1.12.7(beta) Strategic AI Performance thread

[general_de_golle]

I`m starting this thread to address some issues regarding AI actions, choices, decisions that are vital for strategic performance. I will try to explain why I think each activity is strange and why its change may change game experience to more realistic and competitive.

Activities what I observed are:

• Laws, advisors and designers selection.
• Construction priority.
• Production priority.
• Research priority.
• Division proportion priority.
• Officer corps ideas picking.
• Decisions picking priority.

Common thoughts about performance:

• Countries preparing for war and hard times try to build up their economy, so switching economy law should be a high priority (it is kinda werid when I see USSR or France with “Civilian Economy” law on 1940).
• AI should try to build up economy (prioritizing civilian factories to have good amount of them for buildup), so it is logical select helpful political advisors.
• Debuffs which can be removed by decisions also should be a high priority to take, as mostly this would safe more resources (like debuffs that increase doctrines cost form Paranoia).
• Countries with strong economy should create strong military forces: tanks, aircraft, artillery, ships.
• Research should correspond mostly current and after those future needs (and no research for techs that are not used at all).
• AI should try to build ships which already are partially build (while cancelling these ships is a total waste of potential).
• AI should avoid wasting of political power (like improving relations with no reason).
• Picking head or army, navy and air force is quite important while experience is needed for designs, doctrines, officer corps spirits, decisions, templates and etc.

USA:

• Does not have any political advisors in 8.1939. Also do not have any designers.
• Has “Bureau of Ordnance” in maritime officer corps, while having enough naval experience to change if to some buff.
• Researching “Amphibious tank” while not producing tanks at all.
• Has only infantry divisions (and one cavalry form game start).
• Produces only fighter aircraft.
• Does not produce carrier aircraft, many wings have zero planes.

France:

• Still has “Civilian Economy” law in 8.1939.
• Does not have any political advisors in 8.1939. Also do not have any designers.
• Has only head of army and head of fleet as military advisors.
• Canceled “Dunkerque” and “Richelieu” ships from game start.
• Has only 11 civilian fabrics to buildup.
• Still has 5 brigades consisting only of light tanks.
• Takes decisions “Give refuge for scientists” and “Reorganize aviation industry” while not having head of air forces and other advisors/laws.

Great Britain:

• Has overtime research in navy while lacking some attendance to tank techs (However, in general Great Britain has quite good priorities).

Germany:

• Does not pick discounted “Hjalmar Schacht” or any other economy advisor.
• At first had taken head of air force, after that take officer corps spirit that reduces cost of air force advisors (just waste air experience and do not use other buffs).
• Has only 5 tank divisions in 8.1939, most divisions are leg infantry.
• Does not have enough fighter to counter Allied forces when war starts. Does not build up forces after huge losses.
• Does not build intelligence agency even when prepares to start a war.

Italy:

• Has only one political advisor and only one designer in 8.1939.
• At first had taken head of air force, after that take officer corps spirit that reduces cost of air force advisors (just waste air experience and do not use other buffs).
• Does not have enough fighter to counter Allied forces when war starts. Does not build up forces after huge losses.
• Does not have any tank divisions.
• Tries to create medium tank divisions while not producing medium tanks.

USSR:

• From game start always tries to improve relations with Romania (wastes a lot of political power).
• Still has “Civilian Economy” law in 8.1939. However, USSR can change this just in 1936.
• Has no political advisors except of Head of NKVD.
• Has no designers and head of navy.
• Canceled one of “Kirov” class cruisers from game start.
• At first had taken head of air force, after that take officer corps spirit that reduces cost of air force advisors (just waste air experience and do not use other buffs).
• Purged a lot of stuff (possible because of not reducing paranoia bug).
• Has not removed debuffs that occurred after paranoia events (but has taken 4 ideas in air doctrine with these debuff).
• Taking Agitprop decisions that are a waste of pp (decisions for getting more steel and oil while having great surplus of them).
• Actively uses “Expand resources” decisions that are a waste of pp (already has a surplus).
• Never kills Trotskiy after completion of focus for assacination mission, never removes related national spirit.

Japan:

• Canceled “Kongo” class battleship from game start.
• Producing outdated Interwar medium tanks in 1939.
• Does not have any designers.
• Has “Strategic destruction” air doctrine and does not produce strategic bombers.
• Does not produce torpedo aircraft for carriers, some wings have zero planes.

