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Kirth Gersen

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Aug 20, 2005
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Background and aims...

Warning - Screenshot heavy AAR

THE showstopper for me for HOI3 versions 1.1 and 1.2 was the flawed HQ AI. At the core of this, is the move to the brigade level in this game, which is just too much micromanagement for my tastes. In theory though, a working HQ AI holds out so much in the way of realism. Think about it. Hitler, sitting in his bunker, did not personally control every brigade and division. He relied on his commanders and their sub-commanders. If things started looking sticky in one part of the theatre, he would take personal interest, otherwise, he worked through his generals, and if they stuffed up... well, they got a cyanide capsule..

That's what happens right through life, when organising large masses of people (except the suicide bit for the most part :)). So, the way we play the HOI series, by micromanaging the military aspects, is actually not very realistic. Using the HQ AI approach really is groundbreaking in this respect.

I also want a slightly stupid AI. I want to deal with the frustrations of Generals not doing exactly as they are told. But I also want the majority to at least go in the right direction, and attack and defend when and where they are told. So on the release of 1.3, I decided to do a Military only Assessment using the AI as I hoped it was designed for.

I welcome discussion. I am not an ace player of this game, I am still learning.

Learnings (or how to run an HQ AI Military Game and Survive)

Edit: I've brought my Learnings Page to the start of the thread for easy review.

Here are my steps to AI Happiness (recent changes are in yellow):

  1. Organise your entire Armed Forces using the Theater/Army Group/Army/Corp/Division/Brigade hierarchy/OOB.
  2. However, only organise to the highest level which you believe will have an impact on the front line in question. Beware of attaching to higher HQs, if those HQs cover different fronts or sectors far away in the Theater. The reason for this is that the higher level HQ can move troops between sectors/fronts, which can ruin your carefully prepared plan of attack.
  3. In practical terms, this often means that Theater HQs can be disruptive in multi-front theaters or theaters covering large areas. Gladiator has had some success detaching the front line armies from the Theater HQ, and using it to control garrison units in the rear:
    http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455355
  4. Don't leave any spare units reporting outside the hierarchy or they won't get used.
  5. Forget the micromanagement / clickfest approach. Wean yourself off it. Give orders at the Army level. Temporarily detach units or set Corps level objectives for special tasks or objectives which are in a different direction to your main thrust.
  6. Plan your War beforehand. Give your Armies objectives.
  7. Get to enjoy building your OOB. Give your armies memorable names where possible, to help you remember what their objectives are.
  8. Ensure your HQ is close to its subordinates(within Radio Range). Manually move it towards them if not. Once all units are close, the AI will keep them together in most circumstances, with the HQs and Air Groups following a few provinces behind. THIS IS ESSENTIAL IF YOU WANT THE HQ AI TO WORK
  9. Attach your Air Wings and Groups to the Army Level. Any higher, and they won't fight well. Ensure they are close to their Army HQ.
  10. Create Air Groups of the same aircraft type, or else the AI will split it up. Note they may split up anyway due to the needs of the combat zone. Apart from ruining your organisation, this does NOT seem to affect their use
  11. Don't attach your Main Battlefleets to any HQ. They tend to be split up into small Flotillas, and come the day you need to summon the Fleet, you will need to reorganise again.
  12. Armies seem to follow your orders better if you place both attack and defend orders INSIDE enemy territory if possible.
  13. The AI WILL override your orders and objectives if it thinks something is more pressing. For example, if there is a hole in the line, and it figures you are vulnerable. Accept this as local commander initiative. Very often, there is a very good reason for it.
  14. The best way to keep your armies focused on the objective is to use Axis of Advance. Procedure:
    ----click on the objective icon in the Army's selection box
    ----right click your objective
    ----shift right click to set the Axis of Advance
  15. One objective per army is best
  16. WORK IN PROGRESS. AI Amphibious Assaults are difficult to create, but achieveable in the right circumstances. Gladiator has achieved some success here (post 61)
    http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455355&page=4
  17. WORK IN PROGRESS. I've not seen AI controlled Air Landings work above Division Level. This could be because HQs cannot enter transports. In the case of both amphibious assaults and air landings, I strongly recommend manual control for now.
  18. HQ AI does not work at all if you send troops to a region outside a theater. In 1.3, theater creation does not work all the time, so if you are a minor outside of Europe and you want to send troops there, you may not be able to create a new theater and hence the AI won't work.

