QUICK SURRENDER SOLUTION DISCUSSION THREAD

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: evwalt

Think that DOUBLING the current VP to annex true home provinces a little much. Maybe a 50% increase?

Several clauses should be increased in cost, particularly remove general.

[evwalt]

I agree with the Removal General clause. WAY too easy to do.

Even then, I would allow a player to RETURN a Removed General with a certain Glory Point penalty, to represent things like Napoleon and the 100 days.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: evwalt

Even then, I would allow a player to RETURN a Removed General with a certain Glory Point penalty, to represent things like Napoleon and the 100 days.

Maybe with a certain cool off period, sure. Anyways, it only costs like 1250 to remove a general. Right now you can really gimp a country you think you are going to be at war with repeatedly by removing their good generals.

[evwalt]

I like the cooling off period also for returning. Maybe instead of a fixed period you could just have MASSIVE Glory Point penalties that drop each month. The further away in time, the less penalty.

[Anthropoid]

1. I would go with 3000.
2. Seems reasonable, though 50% or 66% might (as Evwalt suggests) be better
3. Sure, seems reasonable.
4. Not sure what those numbers are "dropped" from. What were these numbers before?
5. Don't like that; seems artificial. However, having some sort of enhanced Treaty Point penalty to those who surrender right away, which is reduced somewhat after one month, a bit more two months, a bit more three, and down to "standard" non-penalized might be good.

ADDIT: also like the idea of removing Generals costing a bit (but not too much!) more, adn perhaps a "cooling off" period before he can be brought back.

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

I am curious what everyone thinks about the following quick adjustments to the surrender mechanics which could possibly be added by Eric in time for the next patch until a more comprehensive solution is found:
1. Calculate surrender points as usual, but after the calculation, in a 1 v 1 war, the minimum number of treaty points received by a victor is 4000 (alternatives: 3000/5000)? I am not sure what this will do in 2 v 1 and 3 v 1 situations. Mus, you are a freaking expert at surrender point calculations.
2. The cost of annexing true home provinces increases to double their current value--the cost of stripping conquered minors stays the same.
3. Protectorates anywhere can be liberated. You don't need to border on them.
4. The advantages of capturing provinces for treaty points following surrender would be dropped to 700 per province for the victor and 350 per province for the loser (this would create less of a penalty for deciding to stand and fight if "outgunned").
5. (PERHAPS) No surrenders before 3 months of time have elapsed?
If people like them, I will try to call Eric on this today or tomorrow with these proposals. Again, these are just quick solutions which I don't think should take too much programming time but would dramatically improve game play.

[Mus]

Rather than any time period required before a surrender I like the idea of a casualty threshold that has to be exceeded (march attrition and siege/forage losses would not count). Cost would vary by nation, larger more powerful nations should have to lose more before "honor" is satisfied and surrender is acceptable.

[Marshal Villars]

Well, I have to say, these suggestions of mine were only meant to be QUICK programming solutions which do not require much from Eric. Of course there are MUCH better solutions laying around. If we move to casualty totals, this programming demand could go up. Or?

Perhaps we could have a "vanilla" PBEM selection and a "leopard" PBEM selection for setup. The difference being the addition of these super quick solutions.

I am thinking it is better than nothing. Or?

[Mus]

I think they might work as a quick fix, with the caveat that VPs need to be split somehow or multi front wars will likely end up being overly crippling.

Is it being possible to have 900 VP surrenders WAD? Manual says minimum should be 4000. Never heard anything from WCS on that. If it was a last minute change or just not working correctly.

[evwalt]

Again, who those situations like I mentioned above with Denmark, I don't like the casuality ONLY requirement. Some combination of casuality and time would be good.

[Marshal Villars]

As I indicated in a recent attempt to get players in another game to agree to a "non-quick surrender" voluntary non-proliferation treaty...

