What do you think about DAIM?

Playing my first game with DAIM and Spocky Carrier mod as Italy. I also picked aggressive AI at the start so i am not sure if that's contributing to somewhat a-historical turn of events.

Everything was going well till August '39, when Germans did NOT accept Molotov-Rubbentrop pact and took the whole Poland for themselves by mid October. Next they went after France early, by breaking trough a weakened Maginot line partially due to my actions as Italy in the south of France. After France was annexed in winter of '40, all hell started to break loose!
USSR declared on Germany in April '40 and it set of a whole chain of declarations and events resulting in Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary joining axis and Bulgaria attacking SU on their own, but joining axis eventially as well.
Next there was a Vichy event in the summer, where brits attempt to destroy the Vichy Navy, causing Vichy to officially join Axis followed by Portugal and Franco's Spain as well. Crazy but good so far.

Anyway, now its summer of '41 and Germany is making some progress on eastern front after losing a bit of poland earlier due to unexpected attack.

Now here is a Key thing. They are also massing the troops and transports in Dunkerque near britain in what looks like a preparation for Sea Lion invasion. They also have a fleet of transports there but it seems stuck on entering and leaving the port often but not picking up any troops yet.

So my question is this. Has anyone seen german AI performing a Sea Lion sucesfully? It seems like it's trying to do someting of the sort but looks a bit disjointed so far. I loaded up as germans to see whats going on and it looks like the Kriegsmarine is in dissaray with many capital ships damaged and being repaired in ports and very few screening vesselvs available and of course no Carriers...
So the transports have no protection vs Royal Navy plus UK seems to have their defenses together in this game with 4-5 divisions guarding all coastal provices and reinforcing the one being attacked as well. They also have a lot of fighters guarding the skies.
My work is cut out for me for sure and this is great. I am just wondering what German AI is planning with that 20+ divisions massed in Dunkerque? It would be awesme to see them try to do the invasion although no carriers and not enough escorts for their warships could be a problem. Also they dont have any marines or significant amounts of Alpine trops (poor replacement for marines but better than anyting else for amphib attack)
Is there a version of AI mod that actually builds a few carriers or are they wating till later in the war?

Sorry for a long post, all in all really like this mod, just wondering what the deal is with the Sea Lion is for German AI and the carriers they so deperately need to get it done.

Italy and Soviet Union--Behaving Wierdly without Germany?

Yeah. This is true.

If Germany dies unhistorically early, DAIM breaks. Beating Germany in 1937 results in Soviet Union DoWing Japan three months later, and Italy eventually moving for Greece.

Furthermore, Japan probably should not DoW the Allies if it is at war with the Soviet Union. That would be suicidal--and Japan probably needs a 'Deal with Soviets' AI script for Nomohan Incident and such. Indeed, it's arguable that Japan wouldn't DoW anyone after 'Fate of China', as that was the key war aim--to take over China. If China becomes a puppet, why would the fighting continue?

Disappointing first game.....

Hi, im new to the forum and HOI but have played strategy games for a long time. Anyway introductions over i'd like your opinions and a little feedback on my first HOI2/DAIM experience. I havnt played HOI2 vanilla through to completion having read that the DAIM mod was a much better challenge so i pretty much started playing DAIM straight away and i am abit disappointed to say the least. Here is a brief run down on the situation before i quit and came on here -

