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A need for AI German & Italian Conditional AI switches for a Human USA Player

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froglegs

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This is a very fine mod. I like the Order of Battle, tech tree (even if it is a bit confusing), and map changes.

I suspect though that much tweaking of the game beyond the Ger/Sov war has been done mainly handsoff. What is see as the greatest issue is with the lack of proper AI Ger and AI Ita response to a human USA player.

With Italy for instance, the home beach defense needs to be immediately increased against a human USA to prevent early capture by a human USA player by mid 1942. This is such a rout for the Italian army that even southern Germany becomes easily under attack by a human USA player.

This leads to a human USA player much too easily with few mobile divisions of ARM, MOT, and MECH to penetrate into the southern German homeland. A conditional AI switch is needed, conditional upon USA being human and German AI of course, that greatly increases the German army response to these relative few mobile divisions (relatively few compared to what is faced on the Russian front). Inserted into the ai flie needs to be something like country_priorities = { usa = 500 (or even 900) }.. Otherwise the AI Ger does not respond in enough force to these relatively few divisions -- compared to the SOV front.
 
Hi,

Actually, the ITA AI just needs to keep more units in ITA period. However it doesn't seem to like doing that. Maybe you could look into that first Zsar as the same issue can happen for a human ENG that stocks up some mobile land units.

WRT to the AI it is indeed mainly worked hands off or for a GER player. Though we do try and tweak things whenever a solid opportunity arrises.

mm
 
Actually ita_homeland.ai gives a beach defense of 200 but it requires Italy to lose most of the North African ports I believe to fire. The problem though is that a human USA player will commonly stage at GIB and invade an under guarded Sardinia or even Sicily, then hit anywhere on the west coast of Italy with a 6 division invasion supported by TAC air without ever landing first in Africa. Even Malta is a good staging area for an invasion of the Italian homeland.

Fixing the Italian beach defense will do a lot to prevent the human USA early war push into southern Germany. But even so, something does need to be done with the weighting factor for AI Germany versus human USA forces in my opinion. Otherwise, mobile USA ground forces to easily capture Germany's industrial (IC) heartland too quickly and easily.

Historically, when USA/UK invaded the Italian mainland, an army group was immediately moved by rail from the Kursk battlefield to respond. Some sort of rapid AI German response is needed to simulate this so as to guard the narrow Italian mainland with and effective force that can at least slow down the human USA advance. I am not certain exactly how to achieve this though. I sense that as it stands now, AI Germany does not respond to any USA forces in Italy until they are first already adjacent to the German territories in northern Italy. Then it is already too late to respond in a timely manner.

Anyway, I think that you all can understand the problem that I am describing here. Thanks for any consideration that you can give to the issue.
 
Hi,

I agree there are issues here. Though I think part of the problem is mechanics. AFAIK the GER AI will not normally respond to an invasion of ITA until the invading forces actually become adjacent to GER territory. There are some ways to work around this. But they are pretty cumbersome. The other issue is that it's hard to get an AI to shift units from one front to a different one. It may be possible to do. But it definitely requires a lot of scripting and/or testing.

WRT to the ITA beach defense I'm indeed more concerned with USA/ENG bypassing torch and indeed going straight after ITA itself. ITRW this would have been problematic. But in game it's pretty doable. So we need AI ITA to hold more forces in ITA proper. This will minimize the ITA overperformance in Eypt as well.

mm
 
Generally, I find that the GER AI DOES respond to an invasion of Italy. Much depends upon their status in the SOV, tho. If pretty successful, it takes awhile for the AI to transfer troops back to the West.

Froglegs, are you ALWAYS experiencing an easy climb up the pennisula? Are you doing anything that might be considered "cheats" to get the USA a powerful land force? Just asking for clarity's sake.

Watch that shifting the ITA AI doesn't create a monster beach defense. Usually, the ITA units stiffen before Rome is reached. Certainly before the Po. And, if not ITA, then GER units close the gaps from the West and the North.

