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Obscene number of AI armored divisions

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Sharkfreak06

Sharkfreak06

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Oct 5, 2005
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Has anyone else noticed the sheer number of armored divisions built by the AI in the latest patch (1.07 I think)? I first noticed it in a game as Germany when I launched Barbarossa in '41. The Soviets had 50 armored divisions. At first I figured my intelligence (10 spies) was faulty, but after numerous encirclements taking out 35 armored divisions, intelligence indicated there were 15 left.

Lately I've been playing a game as the US and with 5 spies in Germany and they estimate.... 67 armored divisions! In 1942! How is this possible? I noticed they are garrisoning every Western beach province with armored divisions. My 4 spies in USSR estimate around 35. The UK has 18 and Canada has 7... Canada, 7?, really?!

I'm not sure if this has been discussed much in prior posts. I did my due diligence and sorted through 5 pages to see if any threads alluded to this issue, but didn't come across anything. I apologize if this is a common complaint.

Besides this issue I have nothing but praise for the last patch, because the AI intelligence has increased tremendously. I'm just confused as to how Germany can have the industrial capacity to produce 67 armored divisions and come up with the oil to support them. As far as I'm aware IRL they were able to crank out 30 by the end of the war, and by then most of them had skeleton crews. IMO the only country able to support 30 full armored divisions was the US (and USSR if they wanted to). Is the AI able to build them for a lower cost and do they not need the full oil to support them? Was it a compromise to help out the AI intelligence? I noticed Japan, Italy, and France don't build too many so it appears to only be grossly unrealistic with the USSR, Germany, UK, and the US.
 
Sharkfreak06 said:
Lately I've been playing a game as the US and with 5 spies in Germany and they estimate.... 67 armored divisions! In 1942! How is this possible?
...
I'm just confused as to how Germany can have the industrial capacity to produce 67 armored divisions and come up with the oil to support them.
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Those estimations include light armor and mechnized divisions. Both are cheaper to build and germany starts to build them in 1936, respectively in 1941 in case of mechanized. But Germany cannot keep them supplied with enough oil, usually this fastens the advances of the red hordes.
However, in my current game in the latest patch 1.08 Beta 2 germany did not run out of oil, yet. So there may have been changes.
 
This is a 1.07 problem. I quitted my first game due to this - I had build only the "normal" amount of tanks (playing Germany) and just before the war I noticed that all the other nations have a lot more tanks than I do. IIRC France beat me 5 to 1 and Soviets were out of the scale.
Since then I have only played with modified AI build schemes to make it a bit more like it was in earlier versions and also in real life.
 
To help illustrate the issue at hand:

Intelligencescreen.png

I'm glad 6 spies provides a much more accurate picture :rofl:.

I realize this includes light armored divisions, and Germany has built very many of them. Like I said, when I send ships to the English Channel the Atlantic wall is lined with nothing but tanks staring at me! I wasn't aware the number included mechanized infantry though, that provides some comfort. I wonder what the reasoning behind this programming was... it's almost as if all majors are programmed to spam tanks like puppets are programmed to spam nothing but infantry. Does anyone know of a specific fix, such as a building scheme that will override this? I'm decent with software and programming, but by no means am I an expert (as evidenced by my inability to make the picture full-sized despite having done so many times).
 
Sharkfreak06 said:
Does anyone know of a specific fix, such as a building scheme that will override this? I'm decent with software and programming, but by no means am I an expert (as evidenced by my inability to make the picture full-sized despite having done so many times).
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The quickest way is probably SMEP
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?488233-SMEP-6.0-for-AoD

plus this fix made by Weserübung
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...s-switches&p=12887593&viewfull=1#post12887593
 
Thanks for advertising Julle64 :)

to the OP: it isnt just the amount of tanks - its like everything else too 1.07 is IMPLAYABLE ...*wispers (implayable)

If you feel up to it check out my thread about building troubles and more - but if you want to feel able to play 1.07 ever again without feelings of hatred, then do not inquire further. I only say this because I thought of 1.07 as an improvement untill I noticed some strangess like you did there. Once I started asking around and looked into the ai files there was just a bottomless pit. If you dont believe me I challenge you to read just the first page of my thread about 1.07.

But there is hope - but it takes time and lots of testing to get the files right - you can take my modifications but they are just the start really and adress the consequences of mad coding. The results are better and the gameplay more enjoyable but it is just life support for an otherwise raped patch.

Julle64 has nailed it with this remark in my thread

Julle64 said:
Damn. The AI files of the latest patch are propably done by Pokemon & Co. :eek: There seems to be so many issues.
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Not that any of this is a new phenomenon. I remember HOI2 Doomsday to have patches that broke more than they fixed - something about planes that keep flying missions who had no org anymore. And I am not even starting on HOI3 where hotfixes caused rain over every sea province at all times making naval aviation useless and subs the masters of the sea.
 
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Thanks Weserübung, your sentiments are mine exactly.

I've just noticed the 90% of AI divisions having engineer brigades too, :rolleyes:. The US has just invaded N. Africa with 20 divisions, 12 of them armored. I'm currently facing a good sized Soviet army near Baku, all 12 infantry have engineer attachments. In my US game, it's raining 70% of the time in the majority of Pacific provinces, making large-scale carrier battles very rare.