"We will simply assume that the four month minimum state of war represents the fact that your militarized nobility who has trained their whole lives for their moment of glory will have your head on the chopping block if you rob them of their chance to prove their manhood for the test of honor and the hand of fair maidens. Poor, landless aristocracy will have nothing to do with a king who runs and hides his head in the sand. The internal pressure to preserve the nation's honor and the desire of men new to their posts to prove that they know what they are doing, and those who came before them did not, is too strong for your crown to overcome in the first four months--just as it was historically."

No one...no one took quick surrenders in all of the 3000+ pages of reading I did over 17th, 18th, and early 19th century warfare. And since it occurs so often in CoG:EE as is, there is simply a different incentive system working in CoG:EE patch 1 Vanilla than there was historically. That is probably overly obvious. But occasionally, the overly obvious needs to be stated.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

As I indicated in a recent attempt to get players in another game to agree to a "non-quick surrender" voluntary non-proliferation treaty...

"We will simply assume that the four month minimum state of war represents the fact that your militarized nobility who has trained their whole lives for their moment of glory will have your head on the chopping block if you rob them of their chance to prove their manhood for the test of honor and the hand of fair maidens. Poor, landless aristocracy will have nothing to do with a king who runs and hides his head in the sand. The internal pressure to preserve the nation's honor and the desire of men new to their posts to prove that they know what they are doing, and those who came before them did not, is too strong for your crown to overcome in the first four months--just as it was historically."

No one...no one took quick surrenders in all of the 3000+ pages of reading I did over 17th, 18th, and early 19th century warfare. And since it occurs so often in CoG:EE as is, there is simply a different incentive system working in CoG:EE patch 1 Vanilla than there was historically. That is probably overly obvious. But occasionally, the overly obvious needs to be stated.

Agree; the whole generalized quick surrender thing is just inconceivable based on what I know about cultural and "national" identity at the time. With one exception: the "dogpile" scenario. One thing that COG:EE perhaps does not satisfactorily represent is that (maybe?) there is a bit too much tendency for PBEM players to "dogpile" a nation that has been DoWed when it is vulnerable, or has been hurt and is getting beat up? I don't know if this sort of thing actually happened in history very often. It seems like there is at least a bit of a "dogpile" tendency as well isn't there? Am I wrong there?

If a nation has already had DoWs against it by two or more other nations within the last 2 months, then perhaps "allowing" a quick surrender is not so "unrealistic" and certainly might avert serious gameplay imbalances that could occur if there were a coded 3 or 4 month min duration till surrender could occur?

[Marshal Villars]

Just so everyone involved in this discussion knows, this is a copy of the "Super Quick Surrender Non-Proliferation Treaty" which I floated in another game I was recently involved in. I think it has its merits.
********************BEGINNING OF ORIGINAL POSTING**********************
SQSNPT
Super Quick Surrender Non-Proliferation Treaty
a.k.a The "making marching to your enemy worthwhile" treaty
(NOTE: If there is interest, we can extend this to six months instead of the four I have proposed, but of course there would have to be unanimous agreement on that)

