Matrix Games Forums

As discussed on another threat, the surrender mechanism needs tweaking. I have started this thread and another threat to see if I can some up what needs to be done.

The problem: Presently it is far too easy for the loser of a war to pick and choose who he surrenders to conditionally (unconditional surrenders are not a problem). The typical situation where this would apply is Prussia and Austria are just able to beat France when working together, but neither could do it alone. They want France to surrender conditionally to them both, or continue fighting. However, because Prussia and Austria must pre-select to give France a conditional, France can always choose to surrender to one of them and crush the other. This means they always need to push for an unconditional.

This would never have happened in the board game, because the first step in the surrender process would be for the loser (France) to announce to everyone who they are surrendering to. Once all the offers of surrender were made, then the victors would then secretly write down if they would agree to offer a conditional, or by default offer an unconditional. Here is the rule:

4.4.2.2: When a major power sues for peace, the opponent must then offer a "formal peace," either a "conditional peace, " which must be accepted, or an unconditional peace, which may be accepted only if the suing player desires. If desired, and several major powers are being sued for peace, have each player write down 'conditional' or 'unconditional' before revealing all the peace proposals simultaneously.

The above implies that the victors know who is being surrendered to before they decide what type of peace to offer. This step is missing in the Matrix version.

To fill this gap, the game needs to add respond to someone suing for peace, by offering a conditional, if an offer of surrender is also made to the following:" then list your allies at war with the losing nation, with check boxes. The default is offer an unconditional, so does not need to be addressed. This means adding another box to the surrenders page (same as the allow seperate peace box), but there is plenty of space, so this is ok.

So in our example, France announces it sues for peace to Austria, but not Prussia. Austria has a check box indicating it will not offer a conditional unless a conditional is also offered to Prussia. By default Austria offers an unconditional. France does not want to surrender unconditionally[;)], so the war continues.

Note Austria could have also selected to take the conditional, and let her ally suffer by not selecting this option. There is a lot of room for backstabbing, but not for the loser to control the outcome.

Seems to make good sense!

4.4.2.2: When a major power sues for peace, the opponent must then offer a "formal peace," either a "conditional peace, " which must be accepted, or an unconditional peace, which may be accepted only if the suing player desires. If desired, and several major powers are being sued for peace, have each player write down 'conditional' or 'unconditional' before revealing all the peace proposals simultaneously.

The above implies that the victors know who is being surrendered to before they decide what type of peace to offer. This step is missing in the Matrix version.

 
Clear as mud.  Technically there's nothing there preventing players from negotiating secret peace terms among themselves without the knowledge/concurrence of allies.  Which begs the question, should backstabbing be allowable?  Which would then lead to breaking of alliances following discovery of treachery.  In no small part this is an important question for playgroups.  Some may say OK, while others say no.  I'm playing devil's advocate here before Marshall locks in a rule change. 
 
The proposed check boxes should work well, and I would further suggest that allies be notified of what settings are in effect.  An automated message for example. 

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

Clear as mud.... 

The proposed check boxes should work well, and I would further suggest that allies be notified of what settings are in effect.  An automated message for example. 

Pzgndr, are you saying the original EIA rules are as clear as mud, or the suggestion?

I think the proposed check boxes would work well, but I don't think allies should be notified. If they were notified, how would you backstab them? (Backstabbing is generally very rare in this game, but there has to be a mechanism to do it).

I agree with DB's argument.

Pzgndr, are you saying the original EIA rules are as clear as mud, or the suggestion?

 
The original rule as quoted.
 

I think the proposed check boxes would work well, but I don't think allies should be notified. If they were notified, how would you backstab them?

 
I agree that the proposed check boxes should work well.  Just seeing if there might be any objections to what could be considered a rule change. 
 

This is not the board game. You can just as easily both not check the conditional box. It is often the goal of a power to split the allies against it exactly for the purpose of fighting one alone. The surest way to prevent this is to force unconditional to at least one side who can strip factors and keep their ally on good footing for a victory. If the suing power wants conditional from both of you, just let the host know. If the surrender messes up or the suing power recants the deal, the host can either undo the sole conditional or force through the joint conditional depending on how your group rules on this issue. They have given the host a slew of abilities to fix things like this and then we are not requiring a whole lot of extra programming because people are unhappy that the game works under the written rules.