Doomsday AI

[richtman]

I was under the impression that DD AI was equal to the AI in hoi2 v1.3. But I played a game now as germany on "hard" diffuculty something I've done before and won, now it didnt really go "swell". By houserule I dont allow myself to construct more then 5 factories each year however I had still managed to get more IC then Soviet at the start of the war.
But things kind of collapsed when staging the invasion of Poland, I would've won over poland of course but my defence along the maginot line crumbled and France steamrolled me. And I noticed the UK and other allies already then bombing my Industry all over Germany for decent damage. I'm just curious, has the AI been improved in DD compared to hoi2 v 1.3, or was I just not playing as great as I thought

 

[Darth Tracid]

AI has been greatly enhanced.

 

[tripp_trap]

I was under the impression that DD AI was equal to the AI in hoi2 v1.3. But I played a game now as germany on "hard" diffuculty something I've done before and won, now it didnt really go "swell". By houserule I dont allow myself to construct more then 5 factories each year however I had still managed to get more IC then Soviet at the start of the war.
But things kind of collapsed when staging the invasion of Poland, I would've won over poland of course but my defence along the maginot line crumbled and France steamrolled me. And I noticed the UK and other allies already then bombing my Industry all over Germany for decent damage. I'm just curious, has the AI been improved in DD compared to hoi2 v 1.3, or was I just not playing as great as I thought

AI is better, this is one of the main reason I bought DD . Hehe... I remember my first GER '36 in DD. I almost bled myself dry on Ghent when I was invading France on Hard/Normal. I was so frustrated after that (Won after a few weeks more of Panzer attacks on other provinces. Then quit the game when I saw that almost none of my commanders had gained exp )

 

[richtman]

oh wicked, im gonna reload before the DoW and try again Guess I'll need more defence along the maginot line. It mustnt crumble

 

[Eddy Gemmell]

Much better

I think the AI much better.

In my current game I have over 20 divisions in India along with about 30-40 Uk/Aus/SA divisions (not under my control) and the Japs + Asian allies are kicking my butt attacking from all angles and trying to encircle us!

I have Patton there as a level 6 FM with a HQ unit (of course) but we are still getting whipped (it's 1944).

And by the way, I've played the game since day dot so I know the odd trick or two...

 

[unmerged(51672)]

Wanted to chime in and agree the AI seems better. Having a tough time with NatChina, battle of attrition at the moment and it's been nearly 4 years. Of course, could be my strategy of going for quality and not quantity, but I'm slowly wearing them down. (I hope).

Ian.

 

[Spruce]

I was under the impression that DD AI was equal to the AI in hoi2 v1.3. But I played a game now as germany on "hard" diffuculty something I've done before and won, now it didnt really go "swell". By houserule I dont allow myself to construct more then 5 factories each year however I had still managed to get more IC then Soviet at the start of the war.
But things kind of collapsed when staging the invasion of Poland, I would've won over poland of course but my defence along the maginot line crumbled and France steamrolled me. And I noticed the UK and other allies already then bombing my Industry all over Germany for decent damage. I'm just curious, has the AI been improved in DD compared to hoi2 v 1.3, or was I just not playing as great as I thought

you should try a Japan game on hard ! Great fun guarantueed ...

 

[Lothos]

This does my heart good

 

[USAF_777]

Hehe I lost my first DD game, as Germany – imagine my surprise when the USSR actually resisted being encircled, always attacking my leading units when at low org...so Barbarossa ground almost to a halt. I had to put aircraft production on hold to churn out more infantry, which led to the U.S. bombers et al. flattening either France or southern Germany (depending on whether my interceptors patrolled Austria or Normandy, splitting them between the two got them shot to pieces). Next thing I know the Soviets are moving their 300+ infantry back through Lithuania and the Polish swamps and soon the full force of the Wehrmacht could substitute for my Polish garrison divisions...

 

[Invader_Canuck]

In my last game as the Soviets, I had no problem with the Germans.

I disbanded all of my starting divisions, and started moving towards standing army as soon as I was hawk/interventionist. I started long serials of 39 infantry in 38 (early research) by the time the Germans invaded in '41 I had just over 200 infantry divisions and over 30 fighter wings.

The Germans made virtually no advances the first summer, during the winter I launched some ineffective counter attacks around Memel.