SECTION I - Pertaining to the rule itself
Intended to prevent SUPER QUICK surrenders (defined as those being under four months) from destroying the game.
1.1 No signatory nation shall surrender to a nation declaring war on it in a manner preventing a state of war to exist for at least four full calendar months.
Example: Austria declares war on Russia with their March orders. In April, turn results indicate a state of war has been initiated and currently exists between the two nations. Since four months of war must elapse, Russia must fight in April, May, June, and July. In the July turn, Russia may enter a surrender order so that in August he will be in a state of peace.
1.2 A nation allied to the nation accepting a legal surrender after four months of a state of war is also forced to accept a surrender. (Note: this both makes sense and is how CoG:EE currently functions). Note: if not allied at the time of surrender to the initially declaring nation, a "late declaring" nation may continue to fight for their full four months (or, expressed differently, a defending nation must give the non-allied late declaring nation their full four months of war). Thus, a nation entering a war late can break an alliance with another player to be guaranteed of their full four months of war. Or they can stay allied and be forced to accept a single surrender which applies to all allies if one of those allies can be legally surrendered to according to the SQSNPT.
Example: France declares war on Austria in their June orders. A state of war exists in July (first month of war). In July, Russia enters order to join France in alliance and declares war on Austria. In August (second month of war) the alliance materializes and border battles have begun. In September (third month of war) fighting rages along the front. In October (fourth month of war), Austria may enter a surrender so that by November a state of peace will exist--having allowed four full calendar months of a state of war. Both France and Russia must accept the peace. Note that in this example, Russia was only at war with Austria for three months. The moral of this story is, in this case if you are Russia and want to fight longer than three months do not ally with France.
Example: France is allied to Prussia, in March's orders, France declares war on Austria. In April a state of war exists between France and Austria (first month of Fr-Au war). In May the conflict between France and Austria continues (second month of Fr-Au war) and Prussia decides to declare war on Austria AND dissolves its alliance with France. In June (third month of Fr-Au war and first month of Pr-Au war) fighting rages along the frontiers. In July (the fourth month of Fr-Au war / second month of Pr-Au war) Austria puts in her surrender to France in order to end the war by August. However, since France and Prussia are not allies when Austria surrenders to France, Prussia still has claim to four full months of war.
1.4 Nations declaring war on others are bound by the same rules. That is, if you declare war on another nation, you must allow four months of conflict to exist before surrendering to the nation you declared war on.
1.5 CoG:EE mechanics forcing a surrender earlier than 4 months (for instance if a nation is forced to surrender before the four months of war due to low national morale), are final and must (of course) be accepted.
1.3 Except as called out in 1.2 and 1.5, wars may not be ended before four full months of hostilities in any case. Not even by arrangement (as this could screw things up for your allies on a side which is winning even if you would accept it). Of course, it is up to the players how hard they fight their war.
1.6 Note that even though this agreement indicates that a state of war must exist between the nations for four months, there is (and can be no) requirement for actual fighting during this time. These rules explicitly require ONLY that an official "state" of war exist in the four months called out. They in are in no way intended to regulate the intensity of the fighting (or lack of it) which takes place.

SECTION II - Pertaining to the administration of this rule
1.7 If someone enters a surrender which is too early according to this agreement, any player noticing this on the IMMEDIATELY following turn may call this out and instantly demand a redo of the turn's orders. This must be demanded after the turn results with the illegal surrender are received and inspected. Once the next turn is merged and sent out, it is too late and the game play continues (it is assumed a historical anomaly occurred). This takes precedent over other players' desire to continue--even if secret plans were revealed in the process (we will simply assume that spies have discovered planned moves). Note that ANY player may demand an adherence to the SQSNPT, not just directly involved parties. If no one notices the problem and no one demands a replay, then play continues without interruption.
1.8 For the "nofrills" game, Timurlain will be appointed as the judge of these SQSNPT rules in case any official decisions are needed in cases which are not 100% clear on their face. Timurlain's decisions will be as quick as possible and final. Timurlain also has the ability to overrule any player proceeding believing to know what he is doing, but Timurlain disagrees with--calling for a turn redo if necessary.

SECTION III - STRONGLY RECOMMENDED ADDITION
1.9 As a result of the greater amounts of points won in treaties, the following change is required: A nation taking provinces from a losing nation in a war, MUST take a conquered minor province (a province with the nation's flag behind another flag) BEFORE taking a homeland province (with only the nation's flag). This will result in dramatically more realistic annexation of lands and will prevent nations from easily carving deeply into other nations, when in fact, homeland provinces were usually the last to be touched. Players must determine this as they select a province to take in their treaty (believe me, everyone will benefit from this and it will avoid bizarre formations of land partition).

We, the signatory nations feel that any other option provide a suboptimal gaming experience.