Started 1936 as UK. Built up the RAF and Royal Navy with the goal in mind of controlling the Sea and the waterways in the Med and the English channel to both cut off Germanys threat to England and Italys Supply to North Africa. All well and good so far...no major ahistorical events 36-39. 39 War breaks out, first major battle involved the home fleet defeating a conparatively weak german fleet in the north Atlantic. RAF totally dominating the skies above france. Poland falls quickly and easily. Italy joins the war beginning of 1940 and makes its way across the desert to my defenses massing at Alexandria. Great, all very historical until now. As January rolls into Feburary things dont seem right. Almost all aggressive activity on the part of the germans stops. The Luffewaffe appears to be permanently grounded which i guess was largely in part to the damage the RAF inflicted on there bombers...fair enough. There is almost a daily 18 strong per side fleet battle between my Mediterranean fleet and the Italian navy which is NEVER conclusive and never has any ships sunk due to my 2 CV's in the fleet and almost constant rainfull, the distance is never closed and no real damage is ever done. This shadow boxing continued for the whole of Feb and into March without a ship getting a scratch. Elsewhere the germans were sending out suicidal squadrons of 2 CA plus 1 or 2 screens at a time into the waiting arms of my 18 ship home fleet camped outside the port of Kiel on germanys north coast (sorry i forget the name of the sea province - something Bight i believe) this suicidal AI decision making happened regularly. Then the Italian Navy started doing the exact same thing in the med...sending 3 or 4 transports escorted by maybe a CA and a few DDs into the sea zone where my Med fleet was camping out without moving just off the coast of Malta. Then the big shocker happened around the end of Feb 1940 France attacked Genoa and sent the Italians packing. They then proceded to drive around 8 to 10 divisions through Milan and ripped apart Northern Italy...by March they had totally torn apart northern Italy and were looking at Germanys soft underside!

What made all this worse was that as it was pretty much my first game i was totally passive in North Africa to see how things would shape up...i did not support the french attack in any way shape or form or disrupt the Italian army. I couldnt even engage there Navy properly and wasnt able to sink there transports even when they were being suicidal due to the weather! What is going on? I thought DAIM was supposed to toughen up everyone EXCEPT for france? This was very very disappointing and im praying it was an unusual event.

The only significant events that happen early on was South Africa signing a peace treaty with germany and leaving the alliance, and after war broke out i landed approximately 15 divisions of INF and marines to help defend northern france, but of course they never ever saw any action!

The other thing that i didnt like was how both the UK and france were far far more advanced technology wise than germany which im guessing is the result of blueprint swapping.

And yes DAIM was successfully loaded as i got the events.

Very disappointing AI so far. Im going to try again and see what happens. And thoughts or feedback will be very welcome

Woody75 said:

The other thing that i didnt like was how both the UK and france were far far more advanced technology wise than germany which im guessing is the result of blueprint swapping.

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Indeed.

Italy losing the northern part of the country was bad luck I'd say. I don't think I ever saw that happen.

The air and naval parts of the AI usually aren't impressive, be it with DAIM or not as there's not much you can do about it.

Germany should attack France through Benelux around April-June 1940.

Started my first game up in DAIM. Playing as Germany. Normal stuff has happened (Fall of Poland, Fall of France, Belgium/Denmark surrender, all the German events). I conquered Republican Spain, created Scandanavia, and was ready to launch Sealion.

My 12 Carriers quickly secured domination of the seas. Nothing unexpected there- I had invested a lot in my navy, and was up to date on all Carrier doctrines. I loaded my 9 marines and selected amphibious assault...

And was shocked, as 4 British divisions on the beach suddenly became 8 a few hours after I attacked, and I was driven off! I tried multiple times, but never got a beachhead.

Basically- I'm really pleased the Brits just don't roll over and die in Sealion anymore. I'm having to build more transports, but by then it will be wnter, so I'll have to launch Sealion in Spring, which will delay Barbarossa by about a month!

Nice that finishing off the European theartre is a challange. The Soviets look to have some massive army aswell, if my spies are accurate.

Somehow I have a feeling I'm going to get rolled.

I have a question though- will the allies ever launch an invasion of Europe? They declared war on Vichy a while ago.

I had to uninstall- tis too difficult for me.

I play the version in my sig. The only complaint I have is with the minister retirement events. I wish they would check to see if that minister is in power, before changing to another third minister. That is very irritating. Also, shouldn't election events check to see if you are a democracy? Aside from those minor issues, I love the mod much more than vanilla.

son of liberty said:

I play the version in my sig. The only complaint I have is with the minister retirement events. I wish they would check to see if that minister is in power, before changing to another third minister. That is very irritating. Also, shouldn't election events check to see if you are a democracy? Aside from those minor issues, I love the mod much more than vanilla.

