[Documentation] Surrender mode and Bug-Hunt mode

[Meridian]

So, seeing some more unbearable bug-hunt pain on certain stream, I've decided to give surrender mechanic a try.
I know it's highly arguable, but let's at least try, maybe something comes out of it... and if not, well, we tried.

So basic idea is that once the surrender-condition applies, all your units will get X psi vision (e.g. X=20) until the end of the battle.
I don't want to auto-end battle, last enemies can be the most dangerous ones, I just want to spend (a lot) less time searching for them.

Basic (global, configurable) attributes for surrender are:
1. max number of enemies that can surrender (e.g. 2)
2. min turn for surrendering (e.g. 20)

If those two are not met, nothing else is checked.

3. enemies which cannot surrender (e.g. VIPs, mercs, star gods?)

If any of these remain, surrender doesn't happen. No more checks.

Then, we introduce a few rules (if any of them applies, surrender):
Rule A: if no enemy has a weapon anymore (i.e. both hands are empty), surrender
Rule B: if average morale of all remaining enemies is below Y (e.g. Y=40), surrender
Rule C: if no enemy moved at least Z tiles (e.g. Z=20) in the last Q turns (e.g. Q=3), surrender -- distance moved per turn is measured at the beginning and the end of their turn (i.e. running in circles in the toilet is no distance).

Checks would be done at the beginning of each player's turn.
Once surrendered, a special avatar (e.g. angry glowing-eyes monster ) would be displayed instead of usual avatar... to indicate to the player, that surrender mode was activated.

Feedback is welcome... but please try to keep it simple, only if there is something really wrong with my algorithm or if I have missed some super-important rule.

[Solarius Scorch]

Thanks for tackling this problem, Meridian!

It's interesting, but I think it doesn't address one important problem: even if you know where the enemies are, they are still out to get you. I think at least part of the problem was that running after an unarmoured Savvy Girl around the map is much more annoying and awkward than sweeping the map to find that last guy, and happens much more regularly.
I'm not saying the idea is wrong, it's indeed a step forward from, well, not having anything. But it's an upgrade to the after-turn-20-mechanic, which is a solution to a different problem than I hoped for. And this problem is that every last Altar Boy fights to the end like a legendary hero, even if he's mostly panicking. (And you can't take prisoners without stunning them, even if they should be defenceless.)

Sorry if my post doesn't seem very encouraging; I think it's definitely an interesting idea and a step in the right direction. However, I feel the need to point out that it has little to do with surrendering and therefore the name is just misleading (not intentionally, of course).

If taken as it is presented, my main concern will be communicating it to the player. I think the entire surrender mode (with the indicator) looks very much like something that was hacked into the game, instead of making a proper design. It is just completely detached from the game action, you just inexplicably develop cognitive powers after turn 20, provided that the stars are aligned. Yes, it's similar to the vanilla "after turn 20" system, but much more exposed and less abstract. It just looks extremely artificial and not really that different from entering a debug mode (I mean as a gameplay feature, obviously not a challenge-related feature). But I believe it can all be polished with some thought, although I'd like to see more feedback first.

[Meridian]

Well, I am not trying to implement real surrender... that doesn't even belong to this game. That doesn't even belong to gaming as such I think... do you know any game, where they implemented any kind of surrender (on the opponent's side)?

Let's be honest, in majority of missions (at least for me), it is clear I will win... question is only if there will be any (small) losses or not... if I were the enemy, I would just give up on turn 1... lol.

So yes, probably should change the naming... I am trying to prevent a time-wasting bug hunt, nothing more nothing less.

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, I am not trying to implement real surrender... that doesn't even belong to this game. That doesn't even belong to gaming as such I think... do you know any game, where they implemented any kind of surrender (on the opponent's side)?

Frankly I think that's not really relevant if it was used in other games or not. But in fact the reason is because many other games allow the enemies to escape - like X-Com: Apocalypse or Jagged Alliance (if I remember correctly). In X-Com there's no exit, or presumably no way to escape for the enemies, which is exactly why they need to be able to surrender.

Let's be honest, in majority of missions (at least for me), it is clear I will win... question is only if there will be any (small) losses or not... if I were the enemy, I would just give up on turn 1... lol.

But your enemies don't have this knowledge, most of them aren't very good with military tactics. And no, I don't want the enemies to surrender on turn 1. I would like to not having to kill or maim all those poor people who have no weapon, no morale and no reason to fight to the death, because frankly it's freakish and distasteful. And also a boring waste of time, but that's totally a secondary thing.

So yes, probably should change the naming... I am trying to prevent a time-wasting bug hunt, nothing more nothing less.

