Are ahistorical Italy / Germany supposed to be so... lethargic?

[Liggi]

I'm doing an ahistorical run that I've wanted to do for a while:

• Playing as the UK, going The King's Party route but joining France in the war against Germany
• Japan goes democratic (trying to delay / avoid the US joining the war)

So on cue, Germany declares on Czechoslovakia, but they never surrendered the Sudetenland, so they just kinda... sit there. Then they call Italy into the war.

So it's now been months and months and Germany hasn't done anything. Hasn't attacked Poland, hasn't attacked the Netherlands, isn't trying to bomb anyone, no planes. Italy and Germany are using their navies, that seems to be fine.

But Italy is only tepidly attacking Southern France... I've sent a few divisions there to help out and they are holding the line easily. I've even pushed them back a bit. They've also totally abandoned Africa apart from North Africa, where, again, some tepid attacks towards Suez, but again, I've already started pushing them back with about four divisions.

Is this normal? If you go historical, Germany goes crazy and dominates almost the entirety of Western Europe easily. Italy makes a very decent stand in Africa... so what's going on?

 

[Spelaren]

I'm doing an ahistorical run that I've wanted to do for a while:

• Playing as the UK, going The King's Party route but joining France in the war against Germany
• Japan goes democratic (trying to delay / avoid the US joining the war)

So on cue, Germany declares on Czechoslovakia, but they never surrendered the Sudetenland, so they just kinda... sit there. Then they call Italy into the war.

So it's now been months and months and Germany hasn't done anything. Hasn't attacked Poland, hasn't attacked the Netherlands, isn't trying to bomb anyone, no planes. Italy and Germany are using their navies, that seems to be fine.

But Italy is only tepidly attacking Southern France... I've sent a few divisions there to help out and they are holding the line easily. I've even pushed them back a bit. They've also totally abandoned Africa apart from North Africa, where, again, some tepid attacks towards Suez, but again, I've already started pushing them back with about four divisions.

Is this normal? If you go historical, Germany goes crazy and dominates almost the entirety of Western Europe easily. Italy makes a very decent stand in Africa... so what's going on?

If Germany doesnt capitulate France or any other of their goals they wont declare any further wars. At least from my experience of unhistorical.

 

[Liggi]

If Germany doesnt capitulate France or any other of their goals they wont declare any further wars. At least from my experience of unhistorical.

They haven't even attempted to attack France though, or Poland. They actually haven't attacked anyone at all.

 

[squid_hills]

Are they at least attacking Czechoslovakia? Because if they are just sitting there doing nothing then I think it may be some kind of bug. In my experience, Germany will throw everything it has against the Czechs, while keeping just enough guys on the Maginot to keep France from over-running them. They also have a habit of doing Danzig or War while stuck fighting the Czechs, without moving any units to the Polish border (because everybody is busy in the Sudetenland) which predictably results in Poland pushing pretty close to Berlin before Germany pulls its finger out.

 

[Liggi]

Are they at least attacking Czechoslovakia? Because if they are just sitting there doing nothing then I think it may be some kind of bug. In my experience, Germany will throw everything it has against the Czechs, while keeping just enough guys on the Maginot to keep France from over-running them. They also have a habit of doing Danzig or War while stuck fighting the Czechs, without moving any units to the Polish border (because everybody is busy in the Sudetenland) which predictably results in Poland pushing pretty close to Berlin before Germany pulls its finger out.

I think they attacked for a bit, and then gave up.

 

[Iskulya]

"Supposed to" implies intention, so in that sense, no.

The issue is that the focus weights for alternative AI strategies weren't done all that well, so the AI tends to spend ages bumbling around taking years of unimportant focuses giving them research bonuses for battleships and strategic bombers that they never build anyway.

I think the devs should take a look at Road to 56 mod to be honest. That mod used to be a huge mess, but they put a lot of work into the AI strategies around alternate history focuses(even for the unmodded trees) and it leads to outcomes that are a lot better and more fun than in vanilla.

