Static supply and surrender

[Ebbingford]

Playing with 1.01e.
I have just had my garrison of Munster surrender after only a couple of turns of siege. If the special ability that is mentioned in the manual is not going to apply then perhaps it should be deleted from the manual.
Or the no surrender ability should be made to work

[Pocus]

supply wagons or depots have only 50% chance of preventing a surrender in ROP.

[lodilefty]

Playing with 1.01e.
I have just had my garrison of Munster surrender after only a couple of turns of siege. If the special ability that is mentioned in the manual is not going to apply then perhaps it should be deleted from the manual.
Or the no surrender ability should be made to work

"Never surrender" as stated in manual is AFAIK incorrect. Supply gives a reduced chance of surrender [currently set at 50% chance]....

[PhilThib]

May be then re-increase that chance if 50% is too low

[lodilefty]

May be then re-increase that chance if 50% is too low

I think it might be. It was set at 50% to generate 2 turn [i.e. 2 month] sieges in WIA.

To match the manual [= saying "never"] we would set it to 100%

I suggest 80% to see what that does....

[squarian]

Just to confirm the data - I had Koeniggratz surrender after two turns, despite reinforcing it with garrison inf and art.

[Jarkko]

Well, I sure was confused how the hell my garrisons did surrender even though I had a supply wagon inside.

Please either change the wording in the manual, or fix the game so that garrisons never surrender if they have the supplywagon with supplies.

[Pocus]

This is the settings of AACW by the way. Even without surrendering, you can still take hits every turn when besieged.

[Jarkko]

Eurgh.... With 1.01g I had last night a full corps with full supplies and a a full wagon surrender after one month of siege... With a friendly army marching towards the area, they were just 10 days away...

A full corps surrendering all of the sudden when they have it all fine and dandy after one turn should *not* happen *ever* in my opinion. I can understand a single regiment surrendering if they don't have extra supplies around, but this just feels *wrong* I abandoned the game in frustration immediatly

[lodilefty]

Eurgh.... With 1.01g I had last night a full corps with full supplies and a a full wagon surrender after one month of siege... With a friendly army marching towards the area, they were just 10 days away...

A full corps surrendering all of the sudden when they have it all fine and dandy after one turn should *not* happen *ever* in my opinion. I can understand a single regiment surrendering if they don't have extra supplies around, but this just feels *wrong* I abandoned the game in frustration immediatly

Sorry you are frustrated, but absolutes do not exist in War.

Historically, Local commanders did the strangest things....


I like to think of it this way: HOW did the besieged commander know there was relief on the way? If his troops overall Quality gets lowered, a commander would surrender rather than see his troops killed. In the 18th Century, the surrendering force often marched out intact nd went home on parole to later be exchanged!

Game mechanics comment:
I think this mimics history quite well! To surrender, your force had to have lowered it's 'Total Quality' [Discipline] value enough [cohesion, hits, NM affect this] to first fail the surrender test, then also fail the supply test.

[Generalisimo]

Eurgh.... With 1.01g I had last night a full corps with full supplies and a a full wagon surrender after one month of siege... With a friendly army marching towards the area, they were just 10 days away...

A full corps surrendering all of the sudden when they have it all fine and dandy after one turn should *not* happen *ever* in my opinion. I can understand a single regiment surrendering if they don't have extra supplies around, but this just feels *wrong* I abandoned the game in frustration immediatly

Do you have a saved game of that?...
Once I suffered something like that, but it was with an old version of ROP, so I couldn't reproduce it in a newer one.

[squarian]

A full corps surrendering all of the sudden when they have it all fine and dandy after one turn should *not* happen *ever* in my opinion. I can understand a single regiment surrendering if they don't have extra supplies around, but this just feels *wrong* I abandoned the game in frustration immediatly

I can understand your frustration. As Lodilefty says, strange things happen, and there might be a chance the garrison commander decides to pack it in (Mack at Ulm in 1805?). But in a proper fortress with plenty of supplies and troops - not very likely until at least a breach is made.

(Which raises a "design philosophy" question. As far as I can tell, ROP has no provision for honours of war. Which is odd, both because it was an actual feature of warfare in the period, and also because every strategic-level game for this era I've ever seen includes it as part of the siege routine.)

[Generalisimo]

I can understand your frustration. As Lodilefty says, strange things happen, and there might be a chance the garrison commander decides to pack it in (Mack at Ulm in 1805?). But in a proper fortress with plenty of supplies and troops - not very likely until at least a breach is made.