In this case I guess I shouldn't push the surrender issue at all. Pity, because I personally think it's way more important than problems with finding enemies, and should be easy to do... Just make it so whenever all remaining enemies are panicked, you win the battle automatically (just like when they're all mind-controlled), but only if all remaining units have a boolean canSurrender flag (to preserve vanilla settings for unmodded aliens). We've discussed it in the OXC thread last year and there was much interest. Plus it could mean less reactions training.

But if we focus on the finding the last alien issue, then I have already explained my first impression of it. I'd like to hear what people have to say, too...

[Meridian]

In this case I guess I shouldn't push the surrender issue at all. Pity, because I personally think it's way more important than problems with finding enemies, and should be easy to do... Just make it so whenever all remaining enemies are panicked, you win the battle automatically (just like when they're all mind-controlled), but only if all remaining units have a boolean canSurrender flag (to preserve vanilla settings for unmodded aliens). We've discussed it in the OXC thread last year and there was much interest.

Sounds much better than it actually is... in OXCE, they will very rarely all panic... in all my battles, I don't remember a single instance of this scenario.
I will implement this, so that you can test it... but be prepared to be disappointed.

Now please back to anti-bug-hunt...

[Eddie]

That doesn't even belong to gaming as such I think... do you know any game, where they implemented any kind of surrender (on the opponent's side)?

The Starcraft 2 AI can surrender, if you play a custom game. They will type "gg" in chat, as is customary in online matches to acknowledge defeat, and then you have the option to accept or hunt them down to the last building. I do not know the mechanic for when it is triggered though.

Also, Heroes of Might and Magic has surrender. It happens automatically if your army really outclasses the enemy (>10x), but is disabled for some fights (boss battles).

To contribute to the topic:
How about using Aye Phones to indicate where the last enemies are? Approximate location will be displayed as an arrow at the edge of the Aye Phone screen. Not immersion breaking explanation: "Your Aye Phone has picked up an enemy distress call and can triangulate it's origin. It seems the enemy ranks have broken." Or something like that.

[Arthanor]

Indeed, I was going to say Starcraft II does it too. And I believe it's rather common place in PvP games. If humans would do it, I won't say the AI should do it, but it certainly could. Recognizing defeat and giving up is a natural trait and would be quite realistic for human enemies. Altar boys, some low level cultists in XCom Files, enemy "civilians" in XPiratez.

Anyhow.. since that's not what you want, I'll comment on the not-surrender, bughunt mechanic:
The last enemy is dangerous because the AI suddenly knows the position of everyone and can act accordingly. Giving the player such knowledge removes some of that challenge because suddenly the enemy can't ambush you out of nowhere. Yes, it helps to remove the long search, and it doesn't remove the risk as much as outright surrender, but giving psi-vision is a bit jarring. If you use flags to only allow harmless enemies, then the mechanic removes only affects non-challenging ones which might as well just give up and save you the time.

I don't really have a better way, except the way XCom2 does with the "sound waves" coming from alien pods when you have nothing engaged at the moment. This tells you which way to go without ruining the actual position or type of the enemy.

[Starving Poet]

I think one of the problems with my last bug-hunt mission wasn't necessarily that we couldn't find them - it's that one guy literally did not move out of that building, so it became a room-by-room clear,

One idea I had was instead of implementing the PSI vision approach could be to turn their aggression to max, if that's even possible. 

[Meridian]

To contribute to the topic:
How about using Aye Phones to indicate where the last enemies are? Approximate location will be displayed as an arrow at the edge of the Aye Phone screen. Not immersion breaking explanation: "Your Aye Phone has picked up an enemy distress call and can triangulate it's origin. It seems the enemy ranks have broken." Or something like that.

That's a very nice idea.
I like it more than the psi vision.

[Arthanor]

Yes, that's a pretty good one! Aye-phone direction is much less information and at the same time much more explainable.

[Dioxine]

Hurray! I really hope we manage to get this surrender mode to work.

The parts of your mechanics I'd like to see implemented:

2. min turn for surrendering (e.g. 20)
Rule A: if no enemy has a weapon anymore (i.e. both hands are empty), surrender
Rule B: if average morale of all remaining enemies is below Y (e.g. Y=40), surrender
Rule C: if no enemy moved at least Z tiles (e.g. Z=20) in the last Q turns (e.g. Q=3), surrender -- distance moved per turn is measured at the beginning and the end of their turn (i.e. running in circles in the toilet is no distance).

Nicely broken down to the basics. A & B cover the situation of scared escapees nicely, C accounts for AI error.