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Hmm, the issues that you describe (minister retirements, election events) shouldn't be impacted by DAIM at all.

2nd attempt at DAIM

I posted earlier on this thread on my first game using DAIM where France broke through the Italian lines early 1940 and steam rollered Italy.

Started again as UK and this time Germany and Italy conquer France no problem. This was my first real game playing HOI2 and as im used to strategy games jumped straight into playing using DAIM as it was widely reported as being a real challenge.

Anyway my short term strategy was to build up the RAF and Royal Navy to tame the Luffewaffe and to control the North Sea and the Med preventing sea lion and stopping the Italians supplying troops and resources to the campaign in North Africa. Early on i also heavily produced Commando troops as i thought they would be best suited to attacking Southern Italy and holding off the Japs in Burma.

By the time Italy joined the war i already had 15-20 odd divisions in North Africa. The Royal Navy wiped out most of Germanys naval threat in the North Sea and what remained of the Italian Navy was quite rightly hiding in port.

By early 41 i had surrounded 25 odd Italian Divisions in Tripolli and Zuara without any hope of them being rescued and just toyed with them for troop/leader experience. Italy just did not seem to be doing anything at this point so i decided to load up as Italy and see what was happening. although their base IC was 82 due to no rares they were only able to use 32 IC. This situation never changed from that point onwards making them able to produce less than Canada or Australia thoughout the war.

Without having to worry to much about Italy i decided to build up my forces in Burma ready for the Japs as i did not wish to lose the resource rich Indian subcontinent. As 42 came i suddendly realised i had run out of manpower, but for my troubles had over 125 Infantry divisions - 45 of which were Commando and 10 Armoured. This was backed up by a 55 division RAF and an already large Royal Navy. By the time the Japs entered the war in Feb 42 i had transported a large enough force into Burma to stop them in their tracks and it was only due to my slowness in mobilizing my forces that i wasnt able to push right through into Siam and China. Instead by 44 i had 80 odd divisions in stalemate in the Mountains of Siam/China. Germany got to within 2 provinces of Moscow and at her peak fielded 200 INF divisions and 30 Armour before the 300 strong divisions of the soviets pushed them back. When it was clear the Germans had no fight left in them by mid 44 i landed 25 odd divisions into the heart of Germany to beat the Soviets to Berlin. I was just beginning to beat the Japs out of one or 2 key provinces and the USA had taken 2 provinces in southern mainland Japan and Australia had taken one of the northern mainland Japanese provinces - this dispite intelligence reports the Japs had over 300 INF divisions!!!

Either i got exceptionally lucky or im beginning to think that to get a real challenge from this you need to play as either Germany, Italy or the Japs

Would be interested to know if the Soviets always beat the Germans or at least most of the time beat them and if the IC problem with Italy is normal

some of the things you question are normal for HOI, i.e. Italy running out of rares. If you have control of the MED then italy can't ship in any supplies from diplomatic deals because the MED is closed off to them. Which limits them to their immediate neighbors, which don't really have any to spare. So once their pre-war stockpile is used up... thats that.

For Russia/Germany, other than your invasion beating Russia to Berlin isn't that about the historical outcome?

