What are the game mechanics behind surrendering?

[Tritio]

The plot thickens... And I am getting a headache. It seems like a 'lab' test with a deliberately set up situation is necessary to pin down all the factors and the approximate weightage of factors.

Or the relevant Dev could simply weigh in...

 

[womble]

I disagree that the Vichy event will fire immediately when the conditions are met. I have never seen it happen at the exaact same time in any of my games. Some games I've captured almost all of France and in others I got the event real quick.

So either there is some hidden secret to cause the event to fire or it comes down to a percent chance each day.

There's something you're not seeing (so it could count as a "hidden secret"), and that's the contribution of other nations to France's VPs-lost, which will vary, and possibly something you're not considering in that the NU of France is not constant either. Every game I've played where France has fallen, France has capitulated the morning after (it seems to thik 08h00 is the traditional time for diplomatic note delivery) the midnight check where its surrender progress has reached 100%, whatever set of conditions for obtaining that surrender pertained. Same for every country I've observed the surrender progress of.

 

[jju_57]

There's something you're not seeing (so it could count as a "hidden secret"), and that's the contribution of other nations to France's VPs-lost, which will vary, and possibly something you're not considering in that the NU of France is not constant either. Every game I've played where France has fallen, France has capitulated the morning after (it seems to thik 08h00 is the traditional time for diplomatic note delivery) the midnight check where its surrender progress has reached 100%, whatever set of conditions for obtaining that surrender pertained. Same for every country I've observed the surrender progress of.

Not really. I played many games as German that did not ally with anyone. Sometimes France went Vichy just before Paris fell and I was the only poerson attacking them and other times I fought and even took Marseilles before the event fired. I have not been able to spot any coherent reason for the event. The only thing that makes sense is that as the unity falls and VP's are captured there is a possibility that the event goes off. Remember that nationl unity also goes down the more battles that are taking place in your territory. So maybe even this contributes to the formula. Who knows?

BTW- this is for Vichy event and not a full surrender which has different criteria.

 

[Sinner14]

Not really. I played many games as German that did not ally with anyone. Sometimes France went Vichy just before Paris fell and I was the only poerson attacking them and other times I fought and even took Marseilles before the event fired. I have not been able to spot any coherent reason for the event. The only thing that makes sense is that as the unity falls and VP's are captured there is a possibility that the event goes off. Remember that nationl unity also goes down the more battles that are taking place in your territory. So maybe even this contributes to the formula. Who knows?

BTW- this is for Vichy event and not a full surrender which has different criteria.

Me too, once France surrendered a day or two after I took Paris, in my current game I had to drive my way to the Mediterranean. Although in my current game France was able to take 4 german provinces for a short time, before I reinforced Bitburg HQ with the Armee group I sent to take Poland. Just wondering out loud if that has anything to do with it.

 

[Xamand]

BTW- this is for Vichy event and not a full surrender which has different criteria.

The Vichy event is a surrender event and is listed in the surrender.txt event file as event 504.
Hence it works just like all the other surrender events. ie the relevant surrender event will fire at midnight (in vanilla 1.3, some mods may change this) of the day that the nations VP count falls below their national unity. Bear in mind that a nations national unity can change and that I have seen France attempt to increase their national unity (which because it starts off so low actually increases pretty fast as I discovered when I played them).

The mechanic involved for surrender events is that the game first checks to see if there is a nation specific event (Vichy, BP, German or Italian surrenders for example) and whether the conditions are met for it (Japan or Hungary forcing the French surrender means that the conditions are not met).
It then checks to see if the country surrendering is in a faction and if so fires off event 500 as long as that faction contains at least two members.
Finally, if the nation is not in a faction or the conditions for the above events are not met, then event 502 is fired.

 

[jju_57]

The Vichy event is a surrender event and is listed in the surrender.txt event file as event 504.
Hence it works just like all the other surrender events. ie the relevant surrender event will fire at midnight (in vanilla 1.3, some mods may change this) of the day that the nations VP count falls below their national unity. Bear in mind that a nations national unity can change and that I have seen France attempt to increase their national unity (which because it starts off so low actually increases pretty fast as I discovered when I played them).