Poland:

• Still has “Civilian Economy” law in 8.1939 while Germany is justificating war on them.
• Does not have any political advisors (however, it may be normal for Poland that it prioritizes military advisors).
• Researched “Improved fire control” and “Base fire control” while not having any fleet, instead for example artillery or support technologies. Looks like AI prioritizes this tech because they are in Engineering branch.

I hope this feedback would help developers to improve strategic part of the AI. Everyone is welcome to make additions to this info.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

AI should try to build ships which already are partially build (while cancelling these ships is a total waste of potential).

If we for a moment disregard notorious AI designer aptitude, only ones that are half-finished are worth building: most designs are awful enough that you need to spend up to 50% of their initial cost refitting, while those under 30% can even be a net loss after you apply Coastal Defence designer. Should AI really be optimised for the inefficient way it currently operates?

Has no political advisors except of Head of NKVD.

To be fair, that's like the only way to ensure who's getting purged, and (extra paranoia generation aside) purging them gives you a better version.

Has “Strategic destruction” air doctrine and does not produce strategic bombers.

It has the best naval bomber buff, though (unless you count reduced visibility from OI).

 

[general_de_golle]

If we for a moment disregard notorious AI designer aptitude, only ones that are half-finished are worth building: most designs are awful enough that you need to spend up to 50% of their initial cost refitting, while those under 30% can even be a net loss after you apply Coastal Defence designer. Should AI really be optimised for the inefficient way it currently operates?

I know some people share this opinion, however at the start of the game AI often does not prioritise to get naval experience to create new designs, so it builds what it has. Also, all designs that I mentioned are quite ok. They are not as perfect as i can design, but good enough to fight.

To be fair, that's like the only way to ensure who's getting purged, and (extra paranoia generation aside) purging them gives you a better version.

Yes, but the idea is that AI does not pick anyone else. So in 1939-1941 it has only head of NKVD as political advisor (mostly because it wastes pp on some strange actions).

It has the best naval bomber buff, though (unless you count reduced visibility from OI).

I haven`t mentioned this buff. However difference is only 5% to other doctrines and other buffs are mostly to strategic bombers.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

I know some people share this opinion, however at the start of the game AI often does not prioritise to get naval experience to create new designs, so it builds what it has. Also, all designs that I mentioned are quite ok. They are not as perfect as i can design, but good enough to fight.

I'd argue that AI should be taught to generate and use naval XP then - that is a much larger waste of potential than a few scrapped capitals, whose main purpose is to boost player's ego (by getting sunk).

I haven`t mentioned this buff. However difference is only 5% to other doctrines and other buffs are mostly to strategic bombers.

Last part is. SD is fairly good because it provides all the relevant stuff at the start. You don't need to complete it if you won't use strats. See for yourself:

Air doctrine - Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki

hoi4.paradoxwikis.com

you're only really losing on fighter detection, ace generation chance and bomber visibility compared to OI (a "default" Japan doctrine, if we're going by theorists), which is more than compensated by extra air superiority.

 

[general_de_golle]

I'd argue that AI should be taught to generate and use naval XP then - that is a much larger waste of potential than a few scrapped capitals, whose main purpose is to boost player's ego (by getting sunk).

I agree, but looks like it is quite hard. And at current game state AI often do such actions like:
1) Delete some ships on game start in 1936.
2) Start producing same or alike designed ships in 1937-1939.
This is kinda strange, I undrstand that AI builds some ships and changes its priorities, but at all this makes AI`s navy weaker.

 

[Gort11]

Good idea for a thread. I'll cross-post my own test game results:

I played as Haiti on historical focuses, ran the game till Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, and then tag switched around the various major powers. Here's the weird stuff I saw:

USSR:

Army is tiny - only 211 divisions. They're not training more, and their conscription is still on "Volunteer Only".

Tiny number of military factories, only 67. Germany alone has 194.

They blew a lot of political power increasing relations with Romania for some reason.

Trotsky is still alive, so they've still got a big stability and political power penalty.

They haven't annexed Latvia or Estonia.

Germany:

Weird overbuild of Panzer 4s - they have 5400 in storage. They can't equip their new tank divisions because of a lack of infantry gear, trucks, light tanks, support gear and armoured cars.

