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CHANKYA

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First off... Hardcore HoI, HoI 2 player, playin HoI since 2002 and loving it. Picked up HoI3 Vanilla just after launch, bad mistake and I knew just as any standard Paradox game might as well make sense to forget about it for a coupla years and then when its been patched up / modded up to its peak start playin again. 1st Game FTM as Germany and I AM LOVING IT.

I never really got into EU3 because I felt it was not as micro-management intensive and atleast for me didnt provide me that immersive experience, but HoI3 does it in Spades...Just love the new Combat Command, its so historical and adds so much depth to the game (I used to try and mimic the real structures using naming conventions in HoI2, but it never really worked, coz c'mon OKW aint gonna be rampaging in Russia with 9 Panzer Divisions)...just spent about an hour getting my OOB straight, and once again, this game has so much which is familiar to an HoI vet, but also so much new depth and content to keep my interest up for the next 2-3 years atleast.

Now, having said all this, I had read a lot on theatre AI in the forums and in reviews, and thought just for the heck of it, might as well give it a shot. So while I Blitz'd Poland, I gave AI the command of my Western Armies and set stance to defensive....the AI straight away pulled back the troops from the frontiers with France into random places, and once the war started, has bunched up all my troops guarding I dont know what (my guess is, VP point places) but allowing France to take almost all the frontier territory.

So, my question is, is it just a one-off, and does the AI normally play straight and is it worth givin the AI command or does it make sense to just manually control armies to avoid such random AI responses.
 
did you give the AI any objectives? if you use the theatre AI one objective behind the french border should be more then enough. normally without any objectives it still tries to secure the border though.
take a look at the provinces assigned to the theatre too. it shouldn't be the cause here but the AI is always most concerned about the country with the highest threat.
 
Personally I have found the AI an all or nothing thing. If you just give it certain priorities while you manage others, it doesn't properly integrate into what you are doing.



First off... Hardcore HoI, HoI 2 player, playin HoI since 2002 and loving it. Picked up HoI3 Vanilla just after launch, bad mistake and I knew just as any standard Paradox game might as well make sense to forget about it for a coupla years and then when its been patched up / modded up to its peak start playin again. 1st Game FTM as Germany and I AM LOVING IT.

I never really got into EU3 because I felt it was not as micro-management intensive and atleast for me didnt provide me that immersive experience, but HoI3 does it in Spades...Just love the new Combat Command, its so historical and adds so much depth to the game (I used to try and mimic the real structures using naming conventions in HoI2, but it never really worked, coz c'mon OKW aint gonna be rampaging in Russia with 9 Panzer Divisions)...just spent about an hour getting my OOB straight, and once again, this game has so much which is familiar to an HoI vet, but also so much new depth and content to keep my interest up for the next 2-3 years atleast.

Now, having said all this, I had read a lot on theatre AI in the forums and in reviews, and thought just for the heck of it, might as well give it a shot. So while I Blitz'd Poland, I gave AI the command of my Western Armies and set stance to defensive....the AI straight away pulled back the troops from the frontiers with France into random places, and once the war started, has bunched up all my troops guarding I dont know what (my guess is, VP point places) but allowing France to take almost all the frontier territory.

So, my question is, is it just a one-off, and does the AI normally play straight and is it worth givin the AI command or does it make sense to just manually control armies to avoid such random AI responses.
 
Best approach is to give AI most of forces, and leave under your control mobile brigades for real breakthroughs.
When you do achieve a breakthrough, AI generally can follow up with infantry.
 
This is interesting, coz Comsubpac you were right, I didnt set any objective for the AI, but even after I set it in a province just behind the French borders, the AI randomly moved all my troops into different parts of Germany, and the same result...France slowly walked in to Germany despite my having lvl 2 forts and some 30 divisions guarding the French / Belgium border..

bah, this game is brilliant anyways so might as well retain control of all my army....

Thanks anyways guys, good help all round, just guessin my luck in this game with the AI aint on.
 
This is interesting, coz Comsubpac you were right, I didnt set any objective for the AI, but even after I set it in a province just behind the French borders, the AI randomly moved all my troops into different parts of Germany, and the same result...France slowly walked in to Germany despite my having lvl 2 forts and some 30 divisions guarding the French / Belgium border..

bah, this game is brilliant anyways so might as well retain control of all my army....

Thanks anyways guys, good help all round, just guessin my luck in this game with the AI aint on.

you simlply need more divisions. the AI also needs a big number of garision divisions so that it can use your actual combat troops in the frontline. when i set an objective behind the french border the AI only garrisons the border with france (and important other provinces). it doesn't send any troops against belgium or the netherlands.
 
Another solution is to give to your defending theatre HQ a territory which covers only the frontier with France (2-3 provinces deep), the AI won't send troops to VP / Ports which are not in his controlled territory.
Typically your can create a theatre which will have the vast majority of German territory under control and not activate the AI nor give it troops, and give the borders to other theaters