The mechanic involved for surrender events is that the game first checks to see if there is a nation specific event (Vichy, BP, German or Italian surrenders for example) and whether the conditions are met for it (Japan or Hungary forcing the French surrender means that the conditions are not met).
It then checks to see if the country surrendering is in a faction and if so fires off event 500 as long as that faction contains at least two members.
Finally, if the nation is not in a faction or the conditions for the above events are not met, then event 502 is fired.

I know that Vichy is event 504. My point is that France has two surrender options. One is the scripted Vichy event where provinces go Vichy and a new country Vichy is created. The other is the normal run of the mill surrender. They each have different criteria as clearly showed by the OP.

My point is that if it is hard coded to fire the day of a certain criteria being met then where is the proof to support this? Especially for the Vichy surrender. It does not always fire the day or day after unity is lower then remainig VP's.

And in the OP Germany was at war with France and did control some VP's. I think the key word you had was that Japan/Italy forced the surrender. Not sure we have been able to determine that they forced it or what forcing a surrende even means.

And yes I also know about the other criteria about being at war with Germany in the file. I think some testing needs to be done to watch unity/vp levels in France and see how long it takes for Vichy event to fire.

 

[Xamand]

Every single game I have played, with 1.1c, 1.2 and 1.3, and I've played a fair few with each, France has surrendered at midnight on the day that their VP levels have dropped below their unity. As to whether it has been the Vichy event or the run of the mill surrender has always been down to who they have surrendered to. For example, they have never had the run of the mill surrender when they have surrendered to Germany, it has always been the Vichy event. I ran a lot of tests when testing who France surrendered to in my Hungarian example above, a couple of dozen at least, and the surrender in whatever form always took place at exactly the same time without fail. There was never any delay waiting for the surrender to occur after the VP percentage fell below the unity.

 

[AlanC9]

I'm pretty sure surrender events fire the next time the Diplomatic AI runs. AIIP reduces this cycle, so surrenders can take a few days to happen. I haven't seen any case in vanilla where the surrender won't happen the day after the score runs to 100%.

 

[womble]

JJU, Sinner: I'm afraid you're missing the point. Because you did not observe the 100% surrender event doesn't mean it didn't happen. That it happened with varying inputs from yourselves does not mean that the specified conditions (VP lost > NU) were not met. Whether you had to get to Paris or to Marseilles, or whether you were in an Alliance doesn't change is, to a large degree, irrelevant if you aren't fully aware of all the other factors. Japan taking 100 Indochina provinces off France, and 15 or more VP doesn't always happen, but if it does, it will affect the timing of the surrender to you. Whether Italy's in the Axis or not, its conquest of NA French provinces will affect the timing of French surrender. Sometimes the French have low NU if there's been protracted warfare on their soil, sometimes the AI even attempts to repair it.

Unfocused anecdotal maunderings will not assist in determining the mechanism of Vichy firing or not, or the larger set of "who does a nation surrender to?". Vichy is a surrender event, and triggers in a (large) subset of the "French surrender" set. Outside its effects it isn't anything special. Unless you can provide firm evidence that Vichy doesn't always happen (when it happens) the midnight after [French VP lost > French NU] occurs. So far, that's not been presented.

 

[unmerged(190145)]

I think they surrendered as MateDow said combined with a sometimes very, very low french national unity.

 

[Xamand]

Edit; whoops, posted in the wrong thread

 

[shabu]

similar situation

As germany i invaded yugoslavia, took out their VPs and and they surrendered to italy becuase italy evidently came up behind me and filled more hexes

Same thing when i invaded turkey, this time greece did the sneak in and steal the win...

Anyone have thoughts on how to fix this ?

 

[womble]

As germany i invaded yugoslavia, took out their VPs and and they surrendered to italy becuase italy evidently came up behind me and filled more hexes

Same thing when i invaded turkey, this time greece did the sneak in and steal the win...

