AI army control

[Bobbes]

Hello everyone,

i don't really understand how to let the AI control parts of my army in a proper way. I marked the correct button at the army-HQ-level and chose the retreat stance (or sometimes the defend stance) in the same window. The problem is that the units below the specific HQ often do stupid attacks (e.g. 1 tank vs 5 tanks) although according to the stance they may not attack at all. Also i set marks for 2-3 provinces to defend but this doesn't seem to help.

Can anybody explain how to configure your HQ so that the units below won't attack at all?


greetings from germany

 

[Cpt Crash]

If you register your game you will get all the advice you can stand--and then some.

 

[Bobbes]

I already registered my game.

 

[Pro_Consul]

According to your profile, it didn't take. Perhaps a typo or something prevented it from completing. You do understand that by register he means here on this website, right? He is not talking about a Steam or Gamersgate account, if that was the impression you got. You get there by clicking the "My Games" button at the top of this page.

 

[Kadanz]

you can hide your game icons.

 

[Pro_Consul]

And the place to unhide them is the same place as to register them.

 

[Bobbes]

My game icon was hidden, now you can see it.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I would recommend learning to play without using the AI. Play a smaller nation with a limited army, so you won't be overwhelmed by the number of divisions.

 

[Pro_Consul]

The stance is not a hard and fast "Do this and nothing but this" order. Rather it is a generalized instruction more akin to "these are you general objectives and rules of engagement". There is always room for the AI to exercise discretion, however. A retreating stance tells the enemy to try to pull back if it thinks the enemy is too strong, while avoiding having your supply lines, and your divisions!, cut off by advancing enemies. Sometimes the AI will make what appear to be spoiling attacks, i.e. attacks with seemingly hopeless odds intended merely to slow the enemy advance and buy time for other units.

Edit: and sometimes the AI will seem to ignore you. You may put it in a withdraw stance but it holds it ground; or you may put it in attack stance but it...holds its ground. If the AI feels the enemy is too weak to retreat from, it won't withdraw; or if the enemy is too strong, it won't attack.

Of course no matter what stance you choose, sometimes the AI may do completely stupid and crazy things. For that last, there are a variety of precautions and practices you can employ to limit the AI's bad habits while improving its overall ability to successfully and/or efficiently do what you want it to do. I posted some of these yesterday right here.

 

[pocho.hr]

AI system makes mistakes all you can do is experiment more. AI likes big numbers of simple divisions. redraw Theatres, maybe. i hate when they strategicaly redeploy themselves all around. just zoom out.

 

[21oliver]

As Germany i give them very specific "zones" of control. For example 25 INFx3 ARTx1 (you can get by with less, but this ensures it) along the Maginot Line area will keep the French out of Germany. I place 25 Divisions in 5 Corps, under 1 Army, 1 Army Group, 1 Theater. I put them on defensive. I give them essentially a one zone wide line from Switzerland to Lux. The dont move out of there and simply defend that zone. Works well.

 

[Cpt Crash]

As already pointed out, the ai will attack for various reasons--even under "defend" orders. There are three way's, using the ai, to stop or slow this behavior.
1. Reduce the force under ai control so it is truly outnumbered. You can have a reserve army in the immediate area without orders that can be attached when/if necessary.
2. Use the defend order, but with no objectives, or objectives to the rear--no objectives in enemy territory.
3. Issue orders to army groups only. Activate the superior Theater HQ aggressiveness control, and set it to minimum--full left.

Of course, a combination of all three is an option.

When you get into a bad situation--like playing Germany and seeing the ai throw away manpower rapidly pause the game and adjust. Change the size of AG's under orders and so on. Consider smaller theaters so you can have smaller/weaker AG's relative to the enemy in the area.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

If you want the AI to do nothing, to just sit there and do nothing, do NOT give the AI any objectives + stances. It's that simple. If you want it to do nothing, then give them nothing to do. Just manually move the divisions + HQs to where you want them and then do nothing else with them.