I think we don't need more than this. However, I don't like the psi-vision thing. It's gamey, gamey as hell! I'd like a prompt asking, 'the enemy wants to surrender, is peace an option?' if yes, auto-end battle with all captured. If not, continue and don't ask again.

1. max number of enemies that can surrender (e.g. 2)

This needs to be discussed. There are situations where even a large squad could surrender... but this is OK for now.

Games with surrender (or rather, escape) mechanism are Necromunda and Mordheim (the latter had a PC version lately), but I think what Meridian proposed is better anyway.

[Meridian]

I think we don't need more than this. However, I don't like the psi-vision thing. It's gamey, gamey as hell! I'd like a prompt asking, 'the enemy wants to surrender, is peace an option?' if yes, auto-end battle with all captured. If not, continue and don't ask again.

There is an alternative to psi vision already proposed above... the motion scanner-like display of the enemy position.
I think that is quite acceptable and not gamey as psi vision.

The problem with "real surrender" under rule C is that it would trigger too often.
For example Marsec Bodyguard with Heavy Gauss "stuck" on the upper floor of Supply Ship is the most dangerous part of the whole mission, and usually the last enemy too. And since the ship is so small, he would not move much and trigger surrender. We should not allow him to surrender IMO... that would be a false positive.
Just showing his position though is OK, because we anyway know he's there (we are just afraid to come closer and he's camping, which is what I would do as well on his place)... but we should definitely fight this last enemy and not get his valuable loot gratis.

This needs to be discussed. There are situations where even a large squad could surrender... but this is OK for now.

I think this would be covered by Solarius' "real surrender mode"... just with a different condition than he wants (all panicked), so that it actually happens. There, we wouldn't need a limit on how many can surrender.


So, I think the combination of "anti-bug-hunt mode" and "surrender mode" could work nice for you. I'll try to make it work within the next 2 weeks and publish it for testing... once we see it in action, we'll be able to say more.

[Dioxine]

The problem with "real surrender" under rule C is that it would trigger too often.
There is an alternative to psi vision already proposed above... the motion scanner-like display of the enemy position.
I think that is quite acceptable and not gamey as psi vision.

Hanging a core mechanic on an item/gadget that might not even exist in a mod? Nah. We can do better than that. Possibly by fine-tuning. How about rule C not applying if the enemy is inside 'ufo' (or rather, applying only when outside, so it always works in missions w/o UFO)? If it can be tracked, that is.

Just showing his position though is OK, because we anyway know he's there (we are just afraid to come closer and he's camping, which is what I would do as well on his place)... but we should definitely fight this last enemy and not get his valuable loot gratis.

This is true. If anything else fails, maybe we can show the movements of such an enemy (un-hidden movement)?

So, I think the combination of "anti-bug-hunt mode" and "surrender mode" could work nice for you. I'll try to make it work within the next 2 weeks and publish it for testing... once we see it in action, we'll be able to say more.

Indeed. These 2 will work best when combined. And we'll see how it works in praxis.

[Meridian]

Hanging a core mechanic on an item/gadget that might not even exist in a mod? Nah. We can do better than that. Possibly by fine-tuning. How about rule C not applying if the enemy is inside 'ufo' (or rather, applying only when outside, so it always works in missions w/o UFO)? If it can be tracked, that is.

I wouldn't bind it to the item.
Just when the mode activates (user is informed somehow, e.g. by a short message/indicator), you could bring up the motion scanner UI by pressing a hotkey with any soldier at any time at zero TU cost.

This is true. If anything else fails, maybe we can show the movements of such an enemy (un-hidden movement)?

That's also a good idea! (certainly most intuitive and straightforward anyway)
A small disadvantage compared to motion scanner UI is that it wouldn't show enemies that don't move at all.
(The bug-hunt version of motion scanner UI would show those too, if you're asking yourself that question right now; and also those which are 10+ tiles away would be shown at distance 10... so that you know the direction to go)

[Zharkov]

I like this idea, as a lot of tedium in this game comes from battles the enemy has already lost.

Rule A: if no enemy has a weapon anymore (i.e. both hands are empty), surrender

I guess rating weapons and checking whether they are a threat to the gals would be too much?

Also, Heroes of Might and Magic has surrender. It happens automatically if your army really outclasses the enemy (>10x), but is disabled for some fights (boss battles).

I wish we had something like that for openxcom, too. It would certainly fit the piratez theme: Instead of getting killed or enslaved by pirates, lots of people would consider handing over ship and valuables. And the gals might accept, as this provides booty without the work. Well depends on their mood, I'd think...