C.O.R.E HOI - Western Europe (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Iberia, etc)

[unmerged(15101)]

Agree with you, Halibutt. It would be pointless to have two consecutive 'B' options needed for an event to ultimately occur. The probabilities become so low as to not even need the event chain.

Good point, a 1/400 chance is hardly worth coding for the AI. Here's a suggested outline based on the ideas of Phil K and Forezjohn, with several opportunities for the player to make the choice, and a combination of triggers and random chance to control the probability for AI:

FRA#1 - Response to Rhineland reoccupation (already in the game, just needs a new option added)
A - protest, but no action
B - extend Maginot line
C - extend Maginot line and partially mobilize
D - we must prepare for the next war, not the previous one(+10 dissent, sleep #2,3)
E - threaten war if Germany does not withdraw immediately

FRA#2 - Response to Anschluss of Austria
A - stick with defensive strategy
B - we must rearm and modernize our military (+8 dissent, sleep #3)

FRA#3 - Response to Munich
A - begin rearmament, defensive strategy
B - begin rearmament, shift focus to armor/air power (+5 dissent)

If France chooses the 'change of doctrine' option in any of these 3 events (4 if you want to add another in 1939 or whenever the war begins), you have a random chance of this:

FRA#4 - Political opposition to rearmament policy (trigger could check for high dissent, low warentry, or political polarization event)
A - we can't afford this (-3 dissent)
B - continue rearmament (trigger FRA#5)

If #4 does not happen, or if option B is chosen in #4, then:

FRA#5 - Rearmament and Modernization
A - minor changes (+5 dissent, +techs, sleep opposing leaders)
B - major changes (+10 dissent, +more techs/doctrines, sleep more leaders/ministers)

Regarding the Moroccan uprising against Nationalist Spain, this fired during the SCW and Italy DOW'ed Morocco immediatley and invaded it several times, in the proces losing quite a lot of troops because it was winter, full of rain and those mountains...

The Moroccan independence events are still unfinished, I sent them to Generalisimo asking for advice, but wasn't expecting them to appear in CORE v0.6 Changing the events so that the DOW is made by Nat. Spain and not Morocco should prevent Italy from joining in, but might cause some problems with France. I'll have to keep testing...

(By the way, for this event I need a list of potential independent Morocco ministers and leaders. It's a very small nation and an unlikely event, so HoS/HoG and 1 or 2 leaders would be enough, but alternatives for democracy/fascism/communism would be better. If anyone knowledgeable has advice on this it would be a big help.)

 

[unmerged(18738)]

Originally posted by nachinus
Well, in fact FRA uses the exp forces the same it uses the rest of its army... in a defensive way.

So if the US ai lands in Lille and conquers the prov and gives all the invasion Force to FRA, FRA ai will keep aaaaall those units in Lille defending it.

You know, that's exactly what I am seeing. I think it does need work. Glad to know you're on it, Steel.

-PK

 

[nachinus]

Oh!, returning to SCW... after all this time messing around with it and making little changes i finally had an extraordinary result. After applying Generalissimo's idea (reducing the infra in most mainland provs until the war is over) the first (and by now only) test had the following result: Nationalists winning the war (good!)... in March 1940!!! , but Euskadi resisted alone one more month, so the war in Spain didn't finish until April 1940! Excellent!!! Well, i suppose its just a lucky game, i'll make more tests and let you know.

Still, i think that ESK gets independence too often for an ahistorical event, maybe the event needs harder conditions, or at least a minor 'random' number and a higher offset.

 

[Generalisimo]

Originally posted by nachinus
Oh!, returning to SCW... after all this time messing around with it and making little changes i finally had an extraordinary result. After applying Generalissimo's idea (reducing the infra in most mainland provs until the war is over) the first (and by now only) test had the following result: Nationalists winning the war (good!)... in March 1940!!! , but Euskadi resisted alone one more month, so the war in Spain didn't finish until April 1940! Excellent!!! Well, i suppose its just a lucky game, i'll make more tests and let you know.