For instance, try setting the game rule for the Greek AI to bring back King George. It's basically impossible for the Greek AI to win the civil war without player intervention. I've also never seen the AI succeed when set to monarchist portugal. It results in a civil war in Portugal that the AI inevitably loses, and the civil war in Brazil the monarchists also lose. Every time.

It is an issue. Not a huge one, but it is a problem in my opinion. I think these things should be designed so that the AI can actually achieve them.

There have been a few improvements over the past year in regard to AI alt-history strategy plans, but there needs to be even more improvement. I think this is the result of the unforseen popularity of alternate history. This game was not designed at the outset to accomodate alternate history. The ability to switch ideology and such was more or less something thrown in on the side. Nobody anticipated it would become so wildly popular, so essentially the issue is that the AI was never really designed to function well in this sandbox environment with historical focuses off. I expect that the sequel will be much better in this regard, but Road to 56 has proven that a lot of improvements can already be made here and now.

 

[squid_hills]

I think they attacked for a bit, and then gave up.

Well that's weird. They usually go all-in on the Czechs.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

I think this is the result of the unforseen popularity of alternate history. This game was not designed at the outset to accomodate alternate history. The ability to switch ideology and such was more or less something thrown in on the side. Nobody anticipated it would become so wildly popular, so essentially the issue is that the AI was never really designed to function well in this sandbox environment with historical focuses off.

That's very interesting. Explains a lot regarding Paradox priorities and how we see some bug fixes and not others.

 

[kettyo]

If the Germans can't capitalize on the initial momentum against Czechoslovakia it will predictably result in a stalemate as the Czech border is very long, it will suck up most of the Wehrmacht so Germany won't ever do Fall Gelb.

In this case i think is better if you're edwardist UK to join Germany, finish France off and take all the juicy bits.

If you take Germany out with France you'll most probably be ripped of most of the spoils as democracies can force government for very cheap. Allying democracies as a non-democracy isn't really recommended for this reason.

 

[Liggi]

The whole point is that I'm doing a sort of RP run where Churchill and Edward team up against Hitler... so a kinda close-to-historical, but not-quite-historical game. But I guess maybe the game just doesn't like me doing that, and so it's just not playing ball. Seems a shame, but like others have said, it doesn't seem like the AI is really built to deal with ahistorical scenarios very well.

 

[squid_hills]

The whole point is that I'm doing a sort of RP run where Churchill and Edward team up against Hitler... so a kinda close-to-historical, but not-quite-historical game. But I guess maybe the game just doesn't like me doing that, and so it's just not playing ball. Seems a shame, but like others have said, it doesn't seem like the AI is really built to deal with ahistorical scenarios very well.

Force the issue. Naval invade Germany. That should get Germany's attention. And if you capitulate them in a year or so, don't worry; Papa Stalin will start some sh** sooner or later, so you'll still have plenty of war to look forward to.

 

[kettyo]

The whole point is that I'm doing a sort of RP run where Churchill and Edward team up against Hitler... so a kinda close-to-historical, but not-quite-historical game. But I guess maybe the game just doesn't like me doing that, and so it's just not playing ball. Seems a shame, but like others have said, it doesn't seem like the AI is really built to deal with ahistorical scenarios very well.

You can invade Hamburg, maybe supported by planes from France i think. Just be prepared that France and Czech will force govt upon most (maybe all) of Germany before you could take anything.

 

[Nakkivene]

AI germany can't beat AI checkoslovakia because AI checkoslovakia is using a typical player exploit to beat AI, that is, sit in favourable terrain and forts and let the AI bleed itself on your defenses.

At this point the AI is so broken it's difficult to enjoy SP. If you want the Axis to have a modicum of success in SP without playing Axis yourself, try making italy go pact of rome. What this will do is save german forces from dying in the seas on the voyage to ethiopia. Quite literally AI Italy is a worse ally than enemy for AI Germany.