Italy and Spain, mostly about giving any conquered provinces to Vichy, yet there's no mention of Japan. Thus I think it's same to assume that, in case Japan get's too involved in the war against France, something bad is gonna happen

Still, although that would explain why does Vichy not fire when France surrenders to Japan, it doesn't really make it clear why they surrendered to you to start with. I myself have never had any problem with "odd surrenderings" in any of the few games I had, but reading some posts in this forum, it almost seems like from time to time the A.I. goes nuts and decides to pick a random member of the faction to surrender to. :-|

The reason this event didn't trigger is because of the "FROM" lines. Italy triggered the surrender, but because they were "called to action" by Japan, Japan is the leader of THAT war. Because Japan isn't in the "FROM" lines, the normal surrender event triggers instead.

 

[Angel Walker]

Okey, that makes sense!

Then the only question left to be answered is why did France surrender to Italy. Apparently Germany had the most VPs... so it'd seem logical that it had to do with Italy grabbing the VP that triggered the surrender (though other examples that I've seem on this forum don't really seem to match that theory).

Besides, that is a big hole on France's surrender file (among the other bugs that the creation of Vichy has). Maybe it'd be better to check whether or not the country belongs to the Axis, instead of limiting the options to Germany, Italy and Spain?

 

[unmerged(187312)]

how can france surrender to japan
like you say you don't have men in paris the germany's have
i hade 1 game like that
i played with greece and like in 1 day (at war with italy then)
i landed at roma and around it ,paradrop't paratrooper
at pelerno and invaded africe and then came ITALY SURRENDER'S:rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

[Tritio]

The reason this event didn't trigger is because of the "FROM" lines. Italy triggered the surrender, but because they were "called to action" by Japan, Japan is the leader of THAT war. Because Japan isn't in the "FROM" lines, the normal surrender event triggers instead.

Very interesting! Thank you for that insight. Indeed, it seems that that is the case.

A quick peep at the Diplomacy tab on the date of French surrender reveals that Italy (as called by me to arms) was indeed considered to be under my Japanese 'side' of the war. Therefore that appears to be why France surrendered to me.

Okey, that makes sense!

Then the only question left to be answered is why did France surrender to Italy. Apparently Germany had the most VPs... so it'd seem logical that it had to do with Italy grabbing the VP that triggered the surrender (though other examples that I've seem on this forum don't really seem to match that theory).

Besides, that is a big hole on France's surrender file (among the other bugs that the creation of Vichy has). Maybe it'd be better to check whether or not the country belongs to the Axis, instead of limiting the options to Germany, Italy and Spain?

However, lets try to figure out who grabbed the cheese (or VP point that triggered the surrender). A quick look through my savegame reveals that the next closest savegame to the French surrender (on the 22nd) which I have is on the 8th, which is too far away. Therefore we'd have to take a look at the troop positions as they stand on the day of surrender itself and figure it out from there...

German positions. Note the 3 French VPs circled in red. Either one of them could have been captured relatively recently. However, I would postulate that Reims is the most recent to be captured by the Germans. Reason being that if you look closely at the stack of troops in Reims (which I managed to do in-game), you would see about 3 French divisions retreating southwards from Reims, indicating that they were only recently defeated.

Italian positions. In order for Angel Walker's theory to be correct, the reason why the French surrendered to me (Japan) is because Italy grabbed the 'tipping point' VP. However, as we can see in the following screenshot, that seems quite unlikely. Lyon is the only French VP captured by Italian troops, but as of the surrender date, there aren't any Italian troops near it! Tis quite a mystery, I'm afraid. Either the Italian High Command must have gone bonkers and withdrew their divisions, or some French ghost army must have risen from the dead and boinked a whole Italian division. Based on my personal experience from playing Germans and Italy, I consider the possibility of that division being destroyed by the French airforce extremely remote. Therefore, unless the Italians captured Lyon and then disbanded a whole division, it is quite likely that they did not capture the tipping point VP.

In conclusion, as a fact, we have the surrender of France to Japan. I have been able to verify that from ingame that the VPs captured on the date of French surrender stand at Japan: 15 (Saigon and Hanoi), Italy: 2 (Lyon), Germany: Everything else (a minimum of 37 [Paris 25 (or was it 35?), Caen 5, Reims 4, Troyes 3]).

Therefore, France cannot have surrendered to the party with the most captured VPs OR capital city OR highest threat. If that were true, then the French would have surrendered to Germany. We must therefore look at other theories.

The theory which I propose is that France might have surrendered to me because I captured their first VP. I loaded up my savegame to 13 June and took a look around.

I had captured both Saigon and Hanoi by then.

But on the continent, not a single French VP (or province, for that matter) had yet been taken.

Can anyone else verify or disprove this theory? Anyone at all?

 

[delra]

Lol. We have mother of all exploits here.

Taking first French VPs as Japan shouldn't be very hard with Germans stalling in Poland and Belgium too long. For Japan it's just about putting a few marines on boats and sailing three provinces from Guangxi. I will try it and see if I can get myself a Big Blue Blob as a puppy too.

 

[xtfoster]

Then the only question left to be answered is why did France surrender to Italy.

That one is easy. Italy caused the action that pushed the percentage of lost VPs above the National Unity, which triggered the "surrender" check. Either they took a VP province (maybe in North Africa based on the screenshots), did a Strategic Bombardment Mission, used spies, or raided a convoy.

 

[womble]

Can anyone else verify or disprove this theory? Anyone at all?

I can't offer proof, but I would suggest that it's relatively frequent that Japan are the first power to take a VP off of the UK, and that in most cases the Brits will surrender to Germany whoever has done the most conquering (by some measure or other...). Maybe there's a multi-factor equation that produces a probability of surrendering to any given influence out of: first VP-taker; last VP taker; most VP holder; most province holder; most home province/VP holder...

 

[-MoRiDin-]

I could be signing in the streets with this but...

The surrender could this be beause the fench AI thinks it can continue to fight Germany, but not Italy and so it surrenders to Italy's Master; japan?

Italy has an open route into southern France, I'm not sure why the division that capture Lyon is not still there, but the fact is there is a huge open whole in France's southern front, but the northern one I expect still few holes?

I also suspect that Italy has made gains in North Africa too...

Either way, nice that you called in Italy!! Maybe the French though you'd be a preferable master than the germans?

A note though, if you had annexed what would happen to the provenices already conquered by ITaly and Germany, would the cede to them or be returned to the falg of the rising sun?

 

[MateDow]

I don't remember the distribution of the French VP, but it looks like the Indochinese VPs, combined with the token southern French VP captured by the Italians, might be more of the total than those captured by the Germans in the north.