Anyone have thoughts on how to fix this ?

The first thing that would help fix this is for Paradox to elucidate the mechanic so that we can play to it rather than thrashing around in the dark trying to determine the mechanic for ourselves.

 

[ajm317]

The first thing that would help fix this is for Paradox to elucidate the mechanic so that we can play to it rather than thrashing around in the dark trying to determine the mechanic for ourselves.

Have to agree here. I love Paradox games as much as the next guy, but they've always had a weakness for documentation. Say what you want about games like Civ, but when something happens in Civ you know WHY it happened. In the Paradox games that is obviously not always the case.

 

[Buh the Ghost]

After reading this thread i wanted to start a little sandbox test.

1. Start a 1936 campaign with SCH, delete all units and save on 1.1.1939. SCH has 27 provinces.

2. Edit savegame:

a) Start two wars. GER against SCH and ITA against SCH
b) Change the capital Basel to 0 VP.
c) Change two SCH provinces to 1 VP. So we have 3 single VP in switzerland.
d) Change one SCH province to 5 VP. (for proofing if VP count as "base provinces")
e) Change NU of SCH to 10

3. Load savegame as Germany.

Now the test starts (between every test, i load the savegame):

1.) Giving Germany only one of the 1VP provinces.
-> SCH surrenders to GER

2.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces
-> SCH surrenders to ITA

3.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces and Germany one non VP province
-> SCH surrenders to GERMANY????? Germany gets Switzerland. Italy gets the single VP province.

4.) Giving Italy one 1VP province and one no VP province. Germany gets one non VP province.
-> SCH surrenders to Germany... again?

Being confused, I now LOAD UP AS FRANCE (maybe it is because i am the player that makes Germany get SCH):

1.) Giving Germany only one of the 1VP provinces.
-> SCH surrenders to GER

2.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces
-> SCH surrenders to ITA

3.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces and Germany one non VP province
-> SCH surrenders to Germany. Germany gets Switzerland. Italy gets the single VP province.

4.) Giving Germany only one of the 1VP provinces and Italy one non VP province.
->SCH surrenders to Germany.

5.) Giving ITA two 1VP provinces and Germany one non VP province.
-> SCH surrenders to Germany

6.) Giving ITA everything but one province, which goes to germany.
-> SCH surrenders to Italy. Ok good... it was getting frustrating.

7.) Giving ITA everything but the capital and one province. This province but not the capital goes to Germany.
-> SCH surrenders to Italy.

8.) Giving ITA everything but the capital and x provinces. These X provinces with 0 VP will go to Germany. X will be the number of provinces which will lead to a surrender to Germany. The capital is always controlled by SCH.

-> With Germany having 16 or more provinces, SCH surrenders to them. Germany has no VP conquered. ITA has 4 VP provinces with a total of 8VP and 6 non VP provinces. I repeated this 10 times. 5 times with Germany holding 15 and 5 times them holding 16.

9.) Giving Germany 15 non VP provinces and reducing the Vp value of the italian provinces step by step to 1 doesn't make any difference:
-> SCH surrenders to Italy.

10.) Giving Germany 14 non VP provinces and the last VP province, leaving Italy with 11 non VP provinces:
-> SCH surrenders to Italy.


The thread of both to SCH was always 0.000.

The Conclusion: I really don't know. At least we now know that you don't need VP controlled to be the one they surrender to. How many VPs nor how many VP provinces you control doesn't change anything.


EDIT:
I did some further testing, this time involving the capital:


11.) Giving Germany the SCH capital and switching one german controlled province into SCH controlled, so we still have 15 german non VP provinces and 11 italien ones.
-> Now SCH surrenders to Germany. -> the capital makes a difference.

12.) Giving Germany the SCH capital and Italy beside their 11 provinces the SCH controlled non VP province:
-> SCH still surrenders to Germany.

13.) Giving step by step Italy more provinces: With Germany having less than 11 provinces, inclusive the capital and the VP province, and Italy having more than 16 non VP provinces:
-> SCH now surrenders to Italy

14.) Giving Germany 11 provinces, inclusive the capital and the VP province, and Italy having 16 non VP provinces:
-> SCH surrenders to Germany.