ADVANTAGES:
[&o]+Eliminates declaring war on a neighbor and surrendering to him the very next turn just to keep him out of a war you are planning (I actually encourage the adoption of a 6 month rule because of this). For instance: Prussia wants to go to war with Austria, but knows that Russia supports Austria. Prussia can quickly declare war on Russia, then IMMEDIATELY take a surrender on the following turn, preventing Russia from helping Austria for 18 months--even if they had been allies if Russia had not immediately declared war in return! NOTE: Increasing the length of the rule to 6 months would actually allow nations like Russia some time to strike back at a nation like Prussia and in conjunction with Austria in this example...so I recommend consideration of a 6 month rule.)
[&o]+Results in nations having to move to their frontiers and defending them to prevent provinces from falling to the enemy, since each region captured gives the invader 1000 extra treaty points.
+Results in occassional war between Britain and France--with consequences. At the moment, France could adopt an "I would rather pay protection money than fight for the next 10 years and get off relatively unscathed." In my opinion, the rule should be extended to 6 months. Then, once they are in to the war, they may not be able to get out for fear of a massive treaty penalty--resulting in a tendency for HISTORICAL CONFLICT! (imagine that)
[&o]+Results in occasional frontier wars (instead of instant surrender madness). [&o]
[&o]+Prevents France from taking Super Quick Surrender option against Britain for the rest of the game. [&o]
[&o]+Eliminates the problem of 2/3 of all wars being resolved with instant surrenders. Honestly, in my 3500+ pages of reading on conflict in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, I didn't encounter a SINGLE "Super Fast Surrender". I suppose Prussia and Austria could have taken instant surrenders in 1805 and 1806 as well--I know I would have! Actually, if France would have surrendered to Britain instantly as we had wanted to, we might be verging on 3/3 wars in this game being settled with the "Super Quick Surrender". [8|]
[&o]+Closes the "I want to declare war on the protectorate next to that guy--but the protectorate declares for him, and he takes the instant surrender--and suddenly HE has the protectorate and 18 months of peace" loophole. My friends, this is not how war worked. [:'(]
[&o]+Gives Britain the ability to force France to fight, which even France is a fan of. But who wants to fight when there is a disincentive to do it!?!? Nobody in this game needs to be a nice guy to help other people win.
[&o]+Gives us all real wars and conflict with consequences -- like we deserve! No more of this pansy bull hooey!

DISADVANTAGES
-It is a house rule and people have to know how many calendar months they have been in a state of war. But I think we are all over 13 years old and can handle that.

I can tell you, if we don't play with these rules I certainly won't hold it against anyone who wants to take advantage of the currently heavily incentivized quick surrenders! I have a feeling we will see at least 60% of wars end in quick surrenders! In all of my reading of conflict from 1618 to 1815, I found not ONE real example of a "super quick surrender". Leaders had a bad habit of fighting on after they should have thrown in the towel. And in CoG:EE we players know too many things about our armies and our enemy's armies making the calculation more mathematical and certain than ever in history. In addition, the inverted incentive system makes real conflict highly unlikely.

We will simply assume that the four month minimum state of war represents the fact that your militarized nobility who has trained their whole lives for their moment of glory will have your head on the chopping block if you rob them of their chance to prove their manhood for the test of honor and the hand of fair maidens. Poor, landless aristocracy will have nothing to do with a king who runs and hides his head in the sand. The internal pressure to preserve the nation's honor and the desire of men new to their posts to prove that they know what they are doing, and those who came before them did not, is too strong for your crown to overcome in the first four months--just as it was historically.

********************END OF ORIGINAL POSTING**********************
So that is what I recommended for another game.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

And since it occurs so often in CoG:EE as is, there is simply a different incentive system working in CoG:EE patch 1 Vanilla than there was historically. That is probably overly obvious. But occasionally, the overly obvious needs to be stated.[/b]

It doesn't actually happen that often. You see it only when somebody is about to get clobbered in an unwinnable situation, and you see it very rarely once the person has already gained the 300 xp for the first surrender.

I think there might just be a bug at play here. I will post the rules from the manual and try to interject my interpretation of what MAY be going on.

The manual states that the minimum is going to be 4,000 base for a normal surrender. This is then modified by a number of factors and then a percentage of that based on the infliction of casualties is applied, yet the MINIMUM is still supposed to be 4000, which is not true in practice.

Bug or WAD?

