Development Diary #27 - 6th of May 2009

Arkas

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• May 6, 2009

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• #81

a few questions

first of all i d like to say that the whole concept looks cool and very promising.

1. can the theater area be defined by the player?
2. Since we cant manually use a corps withing an ai-theater, do we need to assign that corps to some human-theater out of it, so we can use it? like the schweppenburg panzer corps in western front that was under direct control of OKH while the rest of the formations were under rudstedt?
3. Can the airforce and or navy be under ai-theater-control? western theater ai would like to invade England but you need a navy with transports and adequate air power. Will it utilize these assets or human player has to do it?
4. Will the ai-player take into consideration the quality/organization of the enemy forces when making the decision of the appropriate forces needed to accomplish its mission?

EDIT: Prepare is like defense? Will the AI ask for more forces to accomplish its defense orders succesfully?

 

Registered

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• May 6, 2009

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• #82

Looks impressive. I wonder how succesful a player would be with a Wolfschanze style of playing.

Is it possible to transfer units from one theater to another without breaking the whole AI chain of command?
Would be kind of annyong to set the whole thing up again just because i wanted to transfer some divisions from Army group North to army group Center.
Or can the AI move troops between theaters automatically?

 

Thomas Kenobi

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• May 6, 2009

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• #83

I think this is the most important DD to date. The entire command system seems complicated, but in a very promising way. I admit I had my doubts about if the promised automation would work, but this does indeed look like it will perform nicely.

I also like that AI decisions have been split into higher level command (deciding objectives) and lower lever (executing objectives). I believe this would make improving the entire system, either by the devs or modders, considerably easier.

 

King

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• May 6, 2009

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• #84

Arkas said:

first of all i d like to say that the whole concept looks cool and very promising.

1. can the theater area be defined by the player?
2. Since we cant manually use a corps withing an ai-theater, do we need to assign that corps to some human-theater out of it, so we can use it? like the schweppenburg panzer corps in western front that was under direct control of OKH while the rest of the formations were under rudstedt?
3. Can the airforce and or navy be under ai-theater-control? western theater ai would like to invade England but you need a navy with transports and adequate air power. Will it utilize these assets or human player has to do it?
4. Will the ai-player take into consideration the quality/organization of the enemy forces when making the decision of the appropriate forces needed to accomplish its mission?

EDIT: Prepare is like defense? Will the AI ask for more forces to accomplish its defense orders succesfully?

Click to expand...

1)No
2)There is no requirement to assign a formation iside the command structure.

 

Tyson_48

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• May 6, 2009

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• #85

King said:

If you want to keep the corps under human control it must sit outside the AI controlled command structure. The AI will also discount this corps when it comes to making decisions, because it is not part of it's command structure.

Click to expand...

Okay thank you, i think i got it now.
So this corps will get the bonus from MjGen. div-leader, the LtGen. corps-leader, will NOT get the bonus from the General of the AI-Army (because it is separate from the command structure) but will get the bonus from GFM army-group and GFM theatre commander, right?

 

JTF-2

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• May 6, 2009

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• #86

King said:

If you look at the screen shot the AI formation wants 7 more infantry brigades.

Click to expand...

How does the AI determine what it needs to make your objectives?

does it go by your intellegence?

 

Arkas

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• May 6, 2009

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• #87

King said:

1)No
2)There is no requirement to assign a formation iside the command structure.

Click to expand...

I got it

for the rest of the questions?

 

Rich Oliver

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• May 6, 2009

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• #88

Awesome............again!

I guess it does bring up the question of air assets, but maybe their keeping mum about that till another diary.

 

zeekater

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• May 6, 2009

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• #89

Arkas said:

EDIT: Prepare is like defense? Will the AI ask for more forces to accomplish its defense orders succesfully?

Click to expand...

If you give an army goals that are controlled by an enemy and order it to 'prepare', it will reorganize its troops and request more if necessary WITHOUT actually attacking.
If you give an army goals that are controlled by an enemy and order it to 'defend', it will slowly and cautiously attack until it has captured those provinces and then consolidate those provinces.
In case of 'blitzkrieg' the army will attack more aggressively and worry less about it's flanks

 

Johan

Studio Manager Paradox Tinto

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• May 6, 2009

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• #90

Prinz Jakob said:

Just how in-depth is AI control?

Am I likely to witness my AI commander in France launch Sealion?

Click to expand...

If you give London as its objective... and it has the resources for it.

 

e_quality

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• May 6, 2009

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• #91

Johan said:

If you give London as its objective... and it has the resources for it.

Click to expand...

So we can assign naval and air units to the Theatre HQ then?

 

King

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• May 6, 2009

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• #92

zeekater said:

If you give an army goals that are controlled by an enemy and order it to 'prepare', it will reorganize its troops and request more if necessary WITHOUT actually attacking.
If you give an army goals that are controlled by an enemy and order it to 'defend', it will slowly and cautiously attack until it has captured those provinces and then consolidate those provinces.
In case of 'blitzkrieg' the army will attack more aggressively and worry less about it's flanks

Click to expand...

Bit more complicated than that. Let's say I order and attack and the formation inside the strucutre needs X ammount of additional assets. If I set it on anyother order than prepare it will start to attack where it feels it can even without these troops. However by setting on prepare it will wait. This choice will make it easier to maintain the element of surprise.

 

zeekater

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• May 6, 2009

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• #93

Arkas said:

I got it

for the rest of the questions?

Click to expand...

If the devs didn't answer everything straight away it's usually a sign they aren't going to
(for whichever reason)

 

Lauri

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• May 6, 2009

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• #94

Am I likely to witness my AI commander in France launch Sealion?

Click to expand...

Not if you don't make London a target

edit: to many post in to few minutes..

 

1DayWalker

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• May 6, 2009

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• #95

I think the concept looks good so far.
One practical question on the design though. The DD describes the AI pursuing purely territorial targets. Assuming you set the objectives several provinces beyond your current control, is the intention to have the AI deliberately try and destroy enemy troop concentrations en route (via encirclement) or will it focus fully on territory control ?

 

unmerged(138740)

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• #96

Johan said:

If you give London as its objective... and it has the resources for it.

Click to expand...

So there are Combined Arms CoC Groups!!! Or at least coordination between them - both are good (first would be better IMO though )

Will the prepare stance also have some kind of radio silence? It would be great!
Troops moving to its starting points and the enemy doesnt know (maybe ) about it - like Ardennes.

 

lila-laune-bär

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• May 6, 2009

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• #97

Johan said:

If you give London as its objective... and it has the resources for it.

Click to expand...

Is that implying that you can place ships (and possibly air units?) under the command of the Army? That would be awesome, that's something I dreamt of aloud once, but I was called just a dreamer. :/

 

vbal

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• May 6, 2009

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• #98

Seems really nice al of this. It will be very interesting to see how the AI attack, if its a rush for the province you assigned, or if it's actually trying to encircle enemies and such.

I want to play today

 

Yuni

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• May 6, 2009

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• #99

It is truly awesome. Thank at all~! There is two simple question.
1) Green star button was about "Upgrade or not" in HoI2. Is it now about "AI or not"?
2) If green star is the symbol of AI, we can activate AI any level I want by simply press "Green star" button (and assign objective)? (And if I want manual control a corps in AI control-Army, simply detach that corps from the AI control-Army.)

 

Tyson_48

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• May 6, 2009

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• #100

zeekater said:

If the devs didn't answer everything straight away it's usually a sign they aren't going to
(for whichever reason)

Click to expand...

Perhaps the questions goes to deep into details not mentioned in the DD...especially those about naval or air command structure

I hope we will soon get a DD about this elements too.