Also, it used to be that the first enemy province captured via amphibious assault fixed it as the main supply point for friendly supplies. Hence, Sardinia is a bad choice for first amphibious assault, Sicily only marginally better until the Regia Marina is cleared from interdicting the Messina Straits.

Very difficult to manage some of the AI interactions without breaking something else.
 
I always get that early rapid move through Italy. Often because there are several beaches on the Italian west coast and one of them seems always weak enough to hit. Also, it may even be north of Rome although Anzio is normally the beach of choice because of terrain.

The only "cheat" that I consider to be a cheat in the game that I use is to have Chrysler research 1936 Industrial, then 1938 Industrial, and then 1938 economic recovery while US Steel researches 1936 recovery. This allows USA to complete Chrysler 1938 Recovery in ~Sept. 1937 whereas otherwise they would not be able to complete 1938 Recovery until almost 1940. I posted this line of research perhaps 4 months ago on the board and questioned as to if they considered it a cheat and was essentially told that I sacrificed too much to accomplish this. I still disagree!

I am basically playing at difficulty of "normal" except for giving AI + 20/20/20 IC /resources/MP, Axis +10/10/10 IC/RES/MP (so net is +30 Axis), Japan +100 IC/+200 coal/100 iron/50 rares off board daily as long as Tokyo is intact, +1000 manpower, and a Pearl Harbour event that does 98% damage to 8 USA BBs.

Since Sardinia is not on the Italian mainland, it is not the source of supply to the mainland. Often it is Florence. And if not, Anzio.

Once USA comes into contact with German territory, the response is still inadequate. The AI looks at 18 divisions or whatever of grunt Russian infantry at various stages of strength and compares it to perhaps 3 mobile USA divisions at 100% per territory and says to itself "what me worry?" -- and it is dead wrong! That is why the human USA force factor needs to increased greatly.

In real life the bypass of N. Africa for the USA would not have happened because the British demanded help, the landing craft numbers were not sufficient, 60%-70% of USA ground forces sent abroad were sent to the Pacific at that time because of a number of reasons mainly political, and because USA really did not want to fight Italians in combat because of the large number of recent Italian immigrants. Anyway, the main object was to free France, not fight in Italy. Italy was considered Churchill's war.
 
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Hi,

Agree that against a human the AI response is probably not adequate, IMO the first thing to tackle is keeping enough forces in ITA proper. that should prevent a quick blitz into southern GER. The next thing to look at is making sure enough forces are held in reserve in the West as I doubt that getting the AI to pull forces from the SOV front is likely to work out well. Having reserves in the West also serves as a backstop for France.

mm
 
I agree with that. The easiest way to prevent the US advance into is Germany is by delaying their invasion of the Italian mainland.

I saw another mod a few years ago, maybe it was SEMP, that held some German divisions undeployed until certain key points in Italy were captured, but I would rather see a more determined beach defense as the preferred way to do it. One problem though is that the Italian army just fights so very badly in the game against a nation with superior ground doctrines.

Maybe if 1936 Amphibious Operation Analysis were denied the US until 1943 and they could then only invade with a max of 3 divisions it would be a lot easier to get it right. Again, the realy problem that the US had early on was the shortage of landing craft -- as did everybody else. Really, it wasn't until Tarawa in 1943 that a modern type invasion took place against a truly defended beach.

When you consider that the Germans intended to land in England August 1940 out of basically barges one wonders how exactly that was suppose to work. You end up with a lot of men trying to swim ashore with 60 pounds of equipment hanging on their bodies.
 
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If you are bypassing North Africa, then I believe it is the ITA Naval AI that needs some tweaking. Perhaps the ITA subs should more actively patrol west of the penninsula? Also, the ITA and GER Air AIs should be threatening anything that approaches either Firenze or Anzio.

Currently, I find the ITA Naval AI avoiding the western Med , and the Air AI not being overly effective against shipping.
 
