AI launching larger offensives - Just a suggestion

[MaximillanVoss]

Now what I mean right ? Well... take a look at the following scenario.

Late 1944, playing as Germans and Soviets have "liberated" (sorry, can't say that with a straight face) half of Poland. Front continues through Hungary-Romanian border to Greece. Not, instead of launching attacks like it normally does. AI will stall for a week or two and mass forces in Poland and attack through entire Poland while holding positions on the rest of the front. This would make a big emphasis on your command, let's say Soviets throw 800,000 men through Poland, thanks to your skills you manage to encircle them and destroy 400,000 of them. The iniciative changes, enemy is severly weakened. Enough for you to make a counter offensive and retake some of the lost ground. Or you will be smashed to pieces and will have to retreat to another river to form a defensive line.

I think something like this would not be impossible to program, what do you think ? I want Major Historical Operations be represented by more than just a window pop-up with buffs and duration.

 

[Moppy771]

Agreed. I could never see sudden sweeping offensives by the AI in any of my games, they would always move as a cohesive front. This is a historical aspect which the AI should try to preform and exploit. Things like the Ardennes offensive and Operation Bagration. Or even big strategic encirclement attempts like what occurred at Kursk.

 

[Axe99]

Aye, it'd be great to have more cohesive offensives (and invasions), where the AI built up forces on one point of the line to smash through, rather than had the whole line balanced and walking forward as best it could. All being well, the battle plan system might help with this a bit, although it might take a little while to get it balanced right. I reckon this is the first HoI with the base mechanics that could be used to build up to this kind of thing .

 

[SonGoku]

Agreed. I could never see sudden sweeping offensives by the AI in any of my games, they would always move as a cohesive front. This is a historical aspect which the AI should try to preform and exploit. Things like the Ardennes offensive and Operation Bagration. Or even big strategic encirclement attempts like what occurred at Kursk.

+1

Give the AI the ability to detect traps and lure the player into her own traps!

 

[Adonnus]

Seeing the AI focus on certain sectors instead of constantly attacking like in HOI2 or always moving forward en masse would be wonderful.

 

[ikeokp]

This is a question of improving the AI as a whole which is something all games suffer from. AI will unfortunately never be as unique as humans are until we get to the point of uploading human thought into our computers (which is a surprisingly close phenomenon).
So this would be a awesome feature but I doubt is really doable with current AI technology.

 

[Moppy771]

This is a question of improving the AI as a whole which is something all games suffer from. AI will unfortunately never be as unique as humans are until we get to the point of uploading human thought into our computers (which is a surprisingly close phenomenon).
So this would be a awesome feature but I doubt is really doable with current AI technology.

On the contrary, you can have stupid AI doing this, however failing miserably in the process. It is one thing to make "intelligent" or "good" AI, but this is just about how the AI should try to do offensives or encirclements. The Kursk encirclement failed, the Ardennes offensive (1944) failed, an offensive by the AI should not translate to: AI doing successful attacks against the human player. It's enough for us as long as the AI tries to do offensives, but it's completely separate to how efficiently they do it.

 

[Bane5]

This might be part of the reason for the implementation of the battleplan system. Time will only tell if the AI makes good use of it.

 

[Jazumir]

Chances are, it wont and the battleplan feature will be axed completely in V.

 

[Denkt]

If they have't changed battleplan system much then you will get a bonus for waiting in each phase of the plan, maybe even more so if you follow the Grand Battleplan doctrime which the ai will likely take in account.

Chances are, it wont and the battleplan feature will be axed completely in V.

Plz don't be so negative

 

[Moppy771]

Chances are, it wont and the battleplan feature will be axed completely in V.

Yeah, let's try and be optimistic.

 

[Axe99]

Chances are, it wont and the battleplan feature will be axed completely in V.

There's a decent chance that the Battleplan system could form a good 'backbone' for the AI to work off - it's definitely got a heap more potential than previous HoIs. Only time will tell, but if they remove the Battleplan system, they'll need to put something similar to it in for the AI to give us anything more than the performance we've had in the past.

 

[Dinglehoff]

I'd like to see larger successful amphibious assaults by the AI against a defended province or island, preceded by or concurrent with an air campaign to better the odds. From what I've seen; the AI doesn't have the build orders or the fleet and army grouping to even make this possible.

 

[apfelstrudel]

couldn't agree more with OP. i really want to see the enemy launch a big offensive/counter offensive against me. never experienced this case in previous HOI.

 

[Jazumir]

There's a decent chance that the Battleplan system could form a good 'backbone' for the AI to work off - it's definitely got a heap more potential than previous HoIs. Only time will tell, but if they remove the Battleplan system, they'll need to put something similar to it in for the AI to give us anything more than the performance we've had in the past.

I was just drawing a parallel to a feature about which everything you said could have been said 5 years ago as well.

 

[Denkt]

I was just drawing a parallel to a feature about which everything you said could have been said 5 years ago as well.

5 years are a very long time and that old system was likely never intended to be the dominate way of controlling you armies in the same way as the battleplan system will be.

 

[Axe99]

I was just drawing a parallel to a feature about which everything you said could have been said 5 years ago as well.

Haha, sorry, that was a fair play. That said, I think there's a bit more potential for this than the theatre/AI system thing. By all means laugh at me post-launch if it doesn't work out, but I've got a good feeling about this . While I respected PDS' efforts with HoI3 (and still enjoyed the game immensely, particularly from Semper Fi onwards), I didn't have as good a feeling about it prior to launch.

 

[apfelstrudel]

There's a decent chance that the Battleplan system could form a good 'backbone' for the AI to work off - it's definitely got a heap more potential than previous HoIs. Only time will tell, but if they remove the Battleplan system, they'll need to put something similar to it in for the AI to give us anything more than the performance we've had in the past.

wait...what?! who said the battleplan system has been removed? i hope not

 

[Axe99]

wait...what?! who said the battleplan system has been removed? i hope not

No, all good (well, as far as we know, but if they've removed that then the devs have got a rough couple of months ahead of them, and it looked pretty good, so don't see why they would), was just a conversation involving hypotheticals .

 

[seattle]

This might be part of the reason for the implementation of the battleplan system. Time will only tell if the AI makes good use of it.

Wow, didn't even think of that before. I only thought about the battleplans from the human player's perspective.
It was indeed always a major a.i. problem that it would simply constantly attack throughout the entire front line.

Historically armies would plan and amass troops for large scale offensives that would focus on a few sectors.
The human player does exactly the same. You think of a Barbarossa plan, deploy your troops accordingly and make sure that the timetable works out.
Then once the mud dries you launch your offensive without the a.i. having a clue where your main drives are going to be. That's how warfare works.

I hope the the HoI4 a.i. will do likewise:
- long-planned large scale offensives INSTEAD OF continous attritional attacks
- few selected breakthrough points with several axis of drives towards several targets INSTEAD OF single attacks on a broad front line