Wishlist from PI.

  1. Get Prepare working properly. I see no difference between it and Defend.
  2. An AI override Button for each HQ. This will say: keep exactly the same forces in this unit together, and follow orders to the hilt". This means that you can instruct certain units to conduct specific tasks without changing the OOB.


So lets get going....

I decided to play as Germany starting with the Blitzkrieg campaign. I switched all the tabs to AI, not wanting to ever look in those tabs, and as this was not a long term campaign, I did not particulalry care.

I then settled down to the reorganisation of my armies. If you want the AI to control your units, you can't have spare divisions hanging around reporting to the theatre command, unless they are guard units in Kiel or somewhere. The Blitzkrieg campaign starts with a lot of these, so they need to find homes. The HOI3 process for reorganising your armies is non-graphical, clumsy and painful. It would be very much improved if you could at least use drag and drop in the OOB view on the right of the screen. The thread below discusses this and it looks like we may see some mods soon to improve matters. Lets hope so...

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442429

I reorganised so that there were (where possible) 3-5 Divisions for every Corps, 3-5 Corps to an Army, 2 or 3 Armies for every Army Group. and kept the OB West and OD Wehrmacht Theatres. We've just declared war with Poland, so no time to tidy up at the Brigade level. I made sure that the naval and air units were assigned to a corresponding Army Group.

Here is the West Theatre before the reorg and after.

Before Reorganisation

obwestbaseline.jpg


After Reorganisation

obwstartformedup.jpg



Here it is the East Theatre:

Before Reorganisation

odwbaseline.jpg


After Reorganisation

odwstartformedup.jpg


Hmm, much more manageable. I had a problem where I had a few too many Army HQs, and couldn't figure out how to demote them to fit them into a sensible structure. So there are a few very small Armies (eg the Reserve Armies in the West Theatre) which do not follow the standard organisation format.

Once completed, I told the OBW to Defend. That's it. Just wanted to see what v1.3 would do handling a whole theatre.

Now the big question. At what level would I manage my armies. I'm Hitler, sitting in my bunker remember. It either had to be at the Corps level or the Army level. In the end, I did both. Look at Heeresgruppe (Army Group) Nord. It contains the 3 and 4 Armies. 3 Armee occupy the vulnerable strip of land to the East of Danzig. By and large, I want them to Defend or Prepare, They are relatively weak,and the real fight is coming from the West. However, I do want the troops near Danzig to attack south-west and help encircle the Poles in the Danzig corridor. So this was an example where Corps level orders are appropriate, so I ordered Stab Wodrig and 1 Armeecorps to Prepare, and XXI ArmeeCorps to Attack.

On the other hand at the other side of the theatre, 14 Army have a fairly straight forward front, so I felt comfortable giving it one order, Prepare. Yes, Prepare. I wanted to hold off for a while, and see if the Poles would move troops away from the sector to meet the onslaught from the West. After a few days they would go into a full boodied attack.

4, 8 and 10 Armies were all given Corps level orders as well - I just didn't trust the AI enough ;). What I wanted to see was if the AI was clever enough to conduct the planned for encirclements shown.

Next time... Battle is joined...
 
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Battle Commences...

Here are the Objectives for the ODW:

startorders.jpg


With some trepidaton, and after about 2 hours reorganising and planning, I clicked the Run button, and watched. I'm afraid that's what you do when you are sitting in your bunker miles behind the front line, you plan endlessly and then watch how it pays out.

It started well. Here is the East Front, after 2 days:

polandendday2.jpg


My weak 3 Armee are struggling with XXI Army's attacks to close off the Danzig corridor, and... what's this? The Poles are heavily attacking Stab Wodrig's Army in the East. Calm yourself, Adolf, 3 Armee can deal with it on their own!

Note I had taken the 218 Infantry Division out of the chain of command, so they could concentrate on a special mission - take Danzig. The one and only time I played at the Division level.

