[1.2.1] AI Front Management

[Novacat]

This seems to be a new issue with 1.2, but in every test I have done in Sunflower, both 1.2 and 1.2.1, I have noticed something peculiar. The AI overprioritizes neutral borders. Even at war, the AI will make sure that the border to neutral, non-threatening countries is garrisoned even as its frontline troops are being overwhelmed.

This is especially most prominant with Germany, and is 100% of why Germany is falling flat on its face in my games. It just bleeds troops to garrisoning all those neutral borders for no purpose.

Screenshot for proofs

Germany is only at war with Poland in that screenshot.

It seems like the AI is assuming that it is at war with most of its neighbors.

 

[pierpu]

I saw it happening in my game just yesterday.
I'm playing with fascist romania allied with Germany: as soon as war with SU started i noticed that Germany had no divisions on the east frontline.
After some weeks still no Germany divisions so i looked at the map and i saw they garrisoned switzerland border with at least 150 divisions.

 

[CplKatie]

Italy is also lining up against germany/Yugo/Swiss making it very easy to overrun them as france.

 

[Slokurn]

I've got the same thing since 1.2.1. I was Poland in the axis and we invaded the URSS. We were at moscow and then declares war to yougoslavia. Germans Just sent all its division to attack and let notions vs URSS. And then they did it again when they stacked 200 div near Danemark with out war 6 months after and we lost the game because i was alone vs Russia...

 

[Moser]

I get the opposite. Sometimes I see the AI want to garrison a defensive front, but then the turn around and go back to the offensive front. I get this constant annoying reshuffling.

 

[bERt0r]

Also notice the 9001 Armies and Battleplans the AI draws. Those are 4 Battleplans on top of each other on poland? Why does it make multiple Armies with 8-12 divisions? Why are the tanks mixed with the infantry? So much facepalm.

 

[grandad1982]

I get the opposite. Sometimes I see the AI want to garrison a defensive front, but then the turn around and go back to the offensive front. I get this constant annoying reshuffling.

Hey don't knock it! That's what wins me wars.

Germany (or who ever) will build up an overwhelming force against my thin line of inf but not attack. After a short while they will start shuffling units away to other places and also up and down the line. Take the inevitable empty provinces and try to get some cheap push back and encirclements. After some more time they will reinforce the line. Stop the attack and wait. Rinse and repeat.

 

[petertel123]

I had a different problem, I played communist France and when Germany and the Soviet Union went to war (dragging me and Italy with them) Italy decided to relocate pretty much their entire army to the east. I overran their country in a matter of weeks and had to fight less than 10 divisions in total.

 

[CplKatie]

They really need to have the ships transport troops cause the amount of manpower lost via swimming is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure its the reason Italy loses so bad, half their troops are in africa and they take a long route back through water and get eaten.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

I think the expected response from Paradox is to ask you for a save where they can reproduce the problem

 

[Slokurn]

Peter, you got the same problem than us. If the ai has 2 front, it will send all its army to one front instead of Split.
We can thx the 1.2.1 patch.

 

[Novacat]

The problem in the OP is actually something different, the AI splits its forces between the different fronts, but it also establishes fronts that are just not needed. Germany is only at war with Poland, why does it need troops on the Danish, Belgian, Dutch, and Yugoslavian borders? Why does it need 30 divisions garrisoned in Brandenburg? The only one that makes sense is the French border (Due to being a threatening major), but there can easily be an exception made for fronts with forts on them.

 

[Meglok]

I think the expected response from Paradox is to ask you for a save where they can reproduce the problem

Which of course ignores the multitudes of threads saying hey PDS, there's a problem with front management in 1.2.1. All you have to do is play single player game, cause a second front to open, pause, turn off fow, and open your eyes. And then of course /facepalm

 

[Novacat]

Not even. In the OP, Germany is only at war with poland. It has almost no troops on the polish front while it has the Danish, Dutch, Belgian, French, and Yugoslavan fronts, all of which are neutral contries, stocked with troops.

Germany is managing to screw up its invasion of Poland.

Not even the HOI3 AI is that incompetant.

 

[SootyTX]

Which of course ignores the multitudes of threads saying hey PDS, there's a problem with front management in 1.2.1. All you have to do is play single player game, cause a second front to open, pause, turn off fow, and open your eyes. And then of course /facepalm

Agree totally. Paradox and blinkered supporters hiding behind the 'send us a save game' excuse are getting irritating. The issue with straits screwing up attacks plans is another (that I actually went to the trouble of providing a save only to be ignored by @SteelVolt ). These things are reproducible every single game with ease, it should be things their QA team is finding on day 1 of looking at the new patch, not something that goes live.

I'm not even going into how mindbogglingly annoying the whole "pile the army on the border for years" system is in the first place, as both a historian and a military analyst.....

 

[Meglok]

Not even. In the OP, Germany is only at war with poland. It has almost no troops on the polish front while it has the Danish, Dutch, Belgian, French, and Yugoslavan fronts, all of which are neutral contries, stocked with troops.

