1.12.7(beta) Strategic AI Performance thread

[mpop]

I wonder can the puppets AI also be checked? I have puppeted the USA, for some reason there's 2 of them. One builds navy and the other only builds Convoys with 90 docks while having like 8000 convoy in stock. I puppeted them to help me with building a navy because i'm a small nation and don't have much manpower. I puppeted the UK as well and it's the same for them. same goes for 50% of other smaller nation I puppeted for world conquest. It's annoying you want to puppet larger nations and you want them to help building Navy but 50% of them only build convoys with excess in stock.

Would be cool though if there's a mechanic to control the Puppet Behaviour as their master. Maybe if their dockyards would go to you as well. Like tell them to build certain amount of troops and naval invade a certain location.

 

[PorkchopSandwiches247]

I wonder can the puppets AI also be checked? I have puppeted the USA, for some reason there's 2 of them. One builds navy and the other only builds Convoys with 90 docks while having like 8000 convoy in stock. I puppeted them to help me with building a navy because i'm a small nation and don't have much manpower. I puppeted the UK as well and it's the same for them. same goes for 50% of other smaller nation I puppeted for world conquest. It's annoying you want to puppet larger nations and you want them to help building Navy but 50% of them only build convoys with excess in stock.

Would be cool though if there's a mechanic to control the Puppet Behaviour as their master. Maybe if their dockyards would go to you as well. Like tell them to build certain amount of troops and naval invade a certain location.

I would guess that the “building only convoys” thing is because it is a “new” country, with no research and/or naval designs, so it makes the only thing they can? And has no naval experience to make new ones?

 

[mpop]

I would guess that the “building only convoys” thing is because it is a “new” country, with no research and/or naval designs, so it makes the only thing they can? And has no naval experience to make new ones?

I guess so. I hope they fix it or something. 5 years already passed and they only have built convoys. They should able to adapt and try to make ships. There's no point of building 8k convoy with 90 docks.

 

[blahmaster6k]

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).

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.

This is correct, I don't know why people are disagreeing. SD is only very slightly worse for fighters than OI, for all intents and purposes it's practically the same. It also gets its fighter buffs earlier into the tree which is very nice if you have a budget or are fighting early wars.

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

If you don't have control of the air war, any bombers you build are just going to be shot down. Building mostly or only fighters is the right decision a lot of the time.

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.

This is to prevent exploits where players conquer territory and then release a bunch of tiny puppets, which all do their industry trees and generate an insane amount of factories for the player for free.

 

[nmpolo]

I totally agree with this thread. I pretty much only play Sweden -> Scandinavia so I've encountered the Soviet Union's disappointing AI performance many times.

I think it's much worse in 1.12 than 1.11 currently because of the bug that removes improved relations opinion modifiers (and other opinion modifiers) upon reloading a save. This thus causes the Soviet AI to be constantly wasting it's political power on improving relations.

However, given the tests people have said they've run in this thread, which I assume were done in one run, with no save reloading, it seems that a lot of political power is still being wasted on improving relations even without the bug.

I also think the Soviet AI should prioritise taking the focus that adds an extra supply hub along the Murmansk railway and build up the railway itself if they are fighting a unified Scandinavia and perhaps even just Finland if they're unable to breakthrough. Alternatively, the AI needs to stop stacking so many divisions in the area. Currently, their divisions get so little supply that they're basically useless and you can fairly easily trap a large amount of divisions on the peninsula.

 

[Pluto2006]

I would like to contribute:

1) AI builds weak templates. (their 9 inf + support artillery vs. mine 40w [the country industry was about the same])
2) AI does not know how to merge divisions. This scenario is best observed when watching China fighting Japan. The Chinese AI often lacks 25 000+ infantry equipment and wields numerous underequipped divisions, making them extremely weak and useless.
3 AI uses garrison command (instead of a fallback line to garrison tiles) on provinces that are not fully controlled, making the division endlessly attack and in most cases always lose.
4) I believe the AI does not prioritize logistics - such as building infrastructure, supply hubs, and railways. I saw Russia having many divisions on the Xinjiang border which were without supplies (red canister icon), starving, and being idle for more than a year.

Apart from those four points, AI still attack carelessly making their casualties go high and making equipment gone. In one of my recent games, in eight months the casualty ratio was 1:6 (me as China vs. stronger Russia). The problem also is that the AI attacks and loses and then lets itself get encircled.

Even though AI has been improved it still isn't perfect. I don't know whether the AI still sends its divisions across the sea unprotected, but hopefully not.

When BBA was released I was looking for some AI improvements like the ones from NSB. It should be an absolute priority to make AI challenging and smart.

 

[Arheo]

A number of issues reported in this thread have been looked at for the latest (1.12.8) beta update. Let me know how it plays!

 

[general_de_golle]

A number of issues reported in this thread have been looked at for the latest (1.12.8) beta update. Let me know how it plays!

Hello,
I just made a post related to beta changes in beta thread.

Also, can you visit these? People speak there about tanks balance, there are also some balane changes related to tanks in beta.