Pleasingly, no sign of armies starting madcap route marches to via the West Indies as used to be the case ;).

By end of play 5th Sept, 4 schwerpunkts are showing themselves, but the Poles have taken land in the North and 3 Armee are still struggling. Hmm, I've decided to leave the bunker and fly over to Konigsberg for a closer look. 214 Inf Division have now rejoined 4 Armee.

polandendday5.jpg


On the West Front, no daft forays by either the French or ourselves over the border. Though there's "beaucoup movement" behind the lines as the reserves move forward. Lovely:

westfrontendday5.jpg


By Sept 7th, My U-Boat Fleets are in action, and have started knocking off supply ships. I made an mistake here: forgot to put pop ups on naval action, and a few days later that fleet lost 4 U-Boat flotillas without having a chance to do anything about it :(. Oh look, it's raining.

day7ubootactivity.jpg


OK. I'm going to take a break for dinner. So far, so good.
 
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VERY interesting. Will follow.:)
 
Will also follow. :D
 
The cracks start to show...

The next 2 weeks showed painfully slow progress, though I won't blame it too much on the AI, more the long recovery periods after an attack.

The big picture looks fine though with advances along the main Schwerpunkt thrusts, and my envelopment ocurring just as I planned it. Again, remember, this is the AI doing this, not me. But underneath the surface, cracks are beginning to appear. Not too many initially, but on the 16th, Von Cochenhausen got a visit from the "boys" for this bizarre maneuver...

executevoncochenhausen.jpg


More worrying is this situation taken September 20th. There are a number of concerns here from an AI perspective. This is a messy, but very important screenshot:

8armeescattered.jpg


First, see the nice little encirclement in the bottom left? It has been like that for the best part of a week. The encircling forces refused to attack under the Army HQ orders. Only when I took personal interest in the case much later on, and created Corps level orders did they destroy the pocket. These forces are a mixture of 8 Armee and 10 Armee, both have Warsaw as their objective, and I can not explain their inactivity.

Second, see all the units outlined in blue? That's my 8th Armee!!!:eek:. They had been on Army orders to attack Warsaw, and yet half of them circled round to the North East and attacked Warsaw from the North. No wonder this was taking so much time!

But then hold on a second. Let's think about this. Was this such a bad idea? 3 Armee were getting beaten; and 4 Armee were busy cleaning up the Danzig Corridor pocket. There was no one else to help 3 Armee, and at the same time that part of 8 Armee could position itself for a twin pronged strike on Warsaw. Very clever. Wish they had told me about it in the first place!! :rolleyes::rolleyes: It took me till that screenshot to realise what was going on. I am of 2 minds about this.

While I think this is a clever AI, I am not sure it is very realistic. Moving a couple of Corps from one sector to the next (Heeresgruppe Sud to Nord) mid-battle would have been difficult from a logistics/politics point of view. I don't think that sort of decision should be left ot the AI: it's an executive decision. Perhaps PI should introduce some sort of distance limitation to stop lesser formations go galavanting round the theatre without a "by your leave".

Tell you what. My "boys" were pretty busy with 8 Armee generals after that little stunt I can tell you ;).

There is not much to tell after that. Here is the situation on 8th October. The bizarre pocket at Torun continued, the Polish forces are in general retreat, and 14 Armee in particular have achieved some measure of Blitzkrieg in the South:

polandendoct8th.jpg


The war ended on 17 October, as opposed to 6 October in reality. Not that far off, and I think I can do better with my next campaign: - the Battle of France.

Learnings...

1. The HQ AI is much, much improved. I took control of just one Division for 2 days over the whole battle.

2. By and large, you can trust giving orders to a whole Army. The AI is impressive. I am not sure if I gained too much by handing out Corps level orders, except when the AI got stuck (like that pocket at Torun), or when I just had to take control like the 3 Armee defence. And guess what? That's what happens in real life. You plan, you give your generals orders, they follow them, and when they mess it up or the plan is a bad one, or you have underestimated the enemy, you fly over, give the generals a good kicking, and micromanage the problem.