15.) Giving Germany 11 provinces, inclusive the capital and Italy 16 provinces, inclusive the VP province:
->SCH still surrenders to Germany. VPs really don't change anything.


So the Capital really makes some huge difference.
BTW: It doesn't matter if the conquered provinces are connected to the main land of the conquerer. cutting of german controlled Basel from the german main land and with still 11 german and 16 italian provinces, SCH still surrenders to Germany.

 

[unmerged(184977)]

@Buh the Ghost

How did the war got declared? Did ita and ger declare it independently? Were they in the faction? Did war declaration by ita and ger happened at the same time?
Also, game distinguish major and minor countries. Were both ita and ger majors?

It's only a guess but perhaps that may be a factor.

 

[Buh the Ghost]

I declared war by editing the save game by adding two indepented wars. ITA against SCH and GER against SCH. It was the 1.1.1939, so no faction for ITA. Ger was in AXIS. I dont know if ITA or GER is considered as major.

EDIT: i changed the IC for majors to 3000 and loaded up one save game where germany should get SCH. Now being a minor by definition, they still got SCH.

 

[ajm317]

After reading this thread i wanted to start a little sandbox test.

1. Start a 1936 campaign with SCH, delete all units and save on 1.1.1939. SCH has 27 provinces.

2. Edit savegame:

a) Start two wars. GER against SCH and ITA against SCH
b) Change the capital Basel to 0 VP.
c) Change two SCH provinces to 1 VP. So we have 3 single VP in switzerland.
d) Change one SCH province to 5 VP. (for proofing if VP count as "base provinces")
e) Change NU of SCH to 10

3. Load savegame as Germany.

Now the test starts (between every test, i load the savegame):

1.) Giving Germany only one of the 1VP provinces.
-> SCH surrenders to GER

2.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces
-> SCH surrenders to ITA

3.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces and Germany one non VP province
-> SCH surrenders to GERMANY????? Germany gets Switzerland. Italy gets the single VP province.

4.) Giving Italy one 1VP province and one no VP province. Germany gets one non VP province.
-> SCH surrenders to Germany... again?

Being confused, I now LOAD UP AS FRANCE (maybe it is because i am the player that makes Germany get SCH):

1.) Giving Germany only one of the 1VP provinces.
-> SCH surrenders to GER

2.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces
-> SCH surrenders to ITA

3.) Giving Italy only one of the 1VP provinces and Germany one non VP province
-> SCH surrenders to Germany. Germany gets Switzerland. Italy gets the single VP province.

4.) Giving Germany only one of the 1VP provinces and Italy one non VP province.
->SCH surrenders to Germany.

5.) Giving ITA two 1VP provinces and Germany one non VP province.
-> SCH surrenders to Germany

6.) Giving ITA everything but one province, which goes to germany.
-> SCH surrenders to Italy. Ok good... it was getting frustrating.

7.) Giving ITA everything but the capital and one province. This province but not the capital goes to Germany.
-> SCH surrenders to Italy.

8.) Giving ITA everything but the capital and x provinces. These X provinces with 0 VP will go to Germany. X will be the number of provinces which will lead to a surrender to Germany. The capital is always controlled by SCH.

-> With Germany having 16 or more provinces, SCH surrenders to them. Germany has no VP conquered. ITA has 4 VP provinces with a total of 8VP and 6 non VP provinces. I repeated this 10 times. 5 times with Germany holding 15 and 5 times them holding 16.

9.) Giving Germany 15 non VP provinces and reducing the Vp value of the italian provinces step by step to 1 doesn't make any difference:
-> SCH surrenders to Italy.

10.) Giving Germany 14 non VP provinces and the last VP province, leaving Italy with 11 non VP provinces:
-> SCH surrenders to Italy.


The thread of both to SCH was always 0.000.

The Conclusion: I really don't know. At least we now know that you don't need VP controlled to be the one they surrender to. How many VPs nor how many VP provinces you control doesn't change anything.