They annexed Vichy France so they've got dozens of divisions fighting in West Africa or at sea going to and from West Africa. Maybe overseas Vichy France territories should flip to Free France if Germany annexes Vichy France? This behaviour's not as bad as it could be because the UK AI seems to never raid convoys off Africa. If it did, it could sink tons of German and Italian divisions.

Resistance is really bad in Poland and France, over 50% in both places. They've got "military governor" set as their standard occupation strategy, but are overriding it with "local police force" in a lot of places. Switching to martial law pretty much everywhere would be the simplest fix.

They've lots of synthetic refineries, but haven't researched synthetic rubber.

Italy:

Failed to conquer Ethiopia for the first time I've ever seen. They white peaced out and now Ethiopia's the Federation of Ethiopia.

Resistance is really bad, similar to Germany. Military governor is the default, but they've overridden it with local police force all over the place.

They've researched synthetic oil and rubber, but have no synthetic refineries.

UK:

Resistance problems in Somaliland. Ethiopia's backing the resistance, giving it a value of 71%, but they're only running local police force.

They have three radar techs, but they've never built or upgraded a radar station. Radar seems to be a weakness of the AI in general, I don't think I've ever seen them build any, and most countries don't research it at all.

All their subs are raiding in the Mediterranean, and none of their surface ships are raiding. This means tons of Italian and German convoy traffic off West Africa that goes completely unmolested.

Similar construction problem to Japan - lots of port building in far-off places to supply the navy, but a single port level in a place like Marsa Matruh to support the army goes unbuilt, even though there was a port there in real life.

China:

Weird research - they've researched three anti-tank gun techs but have never built one. They've researched armoured cars but have never built one. They use artillery and engineers, but these techs are not up-to-date.

They've researched 1939 artillery and infantry gear, but are still producing the 1936 versions.

They have a huge infantry gear deficit (22,000) but are attacking with their infantry in a lot of places.

They've got a 15 unit deficit in steel and aren't buying enough from the USSR even though they could.

Japan:

Weird construction - all their construction is going into ports, mostly in the Caroline Islands.

Weird research - Lots of anti-tank and armoured car research even though they've never built one.

 

[Gran Strategist]

I agree, but looks like it is quite hard. And at current game state AI often do such actions like:
1) Delete some ships on game start in 1936.
2) Start producing same or alike designed ships in 1937-1939.
This is kinda strange, I undrstand that AI builds some ships and changes its priorities, but at all this makes AI`s navy weaker.

I have seen issues around the AI deleting ships at the start for the game and various fixes from updates discussed recently.

As most nations naval needs (at the start of the game) are probably the same whatever path they are taking as it doesn't really change their naval geography shouldn't major nations in particular start off with appropriate ships being built and then ai should only consider changing them when it gets/updates designs?

As a player I have been torn between carrying on building the often rubbish ships you start the game with half built or just scrapping them and building proper designs so the ai will find this particularly hard.

Outside of rp reasons Britain should really start of by focusing on asw ships, Germany should start of focusing on submarines, USA and Japan should start of focusing on carriers.

This isn't usually the case, with nations starting the game building ships that are completely inappropriate or are just very poorly designed so best case you can finish building them then have to retrofit them.

Nations signed up to the naval treaty I can sort of understand why they start with under utilized designs as they are restricted by the naval treaty but why does Germany for example start with submarine designs that have only 1 of the 2 torpedo slots assigned? Why does it start with capital ship designs which have a number of main slots empty? It's not even they have poor choices in certain slots, the slots are simply blank...

In short it seems like most ship designs nations start with and start with being built are just rubbish (not using the tech or available slots fully) and don't even fit the rp history of those designs. That is the core issue that needs to be solved.

 

[The Colonel]

Sounds like if nothing else, AI political power spending on the government tab and research priorities really need some work. Research is probably more intensive, as my guess would be they have weights like for each "page" rather specific "columns"/branches of the tree, which is probably what they need.

In general, I'm happy for AIs to not all play the same and to make suboptimal choices, but I'd like them to at least be in the realm of reasonable rather than what is reported here. If nothing else, then make the hard mode of the game have the AI play better rather than just giving the player obnoxious debuffs and the AI some generic buffs (which sound like they would hardly matter with these fundamental flaws).

