What makes the AI surrender

[Leafgreen]

What I think the requirements are.

You must take their capital at least once.
You must hit some sort of benchmark or combinations for population lost/Land area lost/Surviving military size?

I know that if I set a nation free and then attack it, they have no military at all and as soon as I take their capital they give up. So I am pretty sure that military personnel is a factor. I've also attacked very large countries like the US and had to take over more than half while chasing the capital around.

And taking captured land from them doesn't factor in I think. Only originally owned land for that country but that's a wild guess.

So if a country has 10x their original lands in captured territory and large armies but you take their home lands and their capital once, would they give up? Does having colonies factor in at all?

Guesses, rumors, things you remember reading from 10 years ago, post them all please. Let's get this nailed down.

[YoMomma]

A cpl of times i had regions surrender before taking the capital, France comes to mind (dont wanna stereotype, just game experience) and the African nations.

In my opinion it is mostly how many tanks and infantry they got deployed. If you kill that first few waves, they are out of business. Then just rush for capital and they will surrender 9/10.

But usually it is better to take all the cities, massive DAR, massive taxes

[ZEvans96]

They surrender when their military approval hits rock bottom.

[George Geczy]

I wish I could easily provide the definitive list for reference, but the short answer is that a LOT of factors play in to the surrender decision. Hey, when I'm playing and I get an AI that is particularly annoying with their "whack-a-mole" capital moves, I grumble a fair bit myself

But it's a consideration of a lot of elements - DAR and MAR of course. There is also the kills/losses ratio, plus a consideration of how many troops are left (especially mobile units, like non-leg infantry and tanks). There is also a consideration of the relationships between the AI government and civilians against your region. Then there is a factor of allies of the AI region. The AI "personality" also has an effect.

While most elements such as DAR and MAR are shown, there is also an internal "despair" value that is increased each time you take a city - more so for large cities and the capital.

-- George.

[Kristijonas]

In my experience I noticed that AI is exceptionally likely to surrender if you successfully blitzkrieg their country. Like, if you take half their country REALLY fast. It's as if it makes them feel totally messed to the point of understanding resistance is futile and it's best to just surrender. Most importantly - don't let them take any cities back. Don't give them hope Anyway, sometimes I feel sad when AI surrenders - I love the idea of a country doing ALL they can to resist you. Partisans could also be improved to be MUCH more active in the first years of resistance and they should stop spawning later (provided there's a good MAR and police security ratings.
for example, the Lithuanian partisan resistance that happened for 10 years after occupation but after that time it mostly never came back because Soviet rule was just too overwhelming for a hope of sovereignty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_partisans

[Leafgreen]

Blitkrieg might have a lot to do with MAR too. I've noticed that if I kill a lot of units in a very short time (say a week) their MAR will drastically go down. If I then sit on my butt for a week it will go back up.

But that could be unit kills/cities captured too, they go hand in hand usually.

[Atraphoenix]

I have never seen any country that is still fighting under 40 MAR. I think 50 MAR magical number here. I have seen AI factions surrender above it but never below it. With or without capital victory AI MAR takes a huge blow to MAR if it loses its historical capital.

In 36 campaign I have no info on scripts but except for only 1 trial, 99 % of whole Europe falls to hitler. In that German lose campaign I became neutral and German AI lost thanks to lack of mil goods. So if you want to manipulate the winner just sabotage the desired AI that you want to see lost.

[Kristijonas]

I'm seeing countries with as low as 10% MAR still fighting for a long long time even though their units keep surrendering. So MAR is not as important as it might seem.