Still, i think that ESK gets independence too often for an ahistorical event, maybe the event needs harder conditions, or at least a minor 'random' number and a higher offset.

excellent... a good start...

 

[Generalisimo]

about France...
i think that the concept of "occupied" France is what hurts the game... i do not know if France can maintain such huge forces when they are deployed into their ground, for example:
french survivors+British EF+Canada EF+Australia EF = a lot of resources
Remember that France after they loose mainland Europe, they loose Indochina too, and usually North Africa too... so, they receive a VERY small amount of resources after that...
Are you considering that the troops could not be moving because of a lack of supplies/resources?
I haven't tested it, but i do not think France has a lot of resources to maintain such large armies (and navies if they were not in port during the german invasion) after they defeat in mainland Europe.

Just my thoughts...

 

[nachinus]

Originally posted by Generalisimo
about France...
i think that the concept of "occupied" France is what hurts the game... i do not know if France can maintain such huge forces when they are deployed into their ground, for example:
french survivors+British EF+Canada EF+Australia EF = a lot of resources
Remember that France after they loose mainland Europe, they loose Indochina too, and usually North Africa too... so, they receive a VERY small amount of resources after that...
Are you considering that the troops could not be moving because of a lack of supplies/resources?
I haven't tested it, but i do not think France has a lot of resources to maintain such large armies (and navies if they were not in port during the german invasion) after they defeat in mainland Europe.

Just my thoughts...

Maybe that has something to do.

Prolly FRA cant support those units for long time. But i think that its mainly a ai issue because if the case was only lack of supplies eventually the units would stop moving or being effective, but they could be used for some days or weeks. When those units are given to FRA, they are in an excellent position to immediately make an offensive against weekly defended positions, but they never even start moving. If the problem was only supplies, they could attack immediately and eventually grow weak and useless and then the stack would become static... sorry, i meant 'deffensive'

Anyway, supplies are prolly an important issue with FRA, and if the US or UK makes a succesful invasion and handles all that units to FRA and a France_rebound_ai is created maybe we would need a 'overlord'-like event that gives FRA lots of supplies and even resources to maintain those exp. forces.

 

[unmerged(18738)]

Regarding French rearmament

I've posted what I feel is an important debate over in the Event Depository thread on democratic process and it's replication in our event writing.

So I'd encourage those in on the French rearmament thing to read and join that discussion before we move forward on this issue.

Just a suggestion.

-PK

 

[Steel]

Originally posted by nachinus
Maybe that has something to do.

Prolly FRA cant support those units for long time. But i think that its mainly a ai issue because if the case was only lack of supplies eventually the units would stop moving or being effective, but they could be used for some days or weeks. When those units are given to FRA, they are in an excellent position to immediately make an offensive against weekly defended positions, but they never even start moving. If the problem was only supplies, they could attack immediately and eventually grow weak and useless and then the stack would become static... sorry, i meant 'deffensive'

Anyway, supplies are prolly an important issue with FRA, and if the US or UK makes a succesful invasion and handles all that units to FRA and a France_rebound_ai is created maybe we would need a 'overlord'-like event that gives FRA lots of supplies and even resources to maintain those exp. forces.

Does anybody have a v0.61 savegame showing this behaviour? It's trivial to change the capital, add 10000 supplies and edit recklessness to test which of these affect AI actions positively.

 

[unmerged(18738)]

Regarding Fallout Boy's event chain:

Can we actually have 5 options for an event? I was under the impression that four was the limit.

 

[unmerged(18738)]

Got one, Steel

I am sending a most interesting savegame to you. It's not actually pre-fall of France; it's a French invasion, but it hits the issue right on the nose.

-PK

 

[hendriks]

About SCW;

Euskadi independence doesn't always fire, I've seen it once out of three real games now and I've also seen one SCW lasting till April 1939 (causing me as Germany some problems 'cause you're sort of waiting for the experience techs )

I've never seen Catalonian independence fire. I've you are going ahead with the infra reduction (not a bad idea), I think we will need to revisit the tech gains and maybe have them come after specific events and not after the whole war(they will be useless to the AI but also to a human player, so backing Franco becomes a matter of consideration now, not an automatically taken great opportunity, and I think we should stay as historical as possible.