Well, like lodi explains quite well, if too many values of the stack and the faction become too low (cohesion, NM, etc) then it may be frustrating, but there isn't much to do.
Sometimes, it will happen, and it is completelly logical under the rules of the game.
That's why I asked for a saved game, to see the details of this case.
The last surrender that I saw, it was really completelly logical....

[Clovis]

I abandoned the game in frustration immediatly

That's the real difference between war and wargame: in war you just can't quit the game

Who said : "Computer wargaming is for people wanting to always win"?

[arsan]

It may be a bug... but if it's not, i really like this kind of unexpected things happening from time to time. They force you to don't take anything for granted.
On game one should not be 100% sure that a given siege will last 3 or 5 turns or whatever because of the fortress size, the garrison.
Real life commanders didn't have that assurance at all. So you must try to succor then ASAP or take your chances. It may work or it may fail

Of curse the chances of "out the norm" things happening should be slim, but in history things like that (and much weirder... what was that big fortified town that surrendered ASAP to Murat and a "bunch of hussars with a small gun" on the 1806 Prussian campaigns??) has happened always... as have incredibly stubborn commanders that refused to surrender for much longer than expected.
Of course, no doubt sometimes it can be VERY frustrating, but that is part of the "fun" IMHO

[squarian]

I certainly agree with the several remarks above that the possibility of an unexpected result is realistic and more fun. But as a general rule, all things being equal, the historical norm in this era was that a fortress which was well-supplied and well-garrisoned was invulnerable until the besieger made a "practicable breach". Exceptions are fine, but if experience with the game shows that fortresses surrendering before being breached happens more than rarely, I hope the game will be corrected.

[TommH]

Actually the original poster didn't indicate the fortification level.either so its hard to say if this makes sense or not.

[Jarkko]

Prague was the city in question.

I am sorry to use this sort of language, but it is total an utter bull-poo to claim it is historical and fun when things like this happens. There is absolutely zero examples in history where the advance corps would have surrendered immediatly when they entered unbreachable fortified positions, full with supplies and the main army following a couple weeks behind. It is wrong historically, it is game ruining, and totally un-fun.

Mack was fighting alone against a massive enemy army in an unfortified position, was surrounded and cut out without supplies, so the reference doesn't hold water. Like I said, I can well understand the fast surrender of unsupplied troops, especially small garrisons. But there is "slight" difference here.

[Jarkko]

I'll post the save once I get home. Dunno how logical it is that an army on attack, with high National morale and side which is winning the war sees its forward corps surrender all of the sudden. If Napoleon had seen his VI Corps (which had crossed Danube and clashed with Mack at Elchingen) surrender at the Ulm campaign it would have been a similar situation, but "suprisingly" that didn't happen...

[arsan]

The bull-shit thing is a great argument... very convincing and mature...
I find interesting and 100% historical adding a pinch of unexpectedness to the game system. It seems you don't but i will refrain from saying your thoughts are bull-shit, as i can cope with people having different opinions than me.
Mack was indeed the advance guard of the Austro-Russian army and the rest were coming in support just as you say. The French army was not as massive, specially as it was dispersed all around southern Germany surrounding Mack. And i'm sure he controlled enough land and cities to gather some supply to survive while waiting for the Russians.
But he didn't. He surrendered more than 30.000 men barely having fired a shot, awed and demoralized by Napoleon maneuver. Things like that and much weirder have happened in history since antiquity (blunders, treasons, trickery, cowering... a lot of things can happen and did happen)

Of course all this can be a bug in the siege resolution code but that will not change my opinion about the result.
If this happened on a regular basis it will be a problem, no doubt. But IMHO, having an unexpected result like this once or twice in a campaign makes things more interesting.

Cheers

[JacquesDeLalaing]

To surrender, your force had to have lowered it's 'Total Quality' [Discipline] value enough [cohesion, hits, NM affect this] to first fail the surrender test, then also fail the supply test.

So this is different from the manual again! Actually I didn't know that "unit discipline" can be lowered. I believed it to be a fixed value (ca. 8, grenadiers 9).

So the problem is that siege values do not take "overall" power into account, but only "artillery" power, supply, fortification level, and sappeurs/abilites. Basically I think that's fine until it comes to "surrendering". For the question whether to surrender or not, overall power should be of influence?

[Pocus]

Discipline itself can't be lowered only cohesion can.