So what should we do? What is the best HOI experience out there today? Has HOI3 been "fixed" yet? I tried it over a year ago and still have it sitting in my gamespot queue, but quickly got fed-up with it. Is it capable of switching an HOI2 diehard vet yet?
 
Sharkfreak06 said:
Thanks Weserübung, your sentiments are mine exactly.

I've just noticed the 90% of AI divisions having engineer brigades too, :rolleyes:. The US has just invaded N. Africa with 20 divisions, 12 of them armored. I'm currently facing a good sized Soviet army near Baku, all 12 infantry have engineer attachments. In my US game, it's raining 70% of the time in the majority of Pacific provinces, making large-scale carrier battles very rare.

So what should we do? What is the best HOI experience out there today? Has HOI3 been "fixed" yet? I tried it over a year ago and still have it sitting in my gamespot queue, but quickly got fed-up with it. Is it capable of switching an HOI2 diehard vet yet?
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I personally think the Third Reich Mod is the best grand strategy experience out there.
 
Sharkfreak06 said:
So what should we do? What is the best HOI experience out there today? Has HOI3 been "fixed" yet? I tried it over a year ago and still have it sitting in my gamespot queue, but quickly got fed-up with it. Is it capable of switching an HOI2 diehard vet yet?
Click to expand...

I am in love with AoD but Darkest Hour let's you play faster games, since it is so optimized... Too bad it doesn't give the player enough liberty to keep the re-playable value high...
 
Sharkfreak06 said:
Lately I've been playing a game as the US and with 5 spies in Germany and they estimate.... 67 armored divisions! In 1942! How is this possible? I noticed they are garrisoning every Western beach province with armored divisions. My 4 spies in USSR estimate around 35. The UK has 18 and Canada has 7... Canada, 7?, really?!
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My single player games have more than those number of armored divisions. Over 100 armored divisions you run out of fuel:/
Depending on my build order I can have around 40 armored divisions by sept 1 1939, quite easy to build another 22 in 3 years. but with that many armored, NONE of them are upgraded, they are always the second best due to the upgrade bonus you get, and you have to rotate them back on your core territories for replenishment and upgrade. this strategy is made possible with the RESEARCH AHEAD tactic which means as soon as the game starts, you research armored with your favorite tech team and NEVER STOP until the game is over, when you get the second medium tank. all your tank get upgraded quickly to the 1939 version which means they are very strong vs peashooter from other country!

Sharkfreak06 said:
The UK has 18 and Canada has 7... Canada, 7?, really?!
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Finally someone will take our army seriously!!!

canada had a techteam vickers armstrong and leyland at 8 that could research tank technology and aircraft carrier faster than most country which seems to have been fix lately. (didnt play canada for a while now)
with canada in late game you get around 100 manpower, 100! infantry will take too much manpower if they die and we all know they die quick.
just for the fun gonna try to make another game tonight with them.
 
After reading all of this, it seems to me that my longstanding suspicion is accurate; the AI gets to play by an entirely different (and undisclosed) set of rules. Including build costs, build times, and resource availability. My greatest concern is that the game will make "on the fly" adjustments to compensate for any advantage my strategy is providing for me.

I understand that the current state of AI technology (especially at the gaming level) requires some room for "cheating" to present a challenge to human players, but I strongly feel that the AI "cheat system" should be transparent to allow the human player the ability to accomodate for it in his strategy. That's what warfare is all about; developing a strategy that exploits your enemy's weaknesses and underscores your strengths. If it truly is an "anything goes, Pokemon, spamalot" approach with the AI, all the fun and challenge of a grand strategy historically-based war game has been lost, IMHO.

I am also aware that, with my extremely basic and limited knowledge and understanding of programming, I could very possibly be making some absurd assumptions about the ability of the game's AI to adjust to my strategy by altering such fundamentals as resource availability, build times and costs, and unit characteristics. Then again, there is no way to know for certain (at least not for someone with my level of programming ability) to verify that the AI is not getting a "blank check" to counter in any advantage I might create.
 
After reading all of this, it seems to me that my longstanding suspicion is accurate; the AI gets to play by an entirely different (and undisclosed) set of rules. Including build costs, build times, and resource availability.
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This is not true, unless you are playing on levels of difficulty different from normal and even then you have a clear grasp of advantages the AI gets.

the ability of the game's AI to adjust to my strategy by altering such fundamentals as resource availability, build times and costs, and unit characteristics.
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The way the AI functions is much, much less advanced than that. The only way it has to react to player's actions is to redeploy already built units within a same contiguous zone of land. Everything else is controlled by fixed scripts.
 
The AI has a few advantages to help their build up. It always researches at 100% research but pays no single $ for it. The AI gets an gearing bonus increasement of 30% instead of 5% as the human player and has no initial retooling time. Furthermore the AI pays the same IC for brigaded divisions as for unbrigaded divisions. But it has to pay the same manpower, has to pay the same upgrade costs etc. It also pays 50% the money for diplomacy the human player does and has no 7 days limit. It does not suffer from preparing time for battles.
I am no sure but i think this list is complete. Adapting the AI so it does not need those advantages is a lifetime assignment.
 
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