"Will fail if" condition?

[adam_grif]

So the United States gets a "Foreign Policy" decision called "Execute Nuclear Strikes on Japanese Soil". This seems straight forward at first blush - so I dropped 2 atomic bombs on the historical cities roughly 3-4 days apart. Nothing happened. The decision now says "failed". I reload an earlier save and check - it says "Will fail if..." you bomb Japan twice.

I can understand if Japan didn't want to surrender to the bombs - they had conquered China successfully so that makes sense. But why is this listed as "Will fail if" and why do you want to "Fail" this decision???? There is no victory/success condition listed. I'm extremely confused by this in general. Am I actually supposed to just let the timer expire instead of dropping bomb? Or is "Failing" actually good (due to a peculiarity of how the system is coded) and they simply haven't included an accept/reject event to let me know the outcome in the event of a refusal to surrender?

 

[Lykanion]

I think it's just the way these decisions are scripted. Did you check the effect for "failure" in the tooltip? Didn't play the US yet, but I had a similar decision with Germany. Essentially, it would give me a time frame to achieve a certain goal, with positive effects for fulfilling the "failure" conditions. Looks a bit weird, but probably saved a few minutes of some programmer's time.

 

[adam_grif]

It says the effect of failure will be to give them the option to unconditionally surrender, but no event popup happened even weeks later. I assume that means they said no to surrender, but it would be nice to have that confirmed as Working-As-Intended rather than a bug.

 

[Lykanion]

From the description in the dev diaries, I thought the AI was scripted to unconditionally surrender when nuked twice. Could be a bug if they don't.

AI Japan will now surrender if they have been nuked twice or lost Manchuria and Korea when they aren’t holding any territory in China. A player has the option through the same decision but can, of course, choose to fight to the bitter end (the AI is simply scripted to always pick the decision as soon as possible).

 

[adam_grif]

From the description in the dev diaries, I thought the AI was scripted to unconditionally surrender when nuked twice. Could be a bug if they don't.

It was historical focuses engaged, although I don't know if that has any impact. From a logical perspective, I like the idea of them not surrendering after 2 nukes if they still hold a large empire that isn't seriously threatened - in my game, Japan still had China, and most of it's pacific islands in tact with a fairly strong navy. I was basically tryigng to cheeseball a surrender to avoid having to actually invade, so from a realism standpoint I'd be impressed if the Japanese were deciding based on factors like this. But firstly, I'd like to know when they reject, and secondly, I'd like to know whether or not those really are things they're taking into account, or whether it's just a bug. I have a feeling it's the latter!

 

[Lykanion]

Finally found it in the game files. Seems like they increased the complexity somewhat since that dev diary:

Spoiler: Decision

JAP_sue_for_peace_nuke = { #WTT_TODO_CD: redesign restrictions to make less gameable
        available = {
            has_global_flag = JAP_nuke_1
            has_global_flag = JAP_nuke_2
        }

        visible = {
            tag = JAP
            has_war = yes
            has_global_flag = JAP_nuke_1
        }

        cost = 0

        days_remove = -1
        ai_will_do = {
            factor = 10
            modifier = {
                NOT = {
                    controls_state = 525
                    controls_state = 527
                }
                factor = 10
            }
        }

        modifier = {
            surrender_limit = -1.0
        }

        remove_effect = {

        }

        remove = {
            has_war = no
        }
    }
    JAP_sue_for_peace_nuke_mission = {
        available = {
            has_global_flag = JAP_nuke_1
            has_global_flag = JAP_nuke_2
        }

        visible = {
            NOT = {
                OR = {
                    controls_state = 536
                    controls_state = 533
                    controls_state = 534
                    controls_state = 532
                    controls_state = 282
                    controls_state = 530
                    controls_state = 531
                    controls_state = 528
                    controls_state = 529
                }
            }
        }

        modifier = {
         
        }

        days_mission_timeout = 720
        fire_only_once = yes

        activation = {
            has_tech = nukes
            has_war_with = JAP
        }

        complete_effect = {
            JAP = {
                unlock_decision_tooltip = JAP_sue_for_peace_nuke
            }
        }
    }

If I'm not mistaken, provinces 525 and 527 are North Korea and South Korea, and
282, 528-534, 536 are Kanto, Kyushu, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kansai, Tokai, Tohoku, Hokuriku, Hokkaido

I don't know the meaning of the ai_will_do factors, though. According to Wiki, 0 means never takes, 1 means always takes. But what is 10? Or 100? Or 400? Anyone knows?