Matrix Games Forums

Sometimes it happens that I go to war with another nation and I plan to demand unconditional surrender. I go to the "what are you going to demand as surrender conditions" window and, at the time I go to war, only two provinces are available for me to choose to be the ones to take. So I check them and drive on. War happens, I win, they surrender and bingo, since I've forgotten to go back and add a third province to the list, the computer assumes I only wanted to take two provinces.

Please consider either:
- a check for consistency and completeness of surrender condition demands at the time of surrender.
or
- a check for consistency and completeness of surrender condition demands during each Diplomacy phase. (i.e. make sure that units I picked to eliminate still exist and I picked enough of them, leader I picked to remove still exists, provinces still exist and I picked enough of them, etc.)

Thank you,
--JMike

Hmmm. It used to choose the third one randomly from among valid choices. Are you sure there was another one available (at the time of surrender, that is)?

Remind me what the criteria are for a province being available to be ceded?  I can't be 100% sure that there were other provinces available, but it happened to me twice in my first game (as GB against Spain and against France) in what looked like fairly straightforward situations.

aha, OK, for me to take a home province I have to either border it or have forces in it (anywhere in it at all?).  It is possible that neither of my opponents had any more controlled minors when he finally surrendered, which makes it possible that there were only two valid provinces in each case.
 
If/as/when I run into this again, I'll save the game aside for further review.
 

I've gotten to the point where I check the surrender conditions twice a turn: at the beginning and end of diplomacy (technically, the beginning of reinforcement). Things can change rather radically due to diplomatic actions.
 
This is especially true in a human vs. AI game, where other wars might be going on (or, ended).

It is a VERY good idea to check your surrender parms BEFORE the end of each diplomacy phase. There are so many situational changes that I might have to prompt you ALL the time at which point the prompts are simply clicked through and ignored.

The way it is done now is not very user friendly. I have often gotten no provinces out of a surrender (against AI) because I hadn't updated my "list".

That said, it's highly possible that I didn't check my list often since I was only playing the AI and turns go by in a timely manner (unlike PBEM) and also because who cares, it's the AI and it's so easy to beat anyways.

I put a prompt up VERY early before release but the chages were happening so much that the prompt happened almost every turn thus eventually being ignored. Changes would happen by simply when a province's availability status would change. I agree that I would like some type flag for viewing a change but just have not looked into it!
 
 

It would be good to flag players if the actual provincial situation changed.
 
By the way, on a related note: Is the order in which you have your checked selections the order in which they are chosen? And, how are conflicts handled? I.e. when two powers are being surrendered to, and they have common choices between them. Say France surrenders to Austria and Prussia, and they both have "3 provinces" as their top victory condition. I know it gives it to the one first at war, but which one with the second nation at war get? The next checked surrender term down the list?

The order is important. I would actually check several more than 3 to backup the changes that may have happened. If you select all then you would only receive the top 3 choices.