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Surrender Before Death (5.0 Ready)

Ever wonder why ALL your enemies would ALWAYS rather die than fight another day? Or why you can't save a friendly nation from destruction at the hands of their enemies by offering your protection? This mod solves both problems while still making perfect sense.

Update 8/1/23: Impact to Last Stand modifier for Vassalization slightly decreased. You could vassalize perfectly functional factions (6+ settlements) right after they lost an army or two, which was not the intention. Also, increased the chance of vassals who hate you rebelling from you. Any vassals at +0 affection or better are unchanged, but the more your vassal hates you, the higher their chance of deserting you when war is declared on you - or outright rebelling.

AI nations use the "Last Stand" Modifier for determining how their priorities change the closer they come to being destroyed. The Last Stand VALUE is a modifier to their base diplomacy stats (which are based on their faction type, faction demeanor (passive, aggressive, etc.), attitudes toward other nations, and so on. This Last Stand Value is consulted or not consulted by the AI based on the Last Stand PRIORITY. The Last Stand Value is evaluated by the AI with increasing priority the worse the AI is doing. This means the Last Stand Value will not affect AI who are powerful (such as having many armies or settlements). It also means that the weaker an AI is, the more the Last Stand Value will matter to the AI.

So, the Last Stand Priority is how important the Last Stand Value is to the AI. The Last Stand Value is how much being near death will affect the AI's diplomatic priorities. For example, if the Last Stand Value is set to +300, that means the AI's thinking will be vastly different as it nears death than when it's thriving. On the other hand, if the Last Stand Value is set to +10, the AI's thinking will not change much, no matter how much Priority the AI gives to the Last Stand Value.

This mod does not touch Last Stand Priority, but it heavily changes the Last Stand Value, BUT ONLY as it relates to Confederation, Vassalage, and Client State offers. What that means is when you (or another nation) has ground a nation nearly into the dirt, that nation will now be MUCH more likely to accept an offer for confederation, vassalage, or to become a client state. Their thinking WILL NOT change unless they are near death (because this mod does not affect the Last Stand Priority, only the Last Stand Value). The AI will prefer vassalage or becoming a client state over confederation for obvious reasons (they will continue to exist, and they can always rebel against you later).


This mod has been tested over several hours to provide a NET +30 vassalage bonus and a NET +15 confederation bonus for when offering either to another nation when it is at 0 power and is at the brink of death (which can be achieved by, among other methods, sacking the enemy's last settlement and making an offer the same turn immediately after the sacking, before the garrison can replenish or buildings can be repaired). Note that in the screenshot (Instance 1, Modded), although the value still shows a negative, the value shown represents the AI being 30 points more likely to accept peace BUT ONLY IF vassalage is part of the deal, and 15 points more likely to accept peace BUT ONLY IF confederation is part of the deal. In the Instance in question, the AI dislikes peace with me too much for that value to allow me to confederate or vassalize them. If they had a peace value of -30, the player could vassalize them. If they had a peace value of -15, the player could vassalize or confederate them.

As you can see from the screenshots, this mod only takes effect as the AI is close to death, and although this mod implements a massive priority swing for the AI (+132 towards vassalage, +79 towards confederation in this instance), this mod will not ALWAYS result in EVERY AI choosing surrender before death. This mod is not designed to ALWAYS allow you to confederate or vassalize a nation with no regard whatsoever to how much it hates you. Some nations, especially aggressive nations, will sometimes prefer to die than join you. Other nations (especially passive nations) will be far more eager to join you than to die. And other nations of the same race that are about to be destroyed by some OTHER nation will now run to you with open arms, begging you to vassalize or confederate them to save them from destruction at the hands of their enemies.

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Like all GOW mods, this mod has been cleaned to minimize potential conflicts with other mods. This means my mod will not accidentally overwrite someone else's mod changes in an unrelated area. My mod will only conflict with mods that change the exact same things I do.

This mod is 100% save game compatible and you will experience no oddities by adding or removing it at any point during your campaign.

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Also, for anyone who felt the AI was a little TOO eager to confederate, there is now a LITE version of this mod that keeps vassalage and client state values the same, but splits the difference between CA's Last Stand confederation value and this mod's Last Stand confederation value: https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2890099747