3. Placing Divisional level units directly under Theatre Commands have differing impacts. Army units tend to get defensive and cover key locations. That's good: when I'm micromanaging, I tend to use every unit in the theatre for the battle, which isn't very realistic. Air units seem to be very inactive. When I noticed this, I moved mine to the Army level and they got stuck in. Naval units seemed to be active. Certainly all my U-Boots went looking for prey.

4. This way of playing HOI, is a whole new "Weltanshauung", as our German friends would say: a different way of looking at things. Its about planning heavily before the action, then watching the plan unfold. You've got to keep an eye out for aberations (such as my 8 Armee), and you've got to micromanage when necessary, but it is more of a celebral game than a reactive click fest. So far I like it, its a nice change, and I intend to explore more.

Next weekend... Fall Gelb: The Battle of France
 
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The Phoney War... more cracks uncovered

Having defeated the Poles, now was the time to do some more planning and reorganisation. It was easier this time, now I had been through the Polish Campaign and the Armies were set up. However, I had to do it twice because I had left the Diplomatic tab on AI, and it immediately DOWed LUX, BEL and HOL, when all my troops were on the East Front. How stupid is that? Rewind, start again, Diplomatic Tab now set to Manual.

My plan was to invade DEN during the Spring of 1940, but not NOR. I never see the point, it means wasting loads of manpower guarding a very long coastline. DEN on the otherhand gives me freedom to move my ships. After DEN, Fall Gelb target date was set for May 1.

I reorganised my hierarchy. 14 and 3 Army Groups would now guard the Russian frontier in the newly named Heeresgruppe East.

4 Army would invade DEN.

8 and 10 Armies would form the new Heeresgruppe West and be the core infantry invasion force for Fall Gelb, setting up along the HOL and BEL border. The remaining Armies would form the new Heeresgruppe Siegfried, and continue to do what they did before - guard the Siegfried/Maginot line.

I decided to extract most of the Tank and Motorised units and form dedicated Corps sized Panzer Armies which would be managed independently for tight control of the Schwerpunkt. At this point, I had sufficient for 1 Panzer Army.

See below the picture just before the Invasion of Denmark.

denmark.jpg


Not bad, given this is all done using the HQ AI, but a closer look points out some issues. I've clicked on Heeresgruppe West. As you can see, most of the units on the Dutch/BEL border are highlighted in blue. However, if you look closely on the East Front, there are still a few units which haven't moved. I tried everything to shift them (without breaking the golden rule of detaching them and micromanaging). Changing from Defend to Prepare does not seem to do any good. These units don't represent whole Armies, just odd units in the OOB. Very strange, and I had the same issues with 4 Armee. I could only think that the AI had thought I had denuded the Russian Front too much and forcibly kept some units there. However, a worse impact was that the 4, 10 and 8 Armies' HQs were kept from joining their units in the West as they had some in the East as well, and so were kept equidistant and hence uselessly placed in the middle of Germany. Not good...

Later, I cheated a bit and micromanaged the stray units back to the West Front....


Invasion of Denmark

I started by giving 4 Armee a simple order to attack Copenhagen and Aalborg. But the attack was slow and inefficient, so I reverted to Corps level orders which were much more effective. The delay meant it nearly took 3 weeks to defeat the Danes.

enddenmark.jpg


It's funny, but I am beginning to identify with the Armies more than I ever did with units in HOI2. It's because I spent so much time painstakingly organising them and giving them orders. I loathe 3 Armee for retreating up at Konigsberg. I love 14 Armee for blitzing Poland in the South. I am indifferent to the Landser in the infantry bound 8 and 10 Armees, and I just know I am going to love my Panzer Armees.

By attaching the air wings to the Army level, I am seeing far more action out of them, and they are busy carving up the British Bombers who bravely and foolishly keep coming over.

My subs are pathetic, they do keep knocking off the odd convoy, but I am losing them hand over fist. I gather this is a ongoing complaint with subs anyway. My surface ships are way too aggressive and are being picked off at an alarming rate.


Fall Gelb - the Plan

So onto the big one.