Now that medium tanks are unlocked in 1934, light tanks are basically useless

The light tank chassis cost around 1.2 less than the medium tank chassis but the cost of modules and engine/armor ticks doesnt change with the chassis. Weirdly enough the 2 chassis' also cost the same amount of steel to produce, and the 1934...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

"Heavy tanks...have enormous problems in terms of balance. They're just so bad. At least the 1934 versions."

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the thesis, Heavy tanks on the other hand I think have enormous problems in terms of balance. Theyre just so bad. At least the 1934 versions. I dont think they even have more armor than mediums. This...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Pluto2006]

A number of issues reported in this thread have been looked at for the latest (1.12.8) beta update. Let me know how it plays!

Even though I did not play yet and observed AI, I managed to test something else.

From

War Effort - Operation Capital [1.12.8 OPEN BETA]​

"- Fixed not considering manpower casualties in the air combat." SO MUCH OF THIS!

I didn't expect I would see this one day. From my short test, it indeed finally takes air combat into the account. For fighters, it's 2 men per plane, and for heavy bombers, it's 4 men per plane. This is at least from my short observation. Unfortunately, sea warfare remains untouched for now, casualties from sunk ships are not taken into the account. However, I let simulate air warfare (between France and Germany) for two minutes and set France's population to 1 000 inhabitants (to make the observation simple and easy) and yet it exceeded 1 000 casualties, meaning 100% of the population was drafted, but still, somehow they received men to manpower pool. No colonies and resistance were present at that time, meaning no reinforcements from non-cores could be taken.

Apart from that, why do planes require service manpower? For example, a transport plane takes 80 men, fighter takes 20 to deploy. Perhaps this is the issue that makes issues with calculations. In practice, it requires 2000 reserves from the manpower pool to deploy 100 fighters, but if all fighters are to be destroyed it would display only 200 casualties. (2 men per fighter) The rest I guess would return to the manpower pool as they represent some kind of maintenance group. For me, it is unnecessarily complicated. I wouldn't take non-combat personnel (like mechanics, dispatchers, repairmen...) into the account and make the requirement for deploying planes the number which the plane actually represents, i.e. two actual men operating fighter and four men operating heavy bomber... So to deploy 1 fighter instead of 20 men, fighter would require 2 men to deploy, but still, didn't ONE pilot operate fighter in the second world war instead of two?

 

[marcelo r. r.]

I wonder can the puppets AI also be checked? I have puppeted the USA, for some reason there's 2 of them. One builds navy and the other only builds Convoys with 90 docks while having like 8000 convoy in stock. I puppeted them to help me with building a navy because i'm a small nation and don't have much manpower. I puppeted the UK as well and it's the same for them. same goes for 50% of other smaller nation I puppeted for world conquest. It's annoying you want to puppet larger nations and you want them to help building Navy but 50% of them only build convoys with excess in stock.

Would be cool though if there's a mechanic to control the Puppet Behaviour as their master. Maybe if their dockyards would go to you as well. Like tell them to build certain amount of troops and naval invade a certain location.

Ai of masters too need improvments. Big puppets like China, or Russia is very problematic.

AI don't know how to use puppet manpower and don't spam some foreign templates, at same time puppets get stuck with low IC.

Also master AI don't build anything on their puppets, on end game, the big puppet China instead of make Japan AI stronger, just become a free lunch, same for Russia mastered by germany.

If their master don't perceive any threat, its just remove troops back to home, and them these big puppets are easily blitzkrieg.

The only positive thing i see they doing is lend-leasing to puppets.

 

[Herennius]

4) I believe the AI does not prioritize logistics - such as building infrastructure, supply hubs, and railways. I saw Russia having many divisions on the Xinjiang border which were without supplies (red canister icon), starving, and being idle for more than a year.

I noticed that some minor don't even research the most basic train type, so they end up with a train deficit they can't fix (not even by comandeering civil trains, as that requires having researched the basic train as well):

HoI 4 - Some minors never research even the most basic civil train despite having a need for it [v.1.12.8.31c5 (32be) (BETA)]

Description of issue Some minors never research even the most basic civil train despite having a need for it [v.1.12.8.31c5 (32be) (BETA)] What platform do you play on? Steam Game Version v.1.12.8.31c5 (32be) (BETA) Enabled DLC...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

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UK:

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.

Japan:

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

As said elsewhere, that port-spamming behaviour is pretty crippling especially for Japan and probably the reason why the currently don't achieve anything and instead get regularly booted out of China, to struggle then with the Philippines and the DEIs (UK and USA suffer as well from it, though its less visible because of their overall stronger economy):

HoI 4 - Japan / USA / UK AIs wasting their construction economy on spamming ports [v.1.12.8.31c5 (32be) (BETA)]

Description of issue Japan / USA AIs wasting their construction economy on spamming ports [v.1.12.8.31c5 (32be) (BETA)] What platform do you play on? Steam Game Version v.1.12.8.31c5 (32be) (BETA) Enabled DLC Together for Victory, Death or...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I really hope that this gets adressed soon as my feeling is that this might overshadow a lot of fine, but more granular fixes, which are highly welcome itself, but will just not play out...e.g. Japan might get better advisors with the new logic, might get a bonus on construction for various things...but if they just continues to burn the CIVs on building marine bases on every possible island then, little is achieved sadly