5.5 Victory Points
When one nation surrenders to another the victorious nation, and any allies, receives
a certain number of Victory Points over the defeated nation. The victorious nation
may use these Victory Points to construct a treaty, which has clauses worth a total
number of points less than or equal to the number of Victory Points, and then impose
this treaty upon the defeated nation (see the Diplomacy Advisor section below for
details). Each ally in an alliance receives the same number of VP.
Calculating Victory Points
• Base amount for Surrender:
4,000 victory points, or VP
• Base amount for Limited Surrender:
2,000 VP
The following modifiers are also added, which are halved for a Limited Surrender:
• Captured cities:
1000 VP for each city owned by the defeated nation that was captured by the victorious nation
-500 VP for each city owned by victorious nation that was captured by the defeated nation
•The victorious nation adds VP equal to the sum of its Diplomats’ Legal scores, multiplied by 10, and subtracts VP equal to the sum of the defeated nation’s Diplomats’ Legal scores, multiplied by 5
•The victorious nation adds VP equal to its maximum possible number of diplomatic actions, multiplied by 1000, and subtracts VP equal to the defeated nation’s maximum possible number of diplomatic actions, multiplied by 500
•Defeating an Empire is worth +3,000 VP (see the Empire section below)
•Empires gain +1,000 when they are the winners
•In order to receive the full allotment of VPs a nation must participate in a war to a sufficient degree. When defeating one of the nations listed below a nation must have caused, at minimum, the amount of casualties listed in order to receive the full allotment of VPs. Failure to have caused the required level of casualties causes the nation to receive proportionally fewer VPs.
Victor
Casualties
France
88,000
Britain
25,600
Sweden
4,000
Prussia
22,400
Austria
45,600
Russia
48,000
Turkey
25,600
Spain
12,800

For example, if you defeat France in a war but only cause 44,000 casualties to France
during the course of that war, then you will receive only 50% of the normal VPs since
44,000 / 88,000 = 50%.
Modified VP cannot fall below the base amount for the type of surrender, nor can it
be modified higher than 25,000.

The manual states the modified VP cannot fall below the base amount for the type of surrender, which we know isn't true. In reality what seems to be taking place is the Quick Surrender is all about taking a surrender before any casualties are inflicted so that the "proportion" of the total VPs earned is tiny. However, there must be some kind of unpublished math taking place otherwise the VPs would be zero if zero casualties are inflicted.

If the minimum number of VPs becomes 4000 I think the chances of a nation getting absolutely crippled by a multiparty war gets really high, so maybe these changes were made on purpose?

Need some designer/playtester feedback on this.

If the minimum is supposed to be 4000 we would probably start to see a bunch of countries get hammered in surrenders to multiple parties involving 10s of thousands of VPs.

Some better means of splitting VPs would be needed along with increasing the VPs earned to the published minimum if that is decided would make for a good fix. Otherwise the outcome is going to be countries that are gimped permanently in one war against aggressive coalitions

Something like VP minimum = 4000 (1+.1x) where X is each allied party in addition to the first, so the VP minimum would be 4000 in a war against 1 party. Against a 2 party coalition the VP minimum would be 4400, etc. These VPs would then be split based on the proportion of casualties inflicted amongst the coalition members. If no casualties were inflicted the VPs would be divided based on the proportion of total troops fielded.

I realize this is a somewhat complicated solution, HOWEVER, I believe that a "simple" solution will only lead to a more damaging state of affairs.

Occasional "quick surrenders" would be preferable to a half baked solution that actually led to greater problems in the long run.

Some House rule such as a minimum time to surrender, either in turns or in requiring at least 1 decisive battle, would be greatly preferred to said half baked solution.

[Marshal Villars]

Interesting. Yes. I see what you mean that it may be a bug. And that 4000 points may be the supposed WAD minimum.

But you know what I like about the 4 months of war minimum which I am proposing in the house rule above (but am not saying it is a perfect solution in ALL respects)? In the house rule I have proposed, the way the mechanic works it encourages actually USING your armies to move to the frontiers to fight and keep the enemy from gaining territory so that he cannot gain the 1000 points per region in the time you are at war!!!!