For Japan, despite the intelligence, do you know how many of those 300 were on mainland china, how many were along your front, where the force allocation was.... reason being is the AI tends to regard the human opponent the most dangerous and puts most of its resources against that countries forces... potentially leaving weak spots where your AI allies could take advantage

as far as challenges each one of us has their own idea as to what a chellenge is.... but if your looking for a more difficult go of it, look at countries like Romania, Finland, Netherlands.
With the UK you start with one of the largest, if not the largest, fleets in the game. So gaining naval supremacy shouldn't be that difficult to imagine. With the US you can sit back and build IC through 39 and still have 2 years to build up your forces.
With Russia they start with low GDE and it slowly rises to equal everyone else's (0.8), in 42, at which time they start to use there massive manpower superiority to push the Germans back

The USA AI has failed on me in the last couple of games. This is just insane:

Here we can see insane amount IC they have:
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f370/Monkii-sama/ScreenSave3.png

Well, nothing actually wrong with that other than the fact that they suck at producing units.
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f370/Monkii-sama/ScreenSave5.png
They should have more with that IC, they just produce destroyers, CL and HQ's and then send them to their death to distant islands. This is stupid.

I'm reinstalling Doomsday and armageddon and then DAIM with the hopes that this AI bug goes away.

Huh, this looks pretty weird indeed. They might have been stuck in their "produce IC" build pattern, but I can't think of a reason why. They shouldn't be building IC until 1949 under any circumstances, but sometimes events (both AI and non AI) just don't fire although all conditions are fulfilled.

it has a rather positive effect on the game. more like "I only play MP without DAIM".

G'Kar said:

Huh, this looks pretty weird indeed. They might have been stuck in their "produce IC" build pattern, but I can't think of a reason why. They shouldn't be building IC until 1949 under any circumstances, but sometimes events (both AI and non AI) just don't fire although all conditions are fulfilled.

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I kind of suspected as much, I'll just reintstall and see if things work better now.

I'm right now playing with the UK. I play with HOI2 and DAIM on very hard/normal. This is the first I play with the UK and I'm not used with surface fleets and such.

So I get a -40% hit on IC, combining this with the peace time modifier so I can't build a thing in the beginning. Pour in some dissent creating events and you'll find all my IC in CG.

It all goes pretty much historical. I focus on Naval and Air. Building cv's, ca's, cl's and dd's plus some fighters and interceptors. later on I start building some 39 infantry and tp's.

30 AUG 39: war.

Poland falls in less then a week. The germans have the Bismarck (SHB) and later on the war they will have some more. I lose a few BB's but I learn my lessons and only fight with my CV fleet. Right now, in 1942 the germans have no naval power what so ever. I managed to secure Norway from German occupation.

France was defeated and I didn't send troops because I only had a small army and the Jerries outnumbered me in the air. In N. Africa I decided to fell back to El Alemein because again I was outnumbered. I still had all the militias on the border. Result: stale mate in Africa.

Vichy joins in the war and it seems that after some setbacks I'm going to occupy the whole of N. Africa by the end of 1942. I'm now fighting the Japs and I'm getting slowly pushed back on land but on the seas it's still undecided.

A fun game and infact the first game I really enjoyed, this in thanks due to DAIM. BTW on what settings are you supposed to play DAIM for the "best" results.

I'm just wondering, why did Vichy join the war? Was it the DAIM-event, and in that case why is that event even in this mod?

The event (called "Mers-el-Kebir") is in the mod because of the historical battles between Vichy France and the Allies. The Allies attacked the Vichy fleet in Oran, and Vichy units fired back when Allied units came to take North Africa.

Starting an all-out war is probably a little too much, but we preferred it to leaving Vichy completely alone.

3 thumbs up I say


that said: are there going to be AIs for nations like Skandinavia, the Federal Republic of Germany and so forth?
Cause at the moment their AI, or lack thereof, results in them building nothing but INF.

That is assuming it's even possible.

I've just installed it after the file had collected a lot of virtual dust of my HD, and although it is only Feb '39, I already like it quite a lot - that message about reloading so that the Chinese puppet gets leaders really hit me like a bomb! I had read about CHI being weak/Japan being better but actually seeing this happen for the first time in so many years was just crazy.

Very good job, guys! Thumbs up!

My one complaint is one that will probably never be surpassed by the HOI AI modifications by any person.

1. The AI is to event driven and lacks true evaluative techniques to determine action. While great for historical recreation, it really limits the flexibility of the game platform.