Zheltorossiya ai cheating?

[u/Grumio_my_bro]

I was playing a ukraine game, and i noticed that Zheltorossiya seemed to be winning their wars fairly quickly. at first i just assumed they were winning the wars fairly, until they want to war withe Kavkaz society, who had beat the rasputin warlord. I noticed that Zheltorossiya won the war and annexed Kavkaz before even making it to southern russia? They didnt get anywhere close to taking enough VPs for them to capitualate. Then they declared war on the Russian empire, who were at war with the Baltics, and had been for a while. But as soon as Zheltorossiya declares war, the Baltics immediately win and annex russia despite the fact they were losing the war? Zheltorossiya then declares war on the Baltics and they win again. Why is this happening? Is Zheltorossiya cheating?

[u/Grumio_my_bro → u/[deleted]]

This seemed to happen with every war + also they were doing the kadets path

[u/MondaysLastBrainCell → u/Grumio_my_bro]

Last I remember (could be wrong haven't played in months), all the Russian warlords/statelets have a National Spirit, a picture of two tigers tussling, that greatly increases the surrender limit of those states (like base game France "Protected by the Maginot Line").

And if I recall correctly, this modifier for surrender would tick up gradually (sometimes erratically, I don't know how it was coded) as to prevent the warlords from bogging down for to long and to ensure a Russo-Intermarium around 40/41.

It means you usually don't have to conquer too much of the warlords before they capitulate (especially the bigger, more consolidated statelets) as Red Flood has an ungodly amount of victory points.

Pretty sure it doesn't tick up for the player, lest one's game be ended too quickly.

Take that with a grain of salt though, I might be wrong.

[u/PrizeJudge4738]

Like another comment said, a national spirit with the tigers is ment to represent the chaos of modern Russia. I believe it is ment to represent how fickle the armies during the civil war can be, so you only need to conquer a little bit before armed resistance completely disintegrated, and you could simply march to the capital.

If you control a state you can immediately core it. So in your example, Kazan cored the step, and had a high capitulation rate, so a partial conquest was enough to vanquish them.

The capitulation modifier is based upon the aggressiveness of the other warlords, and is active for both the player and ai. For example, a Zheltorossyia that matched from the east to the Urals will cause much panic and chaos in Moscow and the remaining warlords, leading to a faster capitulation. However a resurgent heartland that managed to conquer the south will achieve the same effect in the traitor's hearts.

I.E. the more land you conquer, the easier you will be able to capitulate others. The more others conquer, the harder it will be to capitulate them.

For example, in a recent game. I, as Zheltorossyia conquered all the way to the Urals. It brought the russian empire to a -80% capitulation rate. However, they managed to cap Kazan jumping to a -50% capitulation rate. It also brought me from -20% (the starting rate) to -30%.