Re Air doctrine: Strategic Destruction and Operational Integrity are considered essentially equal (and both better than Battlefield Support) for the most important role, that is, buffing figthers, so I think it's a fine doctrine choice. That being said, OI probably makes most sense for most AI since majors start with a lot of TACs and like to produce more.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

Allied AI UK+USA should change trade law to a more restricter once they lost colonies.
They stay "free trader" in a world dominated by axis, resulting in lack of steel, then self-cripling their production of army/navy.

AI should have some "macro strategy" template, a "template" will be a set of priorities and decisios to follow.... them we could have a "air template", "naval template" etc. Specially allies need it, the trigger could be the end of soviet union or lost of specific VP's. for example, UK ai should stop try naval defend indian ocean if its loss the Suez.

Germany AI actually just do div spam, no matter how they are wining the war, its behave as if its a desperate loser and its get the population branch of blitzkrieg doctrine.

 

[general_de_golle]

AI does not try to avoid low stability. In current observes USSR has 14% stability while at war with Finland. This gives huge deuffs for production and political power. Looks like countries should be taught to manage stability level.

Also, all countries concentrate their air production at fighter. In 1940 AI in my last observe had:

• Great Britain - 2500 fighters, 200 tact bombers, 400 CAS.
• Germany - 1500 fighters, 100 tact, 100 CAS
• Italy - 1100 fighters, 100 tact, 100 CAS.
• USSR - 2400 fighters, 300 CAS, 500 tact.
• USA - 3100 fighters, 600 CAS, 300 tact.
• Japan - 1100 fighters, 200 CAS, 100 tact.

As I mentioned, often the Allied ai overcomes Germany and Italy, and they never try to rebuild their airforce, just having only small amount of fighters and still producing CAS, tacts and overs, which will be easilly shot without fighters. Hope this part of production priorities will also recieve some attention from devs.

 

[Gort11]

Oh yeah, another weird thing I saw. The USSR demanded Karelia from Finland as is historical, but Finland caved and handed it over without a fight. The USSR then manually justified a war with Finland over Petsamo, fought the war, and then white peaced out. That was really strange to see.

 

[Mrakvampire]

I hope that devs will notice this thread

 

[Arheo]

I hope that devs will notice this thread

I have, no worries. It's great to have this kind of attention on AI behaviour - no promises, but I'll try and look at some of this in the mid-term.

 

[general_de_golle]

I have, no worries. It's great to have this kind of attention on AI behaviour - no promises, but I'll try and look at some of this in the mid-term.

Great! Thanks, and if there is a need for more details just ask here, I will do more observations and will try to provide more info.

 

[Schelle]

Any plans on adding more aircraft models? There are some missing, it seems. Heavy Naval bombers, single engine heavy fighters etc.

 

[Herennius]

Being a bit late to the party here...

Can we add (generic) minor countries to the list?

The issue with them often not using all of their military factories for production at all is still existent in 1.12.7; I updated my bug report:

HoI 4 - Minor countries not at war not using their military factories to full extend [Avalanche v.1.12.5, still issue in 1.12.8]

Description of issue Minor countries not at war not using their military factories to full extend What platform do you play on? Steam Game Version Avalanche v.1.12.5 Enabled DLC Together for Victory, Death or Dishonor, Waking the Tiger, Man...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

Yeah, this fact of minors sabotaging their own industry like that and majors building up ports like there's no tomorrow largely on its own destroys the whole purpose of the build-up phase. Then add fubar research priorities by the AI - and we are set.

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

Speaking of minors, I find it amusing that AI minors with 0 factories and army would rather take army/navy/air doctrine bonuses than get any production going at all. I wonder what causes them to prioritize what.

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

Speaking of minors, I find it amusing that AI minors with 0 factories and army would rather take army/navy/air doctrine bonuses than get any production going at all. I wonder what causes them to prioritize what.