About France, Vichy this time;
Vichy fired with me during a german game and still many belgium divisions remained on french soil so they needed to be taken out, always weird this. After the Vichy creation, even with the supplies going to them, the north african vichy troops run out of supply immediately after Vichy was created, allowing UK to land troops and take all of NA Vichy before 1940 is up.
Vichy puts 33 divisions on Marseille, but leaves the beaches east and west of it completely empty, I think a new garrison AI needs to be made for Vichy, supplying NA troops and stationing 80% of the mainland forces on the 3 beaches in the provence.
Did Vichy have 40+ divisions after the capitulation of France?

 

[Steel]

Originally posted by hendriks
Did Vichy have 40+ divisions after the capitulation of France?

IIRC they were limited to a standing army of 100.000. There's no way to model that in game.

 

[jdrou]

Originally posted by Steel
IIRC they were limited to a standing army of 100.000. There's no way to model that in game.

Actually one of the possible fixes for another problem with Vichy could be to build their military from scratch instead of inheriting it. That would take care of this problem at the same time (making an Axis Vichy less of a problem). The problem (report in the bug forum) is that French leaders of units that are inherited by Vichy become Vichy leaders. Doesn't seem right to have De Gualle as a Vichy leader. You would probably need to do the same to France though. It's a very brute-force deterministic fix but it might be acceptable unless France is played by a human.

 

[Steel]

Originally posted by jdrou
Actually one of the possible fixes for another problem with Vichy could be to build their military from scratch instead of inheriting it. That would take care of this problem at the same time (making an Axis Vichy less of a problem). The problem (report in the bug forum) is that French leaders of units that are inherited by Vichy become Vichy leaders. Doesn't seem right to have De Gualle as a Vichy leader. You would probably need to do the same to France though. It's a very brute-force deterministic fix but it might be acceptable unless France is played by a human.

I see where you are coming from, my main objection is that since we can't distinguish between army and navy we may end up creating a Vichy fleet containing the same ships as Germany or Italy already captured or destroyed during the fighting.

 

[jdrou]

Originally posted by Steel
I see where you are coming from, my main objection is that since we can't distinguish between army and navy we may end up creating a Vichy fleet containing the same ships as Germany or Italy already captured or destroyed during the fighting.

We could probably avoid having ships with the same name at least; just make sure none of the French starting OOB ships are in unitnames.csv for Vichy. Any ships created would pull their names from there. If we're using historical numbers for Vichy army then a few ships shouldn't be a problem. I notice Vichy usually doesn't get the majority of the French fleet as it is; giving them historical numbers of ships would be a step up.

 

[Generalisimo]

Originally posted by hendriks
About SCW;

Euskadi independence doesn't always fire, I've seen it once out of three real games now and I've also seen one SCW lasting till April 1939 (causing me as Germany some problems 'cause you're sort of waiting for the experience techs )

I've never seen Catalonian independence fire. I've you are going ahead with the infra reduction (not a bad idea), I think we will need to revisit the tech gains and maybe have them come after specific events and not after the whole war(they will be useless to the AI but also to a human player, so backing Franco becomes a matter of consideration now, not an automatically taken great opportunity, and I think we should stay as historical as possible.

the idea is that those events are not easy to be triggered...
so, if you do not see them every time is a good thing...

 

[Gwalcmai]

But have you seen the Catalonian independence firing? I haven't. In fact, I seem to remember pointing out a trigger problem in wiki. Was it fixed?

 

[OHgamer]

An interesting potential solution to the Vichy debate...perhaps

Have been away but had some time free tonight to try to catch up on what is going on with CORE. Anyways I saw the whole Vichy Axis/Neutral debate in the main HoI forum. I think I may have stumbled on a solution.