See the starting positions and plan...

fallgelbplan.jpg


Heeresgruppe West will take on the bulk of the work here.
  • 8 Armee in the North will strike into northern HOL, hopefully drawing the Dutch in.
  • 10 Armee will strike into southen HOL, targeting Amsterdam and supporting an attack into BEL and Brussels.
  • 1 Armee (on loan from Heeresgruppe Siegfried) will attack LUX and cover the southern flank of the attack against the French reinforcements coming up from the Maginot line.
  • 4 Armee (reinforced by newly AI produced Infantry Corps) will be held in reserve: most likely to take up the attack into Belgium once AG 10 have run out of steam.
  • Panzer Army 2 will wait a couple of days, then punch through to the Dutch coast, then turn south towards Dunkirk.
  • Panzer Army 1 will attack through the Ardennes and execute a left hook to the south of Brussels, hopefull linking up with Panzer Army 2 and encircling the allied troops in BEL.
  • Panzer Army 3 will act as my mobile reserve.

I decided to issue orders for the OOB above, and only break into Corps level orders if progress was slow.

The production AI had been good to me, and during the phoney war had built sufficient for 2 more Panzer Armies. I felt confident that this would be sufficient for victory. As a side issue, I noted that no ART or SP ART brigades had been produced by the AI.. flaw? My Panzer Armies ranged from 2 MOT / 2 Med ARM to 4 MED ARM. I was interested to see how they compared.

A mixed Luftwaffe Group was attached to each Infantry/Panzer Army in Heeresgruppe West. The other forces were to do without.

Next time... FALL GELB!!
 
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Fall Gelb... x3

I really struggled with this. It took me three goes before I felt that I was beginning to get the HQ AI really work for me.

The first attempt, I tried just ordering at the Army level, but there was no blitz to the krieg. I got a Vichy event at the end of August, and this is with Italy having joined the alliance and making a massive attack in the south of France.

The second attempt, I tried ordering at the Corps level, with, frankly, much the same result though my attacks were marginally more incisive.

So against tradition, I am not going to do a standard blow by blow acount, but go though the learnings first and a description second!

Learnings

The HQ Attack AI is much improved, but there are a number of aspects that you have to follow to make it work for you:

  • For some reason, the HQs don't always follow their armies particularly when they are far away in the first place; I can't figure out why. So you have to get in the habit of moving he HQs manually (which means clicking on their objective to deselect, moving them, and then resetting the objective).
  • Likewise, air wings which are initially based far from the objectives or HQ will not move to the action despite reporting to an HQ. You need to detach the air wing, rebase them and reattach them again.
  • The proper way to do this is to start out right and always ensure your air wings, divisions and HQs are all within a few provinces of each other (which is not how I started Fall Gelb).
  • Your armies will not move adequately if their objective is behind the front line. This applies to ALL orders. This is fairly obvious when attacking: once you take your objective, the units just tend to stop. Even the ones a few provinces back, which is a pain. However, a worse situation can come about before you DOW a country, and you want to concentrate your units at the front. I thought Prepare was intended to bring units close to the front line, but found there was no change to Defend, and many units lagged a few provinces back. The best way is to give a Prepare objective BEHIND enemy lines EVEN before you DOW them. This works a treat, but is counter-intuitive. Here's a look at Heeresgruppe West just before invasion. 8 Armee are highlighted and nicely bunched up at the front due to having its objectives in enemy territory...

3may28.jpg


  • You've got to be very careful about selecting your objectives. I found that my Armies were less confused if I gave them just 1 objective. If I needed am Army Group to go in two directions, it is ALWAYS best to either detach a unit to do the secondary objective, or drop down to Corps level orders. My preference is for the former.
  • The further away you place the objective, the greater the chance that the AI will take an odd route. So it is best to choose objectives only a few provinces away. See below, the bizzarre choice of my 1st Armee when asked to attack Charme from the North-West: a third did so, a third of the Army decided to attack from the Maginot line, and another third seemed indecisive sitting around to the north :rolleyes:

3june255tharmydilemma.jpg


  • There are times when the AI absolutely refuses to do what you want it to do. Usually there is a reason for this, albeit sometimes obscure ones. For example, if it thinks you have no chance attacking though the Maginot Line, it won't. Instead, it will take your whole army on a country walk around it, through Belgium and attack from the North, denuding your Siegfried Line and ruining your war. Watch out for that one.