If it's before 1939 generic focus tree specifically prohibits them bloating the world's industry:

        ai_will_do = {
            factor = 3
            modifier = {
                factor = 0
                date < 1939.1.1
                OR = {
                    # we dont want chinese minors to go crazy on slots early since they get eaten
                    tag = GXC
                    tag = YUN
                    tag = SHX
                    tag = XSM
                    tag = BEL
                    tag = LUX
                    tag = HOL
                    tag = DEN

                    # we also dont want tiny nations to go crazy with slots right away
                    num_of_controlled_states < 2
                }              
            }
        }

(right, why bloat it with the old minors getting a tiny +1 factory each every 70 days here and there when new trees grant half a dozen for 35 days and/or transform virtual deserts into real industrial hubs?)

 

[Federkiel]

After quite a lot of hands-off playtests as Haiti i see a bunch of issues with AI behaviour. Some of the phenomenons are long known and some have even become worse with 1.12 (all subsequent patches):

- AI JAP DoWs on the Philippines, not being prepared to go to war overseas
- the DoW itself always takes place on 16th of May, 1941. More than half a year away from the historical date
- AI USA relentlessly raids AI JAPs conovoy lines from day 1 of the war with AI JAP not even trying to defend itself, often resulting in running out of convoys soon
- AI JAP does not even try to invade Malaya and Singapore - the singlemost important cornerstone in South East Asia. This would solve it's resource issues but it does not happen at all. Instead UK ends up with an unlimited supply of rubber, aluminium and other resources from there, also never suffering it's historical defeats on land, sea and in the air throughout the pacific war
- AI JAP does not island hop - it instead soon loses Iwo Jima at it's own front door
- AI JAP only invades the NEI territories some years into the pacific war (if not dead by then already), facing way too much resistance there and never getting the resources it historically quickly conquered
- AI JAP just jumps into far away New Guinea to be attritioned to death there. In the game, New Guinea is bar of any economic or strategic value unless the occupier does actively try to cut off Australia from the USA. AI JAP never does that and also gets wrecked from ships / SUBs stationed in Singapore (see Malaya above)
- AI JAP is unable to cope with the pacific war situation, being entirely destroyed in China after itself starting that campaign
AI JAP always takes the focus 'spirit of technology' instead of the preferrable (ingame situation AI manouvers itself in) 'spirit of will'

- AI ENG is scripted to outproduce all other powers with FTR. The only exception is USA that can only keep up due to having much less casualities
- AI ENG researches ahead and easily produces more FTR than the whole Euro-Axis combined in early and mid game
- AI ENG never faces resource problems at all
- AI ENG ends up being the most technological advanced nation in the game - a joke when you look at their historical limits (with GER and USA being ahead in many, many advanced fields of research)
- AI ENG tries for too many D-Days and way too early. They should not at all with USA taking the lead of operations instead

- AI GER's air production has been toned down to a degree of being negligible as a force. This ends up with FTR of 1/10 of AI ENG and AI USA (each! so 1/20 of both)- even if AI GER is in a strong ingame situation
- AI GER's amount of aircraft variants - many of which are useless and mean a step back from one that's already existing - is overly impressive
- AI GER does not even contest the Atlantic with SUBs, a joke when you look at their historical performance in that area
- AI GER never researches rockets and rocket artillery - a joke when you look at their historical performance in that area
- AI GER never researches further than the first radar tech - a joke when you look at their historical performance in that area
- AI GER concentrates on nuke technology - way to much and instead neglecting rockets and jets
- AI GER sometimes does not even start an espionage agency. Even in the cases it does - it won't even try to seriously oppose it's enemies
- AI GER does neglect anti-air way to much
- AI GER seriously underperforms in Poland, Denmark and Norway (too slow, too many casualities)

- AI USSR does not employ enough divisions
- AI USSR is the only power to actually research rocket artillery / technology instead of other, more pressing matters

- AI USA starts island hopping way too early - basically immediately after AI JAP's DoW in the pacific (AI JAP never posing a threat anywhere)
- AI USA does not contest the leadership in the Allies faction
- AI USA does not contest for becoming spymaster in the Allies faction, basically putting a meager effort into espionage at all (similar to AI GER)
- AI USA does not take the lead in liberating Europe

- all major powers overemphasise on researching anti-tank artillery but not actually employing it reasonably
- all major powers seriously underproduce tanks and do not actually employ what they have or could have
- all major powers concentrate on recon vehicles too much, squandering lots research
- all (major) powers operating from a position of an occupier cannot cope reasonably with resistance at all


List to be continued if i dare to make any more tests.