4 years and 1 months since release - AI still braindead

[papapyro]

Was pretty excited with this Austria-Hungary run - for the first time Austria had peacefully agreed to unite with me (which you'd think would give cores, but no, there's still resistance there for some reason), Czechoslovakia had peacefully agreed to become my puppet, and in arbitration I had gotten Northern Transylvania from Romania.
So I was looking forward to having a good fight against Germany. When the war started, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we were pushing into Southern Germany some! And then I panned over to the Sudetenland, and was horrified to see that my puppet had only left a skeleton crew on the level 7 forts there...
WTF Bohemia?! Why the hell does my AI puppet feel the need to abandon their own defensive positions in a defensive war in order to help with my defence (which I think would have gone just fine without them, thanks very much), and essentially throw away the war in the opening weeks? Does CZE AI seriously not have some sort of strategy that says "IF AT WAR WITH GERMANY DO NOT JUST ABANDON YOUR DEFENSIVE LINE"? I can see why HOI4 has the largest multiplayer community by far out of any of the Paradox games - its AI is by far the worst.

 

[Dlin369]

24 divisions doesn’t seem enough to beat the German invasion - the AI is scripted to go try plugging up weak points in the line and with level 7 forts it probably overassumed it’s ability to hold.

Also you could and probably should request divisions from your puppets for close battles like these

 

[Gort11]

I can see why HOI4 has the largest multiplayer community by far out of any of the Paradox games - its AI is by far the worst.

The Stellaris AI is much worse.

HOI4 has the largest multiplayer community in Paradox games because it has the largest playerbase.

 

[balmung60]

The Stellaris AI is much worse.

Similarly, the EU4 AI is so broken that it almost completely nullifies diplomacy because the AI is always so deep in debt that it will never ever answer a call to arms.

At least HOI4, CK2, and Imperator have AIs that can manage somewhat passable approximations of playing the game. Sure, there are flaws like Imperator needing its fort logic fixed so large countries actually defend their borders and capitals with forts and HOI4's frontline logic, but at least those games can sort of manage their own most basic economic aspects.

 

[donald dawkins]

I feel that the AI in HOI4 is substantially improving

Since the latest patch I'ev seen the USA do countless naval invasions into D-day, italy, southern france, norway, have lots of air support and generally act a lot more aggressively in reinforcing successful naval invasions. Equally, allied air control means that once a d-day occurs they can really screw up a german defence line.

Equally, unless you do an awful lot of encirclements in the soviet union, i'ev found that they can survive an awful lot longer and actually push back in some situations.

I'ev actually had a game where i genuinely lost to a historical AI allies and comintern; I had pushed past moscow, leningrad and stalingrad but they hadn't capitulated. Then the allies naval invaded Italy and southern france, and due to their air superiority I couldnt crush the beach heads. Then, they invaded greece and started pushing up from there AND to top it all off the resistance drain on my garrisons meant I couldn't feed in more troops or upgrade my garrisons enough to counter attack!

In short I slowly lost the war as the romanian front collapsed (the ai abandoned the front to push into greece =( )and the constant strategic bombing and rampant allied air superiority slowly pushed me out of france, italy and russia.

Don't get me wrong, the ai is still hopelessly useless at some things (like stopping convoy raids or the allies actually holding the pacific, or romania refusing to push into the soviet union as it's not bordering the country after some land is taken) but it's getting to the point where it can be a bit of a challenge.

 

[Emren]

Was pretty excited with this Austria-Hungary run - for the first time Austria had peacefully agreed to unite with me (which you'd think would give cores, but no, there's still resistance there for some reason), Czechoslovakia had peacefully agreed to become my puppet, and in arbitration I had gotten Northern Transylvania from Romania.
So I was looking forward to having a good fight against Germany. When the war started, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we were pushing into Southern Germany some! And then I panned over to the Sudetenland, and was horrified to see that my puppet had only left a skeleton crew on the level 7 forts there...
WTF Bohemia?! Why the hell does my AI puppet feel the need to abandon their own defensive positions in a defensive war in order to help with my defence (which I think would have gone just fine without them, thanks very much), and essentially throw away the war in the opening weeks? Does CZE AI seriously not have some sort of strategy that says "IF AT WAR WITH GERMANY DO NOT JUST ABANDON YOUR DEFENSIVE LINE"? I can see why HOI4 has the largest multiplayer community by far out of any of the Paradox games - its AI is by far the worst.