Fall Gelb Mark 3.

So once I had ironed out those issues, I got a decent fight in my third attempt. My chances were significantly increased due to a massive attack by my new Italian allies into southern France a few weeks earlier, weakening the French opposition immeasurably.

I delayed my attack date to May 25 from May 1, due to having to manually drag those HQs sitting around central Germany to the front.

I also increased my force size by assigning 5 Armee to the attack on Luxembourg from the Siegfried line. Fall Gelb plan was changed slightly to look like this (changes highlighted):

  • 8 Armee in the North will strike into northern HOL, hopefully drawing the Dutch in.
  • 10 Armee will strike into southen HOL, targeting Amsterdam and supporting an attack into BEL and Brussels.
  • 1 and 5 Armees (on loan from Heeresgruppe Siegfried) will attack LUX and cover the southern flank of the attack against the French reinforcements coming up from the Maginot line.
  • 4 Armee (reinforced by newly AI produced Infantry Corps) will be held in reserve: most likely to take up the attack into Belgium once 10 Armee have run out of steam.
  • Panzer Army 2 will wait a couple of days, then punch through to the Dutch coast, then turn south towards Dunkirk.
  • Panzer Army 1 will act as a reserve for PA2 and vice versa when each runs out of steam.
  • Panzer Army 3 will act as my mobile reserve for 1 and 5 Armees.

Here's the start line for May 28th, you can just see the tip of the Italian advance at the bottom of the picture...

3may25v2.jpg


Using the approaches described above, progress was swift. Blitzkrieg indeed. Here we are 4 days in (June 2)...

3june2.jpg


June 12. Still good progress. I've brought in my Reserve Army from Heeresgruppe Nord to clean up north Holland, detached IV ArmeeKorps from 8 Armee to clean up South Holland. The rest of 8th Armee are regrouping after the assault on Holland. 10 and 4 Armees and are about to take Brussels., and Panzer Armies 1 and 2 have reached the coast and are tearing towards Calais. Lovely.

3june12.jpg


June 22. Confusion. There is a lot of AI induced regrouping and reorganising going on as can be seen by all the arrows going every where in Belgium... when all the action is in France. Even my Panzer columns have slowed down, when the roads ahead seem clear. Note the Italians. they have been stopped by the French for the past 3 weeks, but at a cost to their defenses on my front.

3june22.jpg


July 1. Paris is has been reached and 10 and 4 Armees are massing for the final assault. My Panzers have free rein to the West.

3july1.jpg


Paris fell on July 6th, and the Vichy event fired on July 7th. A five week AI based invasion of France. The real thing was May 10th to 22nd June - 6 weeks. OK so the Italian invasion was a big help, but we are talking the same ball park here.

Finally, picture this: you have ordered your champion Panzer Division to blitz to the sea at all costs. They've punched through enemy lines and there is a clear path. Almost invariably, it will ignore orders and pick a fight on the way there. So with the best will in the world, the AI will always be slower at achieving objectives than the micromanagement approach. Still, perhaps it is best to learn to live with that. It reflects the real world with subordinates using their initiative, making bad calls - whatever. It's frustrating, you have to really keep those fresh reserves around to take over; but when you look at it from this perspective, it presents a new and interesting, and to my mind, a more realistic challenge.

The HOI3 HQ AI for attacking is still somewhat flawed, but it is usable and I intend to continue with the experiment.

Next weekend... A look at the Defensive AI.
 
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Yeah, this is extremely useful - and inspiring - I'm using AI control more than ever as I read this and you're right - it makes for a very, very different game and it is also very engaging and fun.
 
I took a look at the HOI3 Wiki and it is clear that I have got my Army hierarchy nomenclature slightly skewed.

I current have been refering to the levels as:

* Theatre
* Army Sector
* Army Group
* Corps
* Division
* Brigade

And the Wiki states

* Theatre
* Army Group
* Army
* Corps
* Division
* Brigade

Silly me, I knew that really. When I get a chance I'll edit the whole post accordingly.