AI - The make or break of HOI IV

[Tartan Spartan]

Unfortunately until you have an AI which is sufficiently competent it will be almost impossible to balance the game.
1) if the soviets can't maintain their army during the grand retreat the Germany will alway dominate Europe
2) if Britain can't threaten europe then 1 becomes even more guaranteed
3) if the whole Ger army is commited to the steppes (far in excess of the forces required) then implausible sneak attacks on berlin are far too easy

Trying to compensate for these with national modifiers and IC balancing is basically impossible.

That said there are clearly some simple things you can do things with the game design and mechanics to make the AI more resilient - e.g.
- make retreating units move faster (maybe at the cost of increased attrition)
- allow retreating units to regain re-org as they move
- make sure the AI doesn't retreat units to provinces which are currently being attacked*

* I tested this issue a while back with HOI3 as republican spain. The nationalists have the bigger army, so the republicans end up retreating a lot - with the AI in charge they often retreat sideways and end up trying to retreat to provinces which are about to be occupiedd by enemy troops (and get destroyed). Intervening only to make decisions about where units should retreat to allowed the republic to last >twice as long as the basic AI vs AI.

 

[Sharp163]

I completely agree. If the Pacific theater is still broken in HOI4, I might not even bother buying it.

We definitely need an AI dev diary, in addition to one on Nuclear Weapons (and other Wunderwaffe)... A pacific theater dev diary too would be much appreciated.

Instead we get ones on the radio :I

 

[CyberianK]

I don't need or expect smart competent AI because that's almost impossible in games like these imho.

I am just fine with an AI that is not completely failing at playing the game. Meaning I am happy if it is building units, those units don't stand around in a frozen state and move in the general direction of the enemy. I don't expect any smartly executed naval invasions or similar moves that aren't super easy to counter.

 

[cacra]

I don't need or expect smart competent AI because that's almost impossible in games like these imho.

I am just fine with an AI that is not completely failing at playing the game. Meaning I am happy if it is building units, those units don't stand around in a frozen state and move in the general direction of the enemy. I don't expect any smartly executed naval invasions or similar moves that aren't super easy to counter.

I agree.

It would be great to have a good AI but when there are as many variables as there are in HOI4 it becomes impossible.

 

[Giovanni1234]

i think isn't soo hard to do for the AI.. if a province is undefended take it..

 

[SchwarzKatze]

i think isn't soo hard to do for the AI.. if a province is undefended take it..

Best way to get your units pocketed.

 

[Giovanni1234]

Best way to get your units pocketed.

The AI isn't able to do pockets...

 

[Vazal]

Now that the Beta is approved the game should be feature complete and the things to do are bug testing, balancing, and working on the AI. I suspect it will be the best AI of any HOI game (not necessarily saying anything), but as mentioned before, we will have to wait until the release to see.

Why do you think that for HoI4 it will be the best AI? Maybe in a couple of years after x expansions it will have a good AI, but I fully suspect a bad AI, exactly in the same way it was when HoI3 was released.

What I think is that AI will have it easier for HoI4 than for HoI3, as imo HoI3 was/seems to be a more complex game than HoI4.

 

[SchwarzKatze]

The AI isn't able to do pockets...

I mean this part

if a province is undefended take it..

 

[NicoCL68]

Abandon all hopes. IA will be stupid forever. This is a game wprth only to play multiplayer.

 

[Oakfan]

for OP:

A.I development never ends.

 

[FieldMedic]

I'll likely worry about the AI until I see it preform well in action. It's a hard thing to get right and if it's bad it can completely scuttle the gaming experience D:

 

[Sharp163]

I'll likely worry about the AI until I see it preform well in action. It's a hard thing to get right and if it's bad it can completely scuttle the gaming experience D:

... You just got me thinking... Maybe there's a reason that the Paradox team has shown almost nothing of the AI capabilities yet...

 

[Afganitia]

Indeed, what I meant was an AI capable of using them

In hoi3 the AI uses fairly good paras. As Germany 100% chance of paratroopers on undefended Paris. UK, D day, if you don't protect your port, paras there. Tibet, starting wwiii. UK paras to the capital.