EDIT:
I did some further testing, this time involving the capital:


1.) Giving Germany the SCH capital and switching one german controlled province into SCH controlled, so we still have 15 german non VP provinces and 11 italien ones.
-> Now SCH surrenders to Germany. -> the capital makes a diffrence.

2.) Giving Germany the SCH capital and Italy beside their 11 provines the SCh controlled non VP province:
-> SCH still surrenders to Germany.

3.) Giving step by step Italy more provinces: With Germany having less than 11 provinces, inclusive the capital and the VP province, and Italy having more than 16 non VP provinces:
-> SCH now surrenders to Italy

4.) Giving Germany 11 provinces, inclusive the capital and the VP province, and Italy having 16 non VP provinces:
-> SCH surrenders to Germany.

5.) Giving Germany 11 provinces, inclusive the capital and Italy 16 provinces, inclusive the VP province:
->SCH still surrenders to Germany. VPs really don't change anything.

Wow, what a mess.

What I find especially confusing is that your test indicated that with only 3 occupied provinces SCH surrendered to Germany even if Italy had more provinces right? But then later you found the reverse, when Germany had 14 provinces and Italy had 11 SCH surrendered to Italy. Am I reading that right?

If so I really don't understand it. Nothing else is changing correct? The Italians haven't moved any troops into SCH or anything right? That's a puzzler.

So the Capital really makes some huge difference.

It makes some huge difference in the case of Switzerland, in the case of the larger countries early in the thread it seemed to be small.

This leads me to believe that the capital is some flat modifier that doesn't scale with size, like the capital counts as 5 provinces, or something of that nature.

 

[Buh the Ghost]

Wow, what a mess.

What I find especially confusing is that your test indicated that with only 3 occupied provinces SCH surrendered to Germany even if Italy had more provinces right? But then later you found the reverse, when Germany had 14 provinces and Italy had 11 SCH surrendered to Italy. Am I reading that right?

If so I really don't understand it. Nothing else is changing correct? The Italians haven't moved any troops into SCH or anything right? That's a puzzler.



It makes some huge difference in the case of Switzerland, in the case of the larger countries early in the thread it seemed to be small.

This leads me to believe that the capital is some flat modifier that doesn't scale with size, like the capital counts as 5 provinces, or something of that nature.

yes, you are reading right. Maybe i should have put it in a tabula. No units where in the border of switzerland. Its free to you to make these tests with bigger nations...

I now think that it isn't maybe even the number of provinces, but what is in it. Though in the case of switzerland it doesn't make any big sense, because all the provinces for the first 5 test had nothing in it. just one had one VP. no manpower, no industry, no resources, nothing. just some forts and infra.

@Buh the Ghost

How did the war got declared? Did ita and ger declare it independently? Were they in the faction? Did war declaration by ita and ger happened at the same time?
Also, game distinguish major and minor countries. Were both ita and ger majors?

It's only a guess but perhaps that may be a factor.

ok i did some more tests:

Kicking Germany out of the axis doesn't change anything.
Making just one war with Ger and ITA as attackers and SCH as defender, doesn't make any difference.
Putting ITA into the Axis DOES make a difference. Now Germany needs the capital and 11 other provinces to get the surrender. Otherwise ITA gets it. (instead of the capital and 10 other provinces before).

Switching the last VP province between both in exchange for a non VP province still doesn't make any difference.

 

[ajm317]

I now think that it isn't maybe even the number of provinces, but what is in it. Though in the case of switzerland it doesn't make any big sense, because all the provinces for the first 5 test had nothing in it. just one had one VP. no manpower, no industry, no resources, nothing. just some forts and infra.

That's a possibility, but I doubt it based on my experience doing similar tests with the UK. In my case Germany held most of the UK itself including London and all Italy had was some garbage in Egypt. Despite this the UK was surrendering to Italy.

Perhaps an easy way to test it though. Edit the save so that one of the provinces has max IC and a bunch of manpower and see if it matters who holds it.