It is my observation that by mid 1942 the British navy has practically eliminated the Italian navy or at least shot it up so badly that it will not sail. I, as the US, send a couple of fleets there containing all the non-Pearl BBs, 7 to be exact with 1 or 2 CVLs plus Fletcher class DDs with anti-sub attachments. Oh -- by the way -- I never build BBs but I do build CAs and a lot of CVs -- all Pacific duty of course, The only transports that I have ever lost off the west coast of Italy were from Italian subs so I always sail with 1 extra TT relative to transported ground troops just in case. I don't like losing 18,000 men in one shot. Normally though I see nothing of the Italian surface fleet which seems to be in Taranto. It only seems to sail when it has to when I capture Taranto with a ground division. This can and should be corrected somewhat by changing Italy's min damage for a fleet to sail from 98 to 80 or maybe to even a lower number once the US enters the war. Otherwise, the whole fleet gets sunk in one final battle when it is forced to sail from Taranto and it is never a surprise that it is leaving port because it has to sail.

So -- the main tweaking of the Italian navy seems to be to build more ships and research more naval techs mainly. I perhaps see the Italian army capture Suez 1 game in 10 or so and even then it does not hold. Meaning that 90% of the time the Italian army's venture into N. Africa is a total waste of men and production. Sounds historic!

Another point -- if I am not playing this game single player as USA, I play 3 player often with a human German who takes control of Italy. This is a different kind of game of course. But the point I wish to make here is I have an event in that game with the human German that if Malta is captured, then Italy gets 1000 convoy transports for free to reflect this. Just another conditional event that I like to employ.
 
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Hi,

Indeed the ITA AI does lose most of it's fleet. While this isn't exactly ideal it is better than them just doing nothing with them. IMO the loss rates are about right. Just that the total loses on both sides are higher than historical.

mm
 
I agree that ship loss rates are close enough. I am of the opinion that in real life ships were withheld from battle so as to preserve them for national prestige reasons or what some might call "bragging rights". The best example of this perhaps was the German navy of the Great War -- which was lost in the end anyway. Even the British in the Great War were turned back by mines from running the straights at Gallipoli with obsolete battleships that were scheduled to be mothballed if they had survived. Perhaps high ranking naval officers felt an attachment for an old ship that they had served on in their youth as well.
 
Hi,

ITRW there was definitely a "fleet in being" concept that was followed to a certain extent. The AI just isn't that careful and doesn't really keep any "reserve" of Navl units. Not much we can do about it other than force the AI to keep damaged units in port.

mm
 
To be fair: It is very hard to preserve ships in a naval combat in AOD. Even if the AI cared, its only realistic option would be not to use the units in the first place.

Does not help that the most modern and costly italian ships are often sunk first; all those heavy cruisers are basically cannon fodder once the battleships are gone.
 
It is generally a bad naval battle decision to mix in obsolete capital with modern capital ships. This is mainly because each extra capital ship results in a -0.03 effect upon both the attack and the defense value of all ships in the battle. And, the range of obsolete ships is generally less. It is -0.03 rather than -0.015 since each capital ship requires an escort and also, the escort is normally not in attack range during the important early part of the battle. True, all ships are cannon fodder to enemy surface ships whereas only capital ships are attacked by CVs in a mixed stack. Anyway, the Italian navy mixes everything and that is one of the reasons they do so badly.

I also suspect that the overall speed of a fleet affects the chances of being hit in a battle but that is hidden somewhere in the exe file. Can anyone confirm this for me? When I used to play "Sea Power" 45 years ago speed affected hit chances.
 
Blecky said:
How would you think about it being a crew member aboard one of those old ships?
Click to expand...

Churchill claimed that if the Brits could have gotten a few old BBs through and put Constantinople under naval gun fire, it would have knocked Turkey out of the war in 1915. It was not worse for the crew in one of those ships than going over the top when a whistle sounded in the trenches. What were the lives of a few thousand sailors versus the carnage of the extended war in the trenches? Russia likely would have been spared and Allied victory would have been a couple of years sooner.
 
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