The following spring the Germans broke out in the south and took Kiev followed by moving towards the Crimean. I followed up with a second massive counter attack through the baltics and this time broke through. I moved to capture Berlin and then headed due south. As an aside, Romania actually refused the Hungarian/Bulgarian demands, none of them joined the axis. Romania ended up in a war with Hungaria and Bulgaria before finally capitulating. I pushed down to Slovakia and cut off about 70% of the German forces. It was then just a matter of cleaning up.

The real shock came in '49 my front with the allies was across the Suez, with over 200 divisions located within 3 provinces of the eastern side squaring off against my 50 armored divisions.

Nat Chi declared war. They had a MASSIVE army. I started cranking out mountain divisions and moving much of my european forces to Nat Chi. I couldnt make any headway against them. They had 47 infantry/fully maxxed out mountain troops. I'd attempt a break through from Vladivostok and immediatly have 60+ divisions counter attack my lead elements. Eventually after 2 years I started to mass enough force to slowly make headway in Manchuria and in Central Asia but they had anexxed Mongolia and were making my life miserable in that region. The only damage I could really inflict was when I could dislodge some divisions in the area around Vladivostok, I had 9, 3 wing CAS's on constant ground/interdiction and would quickly obliterate any movement.

Eventually China offered a white peace which I gladly accepted as they were surging into Siberia while I held firm on the flanks near afganistan/vladivostok.

I loaded up the game from their perspective after the peace and they had 292 '47 vanilla infantry/mountain divisions. Considering through minor encirclements and the damage my airforce did I eliminated at the minimum 80 divisions i'd say Nat China can become a nightmare for a Soviet player with high beligerence who is otherwise occupied trying to handle the 700 or so divisions they will run into from the combined allied forces ;p

 

[unmerged(38672)]

I disbanded all of my starting divisions

So gamey... Do you think the Russians would have done that in real life?

 

[Alexander Seil]

Sure, why not? There is a trade-off, by disbanding your army you're giving up your ability to involve yourself in a conflict for several years (and I am a big fan of a, eh, pro-active approach to national defense). Besides, if the game mechanics allows it and it's not a bug, it's not "gamey", but a part of the model. Of course, one could argue that USSR should be DOWed by Poland and Japan or something of that sort if it really does it...

In "real life", however, that would merely imply a massive restructuring of the military. Not too common, but does happen. For example, the Iraqi army was still at least partially intact in 2003, when the American civil administration disbanded it (in game terms, because the upgrade costs would be too high...).

 

[Spruce]

Sure, why not? There is a trade-off, by disbanding your army you're giving up your ability to involve yourself in a conflict for several years (and I am a big fan of a, eh, pro-active approach to national defense). Besides, if the game mechanics allows it and it's not a bug, it's not "gamey", but a part of the model. Of course, one could argue that USSR should be DOWed by Poland and Japan or something of that sort if it really does it...

In "real life", however, that would merely imply a massive restructuring of the military. Not too common, but does happen. For example, the Iraqi army was still at least partially intact in 2003, when the American civil administration disbanded it (in game terms, because the upgrade costs would be too high...).

spies !

 

[Invader_Canuck]

Actually, I tend to think it is more difficult to fight the germans by disbanding the divisions you start off with.

Instead of having what +130 divisions on them you have to play catchup and when they launch barbarossa you may even be behind them #'s wise.

You may be referring to supply costs but lets be real here. Im cranking supply the entire time so that when the pewp hits the fan I can turn my supplies off and breeze through the war with a stockpile inexcess of 600k. Losing 15-20% of that stockpile to supply the extra 100 divisions isnt going to change much.

So to sum things up.

I could fight the Germans in 1941 with 350 divisions 200~ of which are 1939, and the remainder 1918.

Or I could fight the Germans in 1941 with a shade over 200 div's.

Which makes it easier for the SU seems pretty obvious to me, 1918 inf may not be very useful for attacking, but it is great at generally clogging up offensives and acting as a deterant or hinge point on which you execute an encirclement.

For the record, the Germans according to my 10 spy intelligence in that game had over 100 divisions more than me, probably due to EXP forces.

As to real life, of course not. However this is a game, and I feel more challenge is provided by starting from scratch and playing catchup. The underlying idea here is this is a game, meant to be fun. I don't have fun waltzing over people, I have fun when it is challenging and the result is not pre-ordained.