Checking again the code, which is old on this part, perhaps something can be improved, by harmonizing the MoraleCheck test used in battle with the QualityCheck used in siege...

As for sudden surrender, I admit I would hate that as a player too, even if we surely can find historical examples. Perhaps we can introduce checks so that a small force can't provoke the surrender of a larger, supplied force? This must be discussed in the beta forum though, hasty decisions are always bad

[Jarkko]

If this happened on a regular basis it will be a problem, no doubt. But IMHO, having an unexpected result like this once or twice in a campaign makes things more interesting.

To me it is game-breaking. Why bother to plan and plot your moves, when a single ahistorical random happening like this destroys the game? Just sit and wait for that fluke happen to either side to decide the game, what could possibly be more interesting?

With a feature like this in a game of a period which saw many sieges during the campaign, I don't see much reason to play the game. It's like playing the one-armed bandit, you keep drawing the arm and hope for a jack-pot; that may indeed be interesting for some, but I prefer to steer clear of those.

[lodilefty]

To me it is game-breaking. Why bother to plan and plot your moves, when a single ahistorical random happening like this destroys the game? Just sit and wait for that fluke happen to either side to decide the game, what could possibly be more interesting?

With a feature like this in a game of a period which saw many sieges during the campaign, I don't see much reason to play the game. It's like playing the one-armed bandit, you keep drawing the arm and hope for a jack-pot; that may indeed be interesting for some, but I prefer to steer clear of those.

The only wargame I know of without probability and risk is Chess...
...or at least any worthwhile wargame.

It seems that knowing the possibility of pusillanimous behavior by a force, we must have contingency plans. Real world does.

[JacquesDeLalaing]

Basically, I can understand Jarkkos point. It is not so much about whether probabilities in a game are good or bad (pondering different possibilities and probabilities is fun!), but rather about the "range" and "variance" of the random factor, in combination with its consequences. A game where a whole corps is lost simply by chance is no fun. A good game needs a good ratio of certainty and randomness. So maybe the surrender-decision needs some fine-tuning?

[Jarkko]

It is not so much about whether probabilities in a game are good or bad (pondering different possibilities and probabilities is fun!), but rather about the "range" and "variance" of the random factor, in combination with its consequences. A game where a whole corps is lost simply by chance is no fun. A good game needs a good ratio of certainty and randomness. So maybe the surrender-decision needs some fine-tuning?

Exactly.

[lodilefty]

Of course we will look at this.

...but I'm not sure we will make it a 'zero chance' for this to occur...

..after all, this started elsewhere with "Sieges go on forever"

[Generalisimo]

To me it is game-breaking. Why bother to plan and plot your moves, when a single ahistorical random happening like this destroys the game? Just sit and wait for that fluke happen to either side to decide the game, what could possibly be more interesting?

With a feature like this in a game of a period which saw many sieges during the campaign, I don't see much reason to play the game. It's like playing the one-armed bandit, you keep drawing the arm and hope for a jack-pot; that may indeed be interesting for some, but I prefer to steer clear of those.

Well, this is actually more simple... much more simple.
Let me say it like this: We Want the Saved Game!!!


Really, it doesn't have much sense to continue discussing something that you have seen but we didn't...
So, we will be waiting for you to arrive home and send/post it...

[Jarkko]

Well, this is actually more simple... much more simple.
Let me say it like this: We Want the Saved Game!!!

You will get it I was *this* close to remove the game from my HD on Monday night because of this (BTW, when do people on average grow up and stop raging over a game? seems I am still too young being just a bit over 40 years), and didn't touch the game at all yesterday (considering I had played the campaign pretty much non-stop after I installed 1.01e (incidently, as you seem to claim this should not be possible, could this all be caused by the fact that my campaign started with 1.01e and has been continued with 1.01g after that became available?), just to take a few brakes to test the Imperial side in the Invasion scenario), still fuming.

[caranorn]

Just one thing. If you wish to avoid this type of situation don't enter structures with major combat forces unless they are badly out of shape (cohesion and/or losses). That's a lesson I learned in WiA. Before I also used to march forces into a region and then have them immediately enter structures if I thought they were even marginaly inferior to nearby enemy forces. But doing so could lead to a good force surrendering rapidly, while if they had stayed outside the structures they might have taken some losses and retreated, but would have been salvageable. In the end, major units (corps/columns and armies) have no business inside structures unless they are in really bad shape...