Germany is managing to screw up its invasion of Poland.

Not even the HOI3 AI is that incompetant.

Agree totally. Paradox and blinkered supporters hiding behind the 'send us a save game' excuse are getting irritating. The issue with straits screwing up attacks plans is another (that I actually went to the trouble of providing a save only to be ignored by @SteelVolt ). These things are reproducible every single game with ease, it should be things their QA team is finding on day 1 of looking at the new patch, not something that goes live.

I'm not even going into how mindbogglingly annoying the whole "pile the army on the border for years" system is in the first place, as both a historian and a military analyst.....

Putting my years of analyst work to use, I can guess what is happening. The AI has several "strategic directive codes" to follow, to either guard this front or that, and to prepare for war/attack on this front. The AI strategy code lines and exe files we can't see without a secret decoder ring from a Swedish cracker jack box.

The issue is the AI says to meet this directive I need x amount of units based on the forces it can decrypt on the other side of the front or to meet the battle plan objectives. There are either not enough divisions to go around, or the prioritization of which front is not important is not working, or the AI doesn't know when it has enough units to fulfill it's mission, or a combination.

Optimally the active at war AI should prioritize attack/active fronts on it's continent, coastal defense, neutral major fronts, then probably overseas active fronts, and only then a minor neutral front. And a neutral minor front should never have more than a tripwire at best now that democratic neutral minors are not supposed to spam unless being justified on. I would lay my first bet on prioritization.

 

[Kadanz]

Putting my years of analyst work to use, I can guess what is happening. The AI has several "strategic directive codes" to follow, to either guard this front or that, and to prepare for war/attack on this front. The AI strategy code lines and exe files we can't see without a secret decoder ring from a Swedish cracker jack box.

The issue is the AI says to meet this directive I need x amount of units based on the forces it can decrypt on the other side of the front or to meet the battle plan objectives. There are either not enough divisions to go around, or the prioritization of which front is not important is not working, or the AI doesn't know when it has enough units to fulfill it's mission, or a combination.

Optimally the active at war AI should prioritize attack/active fronts on it's continent, coastal defense, neutral major fronts, then probably overseas active fronts, and only then a minor neutral front. And a neutral minor front should never have more than a tripwire at best now that democratic neutral minors are not supposed to spam unless being justified on. I would lay my first bet on prioritization.

Personally I don't have that much of a problem with the AI keeping troops on non-active fronts. But I agree it keeps too many that could be used in active fronts. When I play I always put 1 division per province on my front with the low countries, because I had games were the AI went bat shit crazy on DOW'ing dragging the all the low countries into the war when I wasn't manning those borders while I was fighting in poland.

Something else I noticed in my observations, is that the AI prioritizes the front were 2 countries meet twice. It's seems to put double the troops on the province that borders luxembourg and france. I have a hunch, albeit a small one, that somehow screws up the AI distribution of frontline troops too.

 

[SootyTX]

@Meglok I concur with the prioritization issue. I'm somewhat baffled by the design decisions that lead to that point - from units parked on the border being a major source of intel on (potential) enemy force strength to the fact that none of this appears to be taken into account BEFORE wars are declared, only afterwards.

 

[SootyTX]

Personally I don't have that much of a problem with the AI keeping troops on non-active fronts. But I agree it keeps too many that could be used in active fronts. When I play I always put 1 division per province on my front with the low countries, because I had games were the AI went bat shit crazy on DOW'ing dragging the all the low countries into the war when I wasn't manning those borders while I was fighting in poland.

Something else I noticed in my observations, is that the AI prioritizes the front were 2 countries meet twice. It's seems to put double the troops on the province that borders luxembourg and france. I have a hunch, albeit a small one, that somehow screws up the AI distribution of frontline troops too.

That is the point of having a strategic reserve (as opposed to a theatre reserve). While the specific case you mention is actually moderately realistically handled by having reserve units at, or close to, the borders with the Low Countries and France, in most situations units shouldn't be on the border at all. For one its hellishly expensive in reality to do that, as well as diplomatically troubling. Also, it should lead to a deterioration of unit readiness (i.e. loss of 'experience') as units forward mobilized cannot take part in the training that is required to maintain higher levels of capability.

if the AI just used a strategic reserve, instead of putting a reserve force on every single border, things would be better overnight. Not fixed, but certainly better.

 

[Meglok]

@Meglok I concur with the prioritization issue. I'm somewhat baffled by the design decisions that lead to that point - from units parked on the border being a major source of intel on (potential) enemy force strength to the fact that none of this appears to be taken into account BEFORE wars are declared, only afterwards.

HOI3 had a governor on the DoW decision where the AI would take a look and decide today is not a good day to die. Either that is missing now or more likely the poorly written focus decisions are over riding all other considerations.

Since we know that is happening from empirical info of watching Japan DoW the USA even if being chased out of China and invaded I'd say that was the issue in most stupid DoW instances. The focus finishes, says DoW, so the AI does so without planning. Just bare bones code writing without taking into account all of the if-thens needed to make the code work INTELLIGENTLY.