When I scripted the Lebanon & Syria events for the establishment of Vichy puppets over them, I gave both the "B" option of resisting Vichy and joining the Free French. Meant just to give human players of either Syria or Lebanon an option, and never thought much about it. However, the other day I was playing a game for testing some ideas on Vichy and had Vichy go neutral and not be a German puppet. Well Lebanon AI chose the B option and the next thing shocked me - Vichy was at war with the Allies (including Lebanon) but still a NEUTRAL in the Axis-Allies conflict. The Allied AIs then went about attempting to launch Torch against Casablanca and Oran (which, because I was not making Vichy a puppet, it was able to repulse and even go on the offensive, seizing Gambia in W Africa from the British!) Anyways could this potentially be the solution to the problem of Vichy in HoI? Have Lebanon rebel against Vichy and go "Free French" (which could be crushed quite easily as it only has 1-2 military units or even scripted further to restore Vichy control, which actually happened - it took over a month for Vichy to establish firm control over Syria and Lebanon) leading to a war between Allies and Vichy (the undeclared conflict that existed in reality) while Vichy remains a neutral in the struggle between Axis and Allies?

Or have I just dropped one too many disco biscuits, seeing and thinking things I shouldn't be

 

[JRaup]

I think I pointed this on the wiki, but don't recall. Here's what transpires:

1. Vichy created.

2. Vichy takes control over Syria and Lebanon.

3. Syria loans it's units to Vichy (Vichy is in Axis).

4. UK re-establishes control over Syria and Lebanon.

5. Vichy annexes Syria, then Lebanon, as Syria has no units (they're Vichy), and rolls into Lebanon, and annexes her.

6. UK sweeps through the area.

7. Free France gains control of Syria fires, with no effect.

 

[OHgamer]

Originally posted by JRaup
I think I pointed this on the wiki, but don't recall. Here's what transpires:

1. Vichy created.

2. Vichy takes control over Syria and Lebanon.

3. Syria loans it's units to Vichy (Vichy is in Axis).

4. UK re-establishes control over Syria and Lebanon.

5. Vichy annexes Syria, then Lebanon, as Syria has no units (they're Vichy), and rolls into Lebanon, and annexes her.

6. UK sweeps through the area.

7. Free France gains control of Syria fires, with no effect.

Will check out #7 - may have something to do with ENG being head of alliance, or perhaps Syria-Lebanon not being "national" provinces of FRA (???).

As for what I am suggesting, here is how the sequence seems to have worked :

1) Vichy Created - Neutral in general war and NOT a puppet of Germany (I was testing some ideas I had at the time, this is NOT currently how CORE works.)

2) Vichy control over Syria and Lebanon fire - and Lebanon chooses "Resist" option, creating war between Vichy and Lebanon and Lebanon joining allies. Here the order in which this happens is key. Lebanon and Vichy have to be at war first before Lebanon joins allies. If Lebanon joins allies first, then goes to war with Vichy, game mechanics result in Vichy joining Axis, I believe

3) Because Lebanon is in allies, Allies declare war on Vichy - a war that is separate from the general war Axis-Allies.

Result - Vichy fights Allied attempts to seize its territory, but is NOT a direct part of the Axis. Overall war continues on, and the Allies can now legitimately launch Torch on N Africa (which in the game I saw this series of events happen, did exactly that, launch raids on Casablanca and Oran). Events in Syria-Lebanon would likely result in Vichy SYR annexing Allied Lebanon (would need to script an event to restore LEB if that happened) unless the English AI in Palestine immediately helped Lebanon, which is unlikely given the way the AI works. And events to have Vichy transfer supplies to Germany could be scripted to simulate the impact of German dominance on the Vichy economy without making Vichy a puppet of Germany, which would default put it in the Axis.

I guess the biggest issue would be whether a neutral, paternal-autocrat Vichy at war with the Allies would, sooner or later, make an alliance with the Axis. Perhaps the AI could be manipulated (give Vichy a hate value of -200 for Germany for ex). If we can get this scenario to work, however, then I think the most realistic depiction of Vichy in the game could be created.

This is all in the realm of early suggestions, just wanted to let people know what I had happen in the belief it might be a helpful contribution to the whole Vichy debate.