The AI is clearly best in the historical setting. Alt-history screws the AI in many cases.

 

[ecpgieicg]

Equally, unless you do an awful lot of encirclements in the soviet union, i'ev found that they can survive an awful lot longer and actually push back in some situations.

With all due respect, that's a sign of you not pushing AI USSR enough.

(More than half the time, AI USSR struggles to keep up with manpower requirement if player Germany pushes the slightest.)

 

[Jays298]

I feel that the AI in HOI4 is substantially improving

Since the latest patch I'ev seen the USA do countless naval invasions into D-day, italy, southern france, norway, have lots of air support and generally act a lot more aggressively in reinforcing successful naval invasions.

To me the naval invasions are too gamey, too spammy, the AI treats them tactically rather than strategically and just spams them, like 6 at one time. Yes successful ones will be reinforced.

But I think any naval invasion would have carried a huge political risk if they resulted in massive losses. Same with any paradrops.

It's not something to be done halfway like an AI would do.

 

[Dlin369]

I think part of the improvement in AI is improvements with the Battle Planner - it's still flawed but nowadays I've seen both AI and my battleplanner successfully encircling a few divisions if there are holes in the line as well as keeping them pinned

 

[ecpgieicg]

Similarly, the EU4 AI is so broken that it almost completely nullifies diplomacy because the AI is always so deep in debt that it will never ever answer a call to arms.

At least HOI4, CK2, and Imperator have AIs that can manage somewhat passable approximations of playing the game. Sure, there are flaws like Imperator needing its fort logic fixed so large countries actually defend their borders and capitals with forts and HOI4's frontline logic, but at least those games can sort of manage their own most basic economic aspects.

I've played a good number of nations in EU4 to the position of being able to launch (+complete) a world conquest up to v1.27.2. Never once did I run into a bankrupted major except for Ming (which does so by design). PLC consistently makes good end-game boss (unless player is Austria/Russia/Prussia) with no issue on ducat or on manpower.

Meanwhile in HOI4, AI Germany consistently run out of manpower against player France -- trivializing the fruit of marching onto Berlin after a heroic defense. The same with Germany/USSR pair. Whenever player plays Germany/USSR competently but don't feel like ultra aggressive, AI USSR/Germany runs out of manpower before you can blink your eyes.

 

[balmung60]

v1.27.2

There's your problem (or rather, why you don't have one).

1.30 is what broke the AI. Something about the new mercenary system leads to the AI hanging onto mercenary companies it can't afford forever while constantly raising regiments because it wants/needs an army and immediately disbanding them because it can't actually afford them, shredding its own manpower and further tanking its economy. The result is that even after decades of peace, the AI has no manpower and is thousands of ducats in debt.

 

[ecpgieicg]

There's your problem (or rather, why you don't have one).

1.30 is what broke the AI. Something about the new mercenary system leads to the AI hanging onto mercenary companies it can't afford forever while constantly raising regiments because it wants/needs an army and immediately disbanding them because it can't actually afford them, shredding its own manpower and further tanking its economy. The result is that even after decades of peace, the AI has no manpower and is thousands of ducats in debt.

I just checked the patch note titles. It's 1.30.3 now. Maybe 1.30.4 will get that kind of major bug fixed.

The current version of HOI4 broke the AI in a major way too. I haven't updated to 1.9 for that reason. Though I am going to hold off criticizing PDX for failing basic maintenance of their game until the next major patch.

 

[brantodb01]

HOI4 AI is soooooo much better now then at release

 

[coffeelingfine]

The Stellaris AI is much worse.

HOI4 has the largest multiplayer community in Paradox games because it has the largest playerbase.

Yeah, I don't think HOI4's AI is that much worse than PDX's other games tbh

 

[Commonblob]

To me the naval invasions are too gamey, too spammy, the AI treats them tactically rather than strategically and just spams them, like 6 at one time. Yes successful ones will be reinforced.

But I think any naval invasion would have carried a huge political risk if they resulted in massive losses. Same with any paradrops.

It's not something to be done halfway like an AI would do.

I imagine paradox decided against very large invasions due to the risk posed by convoy raiding. The AI is likely not adept enough at naval warfare to be able to safely commit large numbers of divisions.

The important thing is that the game has become more difficult. Seeing how much the AI improved in 1.9 makes me optimistic, if we get an improvement of that scale with every patch (or at least every second patch), we'll have a monster AI by the time HOI4 is completed.