1914 scenario : British AI problem

[Revan F]

So, I have a few games in the 1914 scenario and i have spotted a problem with the Bitish AI which cause some imbalance in the game.

It appeared to me in a few hands off game (or pretty much, playing Japan, chinese or mexican faction), that the Ottoman Empire fell very early to the allies (in mid 1915, it's game over for the Young turks), while Germany almost Always manage to crush France by the end of the same year, or later if the German AI gives priority to Russia.

With a Japan game, which lifts the FoW on the Entente, i noticed that ALL the british troops are on the Ottoman Front, i mean all except those who guard the beaches. However, i know that the AI could use the expeditionary corps mechanism (which is rather obscure to me but still). So i playes a French Game : no expeditionary corps send to me, no british troops neither in French front nor in the balkanic one (I were Lucky to have an early Greek entry in the war, so i managed to sustain a Front in Serbia. All the British troops were ….in Egypt...doing Nothing because ottoman Empire declined to host the Goeben and the Breslau. Dozens of fresh divisions completely useless. I manage to hold Germany alone but no Wonder why an AI can't.

So, it appears that British AI have at first priority to send all it can send to Egypt, without even checking if therer is an active front here, while excluding all other fronts. Is that WAD?

 

[Dr. Intolerance]

So, I have a few games in the 1914 scenario and i have spotted a problem with the Bitish AI which cause some imbalance in the game.

It appeared to me in a few hands off game (or pretty much, playing Japan, chinese or mexican faction), that the Ottoman Empire fell very early to the allies (in mid 1915, it's game over for the Young turks), while Germany almost Always manage to crush France by the end of the same year, or later if the German AI gives priority to Russia.

With a Japan game, which lifts the FoW on the Entente, i noticed that ALL the british troops are on the Ottoman Front, i mean all except those who guard the beaches. However, i know that the AI could use the expeditionary corps mechanism (which is rather obscure to me but still). So i playes a French Game : no expeditionary corps send to me, no british troops neither in French front nor in the balkanic one (I were Lucky to have an early Greek entry in the war, so i managed to sustain a Front in Serbia. All the British troops were ….in Egypt...doing Nothing because ottoman Empire declined to host the Goeben and the Breslau. Dozens of fresh divisions completely useless. I manage to hold Germany alone but no Wonder why an AI can't.

So, it appears that British AI have at first priority to send all it can send to Egypt, without even checking if therer is an active front here, while excluding all other fronts. Is that WAD?

I really do not know if this could improve the British AI to send soldiers to battlefronts it can reach that are going on, i.e., Russia and France, but try setting the AI aggression to "Furious" before starting a new game.

 

[Gutie]

I've never seen the AI manage expeditionary forces well to be truthful. Priority seems to be given to "owned" territory so colonial fronts with nations the AI deems as potential enemies is given priority over active fronts of allies with at war parties. This has been a problem of the "antagonist/threat" weighting of relations of the old Pdox games imo, and having a claim/desire on the AIs part to take some provinces makes it a bit irrational at times (easy to exploit though, lol).

If a nation shares a border with a nation they are hostile with the AI has a tendency to drop a ton of troops on that frontier to be ready for action.... especially if provinces are desired to be taken by the AI (such as middle east provinces sought to be taken by the British AI from the Turks).

If you look into the savegame file under the British relationship ratings as well as the desired provinces you'll see what I mean. Its a somewhat accurate, but flawed system, as it seems to at time prioritize strategic objectives over active tactical ones, which would never happen. For some reason the British AI might slightly outweigh the antagonist and desired provices from Ottomans higher than the threat level of the germans. I'm not sure how heavily a "threat" rating is treated versus "antagonist" or desired provinces. Might be a matter of there being minimal territory the Germans have that the British want causing them to have a less intense posturing towards them?

Again the AI's expeditionary choices are pretty awful usually (like Japan sending expeditionary forces to Europe on a non Russian front when fighting the Russians in Asia at the same time and not doing amazingly well).