If there is a straight minimum of 4000 points when one surrenders, then we are again at a point where there is no incentive to fight and every reason to preserve your army!

Interesting...no?

[Marshal Villars]

Mus, I like where your thoughts are leading this. But I do not think that VPs won should be based purely on casualties inflicted, but also on lands seized, the fact that you were even at war (worth little compared to other factors), ships sunk (or men killed in naval battles), etc. There should probably be a relatively long equation for this calculation which decides on how VPs are split, and casualties inflicted SHOULD be one of the factors! But not all of it.

[Anthropoid]

I think Mus is right. "Simple" solutions are not likely to fix it, but rather likely to simply create new imbalances. Frustrating that a simple solution that could go into the next patch does not seem likely to fix it, but that is honestly my intuition.

[Marshal Villars]

I do agree with the fact that this needs more than a simple solution. But, of course, Eric is limited on time.

Simplifying does have a tendency to cause problems elsewhere.

One thing I am liking more and more about the four month minimum war in the house rule is the fact that it makes you fight to keep the provinces out of enemy hands to reduce the severity of the peace inflicted on you. But maybe it should be 3 months.

In the back of my head I am thinking I can remember ONE 3 month war from 1648-1815, and that may be a war between Sweden and Denmark in the 1660s. Copenhagen was at a high risk of sea landings, and this is exactly what happened on one occasion. I need to do some re-reading before I say more.

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

But I do not think that VPs won should be based purely on casualties inflicted...

The total number of VPs won would still be awarded based off all the factors quoted in the manual.

The percentage of casualties inflicted would only be used for dividing the VPs between the allied belligerents.

I can't think of a single better bar for determining active participation in a conflict than to base it on casualties.

If a 3 party alliance declares war and 1 or 2 of those allies are actually in the target country doing something while the third is doing little, or only sieging minor peripheral territories while the other guys are fighting the big battles and causing large scale casualties their reward should be proportionally smaller.

[Marshal Villars]

At least one reason casualties shouldn't be the only bar for participation is this: If you besiege an important city with few defenders, then you would rather be taking on field armies for the points even though the "grunt work" of besieging key cities (with over 40k-50k of men!) to control lines of communications or depriving an enemy of an area of operations. If you took a province with an important supply hub in it, you could actually indirectly kill ten thousand men (or even tens of thousands of men) if bad weather hits (as Kingmaker did to me in my march on Munich!)--doing more damage than any army would have!.

An even additional reason that just hit me was the following: Let's take the "nofrills" Austria vs. Russia-Ottomans-France war as an example. If Austria suddenly were to find herself at war with these three nations again, and wanted to prevent the Ottomans from making the largest gains, it would seem that the logical thing to do would be to throw all of your forces into an effort to prevent the Ottomans from gaining your lands (and the 1000 VP bonus which accrues for control of each province). If Austria withdrew from the French and Russian fronts and sent all of his units to fight the Ottomans, then in effect he would be doing the opposite of what he wanted to do because the Ottomans would, in such a situation, kill many many more Austrians than either the Russians or French. The Russians and the French might kill a tiny fraction of the men that the Ottomans would. In effect, the Austrian would have made his situation with the Ottomans worse by fighting them. Which is why I am for the occupation of provinces being the key factor in determining your treaty points. Perhaps then, the base treaty points should be calculated (perhaps with casualties inflicted being the chief determining factor and then on top of that each player gets a number of points equal to the number of provinces he has occupied times 1000).

[Mus]

Maybe include and double casualties caused in a siege.

Most of the time any given power is going to be sieging cities along the lines of their own LOC, so it is unlikely one ally would entirely be fighting decisive battles while the other ally secures the other allys LOC. If they do work out an arrangement like that it would be up to the two to sort out what value that had between them, not really up to rules of the game to make sense of.

One thing regarding sieges I have never understood is why winning and losing sieges doesn't grant land experience.