I guess you could call it gamey, because it is a game and it is something people might do with the game to make it more enjoyable for them ;p However, my understanding of gamey is something that more closely resembles cheesey and I don't think it is ;p

 

[Prussia]

Played a game from 36' with Italy and i waited some time before i entered the axis to better organise my forces...
The game rolled historical and when i joined the axis (late 1941) i quickly kicked out of africa the british forces but as i was fighting i saw that germany was having pretty hard time with the soviets and the attack quickly stalled...i was in a hurry to relieve some forces from africa to send them to russia and in late 1943 the russians made a huge push to german and mine forces...for a time i was really frightened and i had a feeling that the war had taken a bad course....

My attention was again drawned in the african theatre because the french and british has amassed some big forces and they begun to push my troops upwards( i had stopped some provinces down of the somalian area because i was in a hurry to send the troops to russia....dah )

Nevermind, the surprise came at the february-march of 1944 when i saw the germans to attack the soviets and push them backwards!!!!!!
They also managed to encircle 21 russian divisions and destroy them!!!

Jesus christ i was wondering how on earth the germans found the power and the forces to counterattack in winter conditions and managed to throw the soviets behind Minsk......good AI...

 

[Alexander Seil]

Actually, in the vanilla disbanding Soviet army allowed you to save on upgrades, which was the real reason for doing in. Of course, now you have the option to not upgrade, so why bother disbanding the army? As Invader-Canuck points out, the only thing you'll save on is supplies...

 

[Ex Mudder]

Hehe I lost my first DD game, as Germany – imagine my surprise when the USSR actually resisted being encircled, always attacking my leading units when at low org...so Barbarossa ground almost to a halt. I had to put aircraft production on hold to churn out more infantry, which led to the U.S. bombers et al. flattening either France or southern Germany (depending on whether my interceptors patrolled Austria or Normandy, splitting them between the two got them shot to pieces). Next thing I know the Soviets are moving their 300+ infantry back through Lithuania and the Polish swamps and soon the full force of the Wehrmacht could substitute for my Polish garrison divisions...

Playing as the US, I've seen the allied bombers shot to pieces (completely eliminated) by the time Germany invades the low countries. I've also seen the Ger bomber force trashed in that same time period. Part of it is the AI flying missions at half strength and no org; part of it, I think, is that the AI doesn't allocate enough ICs to reinforce it's planes.

As for my "I love the AI" moment... Despite entering the Allies before war breaks out, I've TWICE been outflanked by Germany in Normay. I used to loathe the amphib invasion AI - now I find myself with 6 divisions of infantry trying to keep the Germans blocked to Southern Norway, and my sole Mtn division sitting up north on the last remaining victory province. The damn germans keep getting reinforcements to Norway despite the fact that I have *7* carriers trying to prevent them from doing so. They even overran and destroyed my Interceptors in Oslo

In my last game, I lost 3 divisions of infantry in Belgium because they couldn't retreat from Brussels to Ghent before the blitzkrieg got there.

I even figured out how to get the Japanese AI to do a historical conquest of China - they actually took and held the costal provinces first. Unfortunately, they annexed NatChi in Dec 1940. I'm still not sure how that happened. I think a passivity event fired for China, so they couldn't counterattack a three province long (and 1 wide) thrust into China's heart. They AI will usually cut off and destroy such a thing. Instead, I watched half of China's army get encircled and destroyed.

 

[unmerged(55538)]

assembling troops for invasions is working a lot better and faster IMO...

 

[Alexander Seil]

Just a thought, how in the world did you get 7 carriers as NORWAY? Are they British or British-built?

 

[Josephus I]

So far mid-way through my first GC in DD, as the USSR, I would probably say the AI seems better. The Germans in July 41 blitzed through most of western Russia as they did in real life. They also maintained the pressure during that first winter. The German higher land doctrine allowed them to attack me across a river, at night, in a snow storm and still win.

The AI does do some good things like attacking my armies that are attacking another province to gain the flanking bonus. However the AI still seems nervous about attacking major cities. After two years the Germans have broached Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad but have never launched a full scale attack on these cities, prefering to try to encircle the cities.

My main issue, though, seems to be that the German AI has not produced any planes. Wither the Luftwaffe? My two squadrons of interceptors have complete control of the skies, only occasionally running into a Romanian or Hungarian plane. Does the German AI not produce planes. I loaded up as Germany once and saw he had a bunch of transport planes in queue, but no war planes.