 

[Charles Reeps]

The AI doesn't need objectives as it already knows what to do. The only way to stop the AI from doing anything is to not activate it.

 

[Pro_Consul]

The AI doesn't need objectives as it already knows what to do.

I disagree. The AI often thinks it knows what to do, but whether that has any relation to what you actually want it to do is often a very problematic issue. Issuing specific objectives, altering those it has, etc. can help you shape how the AI defines its AO and its mission, and thus its behavior. For example, you may have an army HQ with forces covering the northern provinces of the border with the Netherlands and another one covering the southern provinces plus the border with Belgium. If you just wind them both up and let them go with no objectives set, they may both decide the best route is to wheel north along the coast, leaving the southern province or two completely uncovered and forcing them to bunch up both armies and suffer stacking penalties as a result. The simple act of setting the southern army an objective on the southernmost enemy-held province along the front will force it to direct its attention directly ahead instead of trying to detour through the neighboring army's AO.

(By the way, I pulled that example out of my butt just to illustrate the point. Don't jump down my throat if my hypothetical example did not correlate 100% with a recent game experience. :ninja: )

 

[Charles Reeps]

I disagree. The AI often thinks it knows what to do, but whether that has any relation to what you actually want it to do is often a very problematic issue. Issuing specific objectives, altering those it has, etc. can help you shape how the AI defines its AO and its mission, and thus its behavior. For example, you may have an army HQ with forces covering the northern provinces of the border with the Netherlands and another one covering the southern provinces plus the border with Belgium. If you just wind them both up and let them go with no objectives set, they may both decide the best route is to wheel north along the coast, leaving the southern province or two completely uncovered and forcing them to bunch up both armies and suffer stacking penalties as a result. The simple act of setting the southern army an objective on the southernmost enemy-held province along the front will force it to direct its attention directly ahead instead of trying to detour through the neighboring army's AO.

(By the way, I pulled that example out of my butt just to illustrate the point. Don't jump down my throat if my hypothetical example did not correlate 100% with a recent game experience. :ninja: )

No reason to jump as I was unthinkingly refering to theater AI, not Army level AI. My bad:sad:

 

[AchedTeacher]

I would recommend learning to play without using the AI. Play a smaller nation with a limited army, so you won't be overwhelmed by the number of divisions.

I don't see how that helps you, as sooner or later you're going to play as huge countries, unable to control every single unit.

 

[Charles Reeps]

I don't see how that helps you, as sooner or later you're going to play as huge countries, unable to control every single unit.

I agree that one should start with a large nation, but you can control every unit. It's just tedious and requires you to play at a very slow speed. The one drawback? Doing this to the AI is like taking a bag of kittens and beating it with a bat.

 

[Pro_Consul]

No reason to jump as I was unthinkingly refering to theater AI, not Army level AI. My bad:sad:

Heh, even then there is room for AI psychosis. I have seen a German theater HQ on AI control orders more than 3/4 of its total ground troops to leave their AO in the Caucasus region in Turkey and march west then north trying to go all the way around the flippin'' Black Sea so that they could attack the enemy from the north. In effect they turned a 200km approach march into a 2000km (or so) flanking maneuver. It was possibly the single most absurd thing I have ever seen the AI do. And it was not only repeatable; it took a fair bit of experimentation to figure out how to tweak the AI's objectives and theater boundaries to make it NOT do that every single time. While I do grant that the theater AI has fewer such crazy hangups that the lower HQ levels, when it does do something crazy the nutty effects are hugely magnified.

 

[Pro_Consul]

The one drawback? Doing this to the AI is like taking a bag of kittens and beating it with a bat.

I am with you on that. That is the main reason I play with AI control in any game where I have not already seriously gimped myself in some other way. It seems only fair, after all, and still leaves the net advantage to me since I know how to issue orders in such a way as to curb some of the more common AI oddities, while the AI controlled nations will continue to display them all.