Doomsday AI

[GeorgeAmbush]

How do you - after some weeks gameplay - rate the AI improvements ?!

I feel that the AI has been improved quite a bit.. So far I have only been playing Axis (Germany and Japan), but I feel that especially UK and USSR are way "smarter than before".

Before I used to be able to win everytime on Hard level. But I still haven´t got my first "Hard" victory yet.

What do you think of the AI !?

 

[mbb]

The AI in a GER '36 N/N campaign is a lot better than before. It is still too easy for me, but the various country AIs are more robust.

edit: I have mentioned in other posts some things that still require improvement, but for me the two most important items are:

1) The Brit AI must attack German supply convoys by all means available if the German player tries a Sealion

2) The SU AI must, at all times, have at least 3 divisions (of any type) defending Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kiev and Moscow.

If these two things were done, I think a German player like me would find the AI to be a tough nut to crack in 40/41.

 

[unmerged(12544)]

Quote from v1.1 changed log:
- AI will no longer swap divisions around between units indefinitly.

This improvement alone is a HUGE step ahead for the front AI. You can clearly see that for large land operations like Fall Gelb or Barbarossa.

 

[Mattias]

encircled by the AI

In my first game as UK i was busy encircling the germans in the westernmost parts of Germany when i suddenly was out of supply - the bastards had encircled me instead, with a determined thrust through Holland to the sea! Their encirclement was quite well defended as well - wich enabled me to break out with severe losses but losing all land i had conqured previously - and all of Holland and half of Belgium . Well done AI! (can't be me can it?? /M

 

[WarDog]

I find the AI to be a serious step forward.

After playing with DD, there is no going back. With the user compiled hotfix, things are looking realy good for DD.

Nice work Lothos!

 

[unmerged(1272)]

The AI and My 1936 TurkeyExperience

My view on the AI after playing through from 1936 as Turkey.

1. I could only see the front move, but it seemed like a real Barbarossa was happening within approx historical time frames. Germany took Moscow and Leningrad, but eventually got pushed all the way back (how far? more on that below.)

2. North Africa was bizarre. From about 1941 until about 1950 the British had a stack of units in El Alamein and just below, and the Italians had adjacent units. Nothing happened there the whole time. Occasionally the Italians would launch invasions into the Levant, which was cool, but the British flapped around trying to clear them out but never really decisively winning the front (which they had the resources to do).

What's worse, the Allies didn't conquer the beaten Italians in North Africa until 1951, and never delivered the knock out blow to the Italian homeland. Russia took all Italy north of Naples, but Sicily and southern Italy where still holding out. They weren't even invasion attempts. Kudos to the Italian AI though - once the Russians moved out they reconquered all of Italy, and even invaded Malta! They should have lent some of their big hairy Colleones to US and the British AIs.

3. While Germany was crumbling in the East, D-Day never came. The UK looked like Manhattan for most of the game, but those divsions went no where, even when Germany was crushed.

The US was a joke (sse more below on this). There was a US medium sized D-Day invasion force in the Bay of Biscay that never landed ... and never moved oncec Russia took France.

As a result the SU rolled up the whole of Europe - an iron curtain fell from the Bay of Biscay all the way to Vladi-bloody-vostock.

4. Kudos to the Japan AI also. They contolled China, India, all the Pacific to Guam, including the top half of Australia, They had even invaded Persian at one stage. The US and UK AIs just sat by and did nothing.

5. The UK had 90 (!) divisions sitting somewhere on the coast in south west africa while these debacles were happening.

6. The US AI - the bits were lit up, but no one was home. Very passive while the whole world fell under Japanese or Russian domination.

So, my view:

Big ups to Soviet AI (it eventually took India and China from Japan) as well as conquering all of Europe, the Japanese AI for far exceeding historical achievements, and the Italian AI for a great comeback, and the cheeky backhand at Malta.

Brickbats to the UK and the US ... not sure they even showed up on the day.

Commonwealth AI? Canada did nothing. The Japanese are R&R'ing on the Queensland Gold Coast, and half the Australlian army is in Turkey and North Africa doing nothing.

 

[JRShield]

Japan is way to strong atm. They always kick the crap out of china in my games.

 

[unmerged(52397)]

Japan is way to strong atm. They always kick the crap out of china in my games.

i have a different experience, china kicks japan in my games

ai is better, it could be even more better but progress is noted

 

[DarthJF]

I have mostly been playing as China now, so I have concentrated mostly on japanese AI. How AI plans it's offensives has really gotten better and now they also make counter offensives when given possibility and sometimes they have even managed to rescue their forces from being encircled.

I'd say that there have been serious improvement.

 

[Panzerotto]

I also think that the AI has greatly improved but I also found some things that should be changed:

- After I conquerd France in Winter '39 I tried as usual a sealion. It looked to be a difficult task cause the UK defended all coasts with at least 3 divisions. But a few days befor my troops should land the AI moved ALL troops in england (around 30 divs) to Plymouth... -> I think the AI prepared a invasion of france but they should guard their coasts at all time!

- After I conquerd England and the still powerfull remaining Homefleet rebased to India, the allied AI still tried to guard the english coast by sending large fleets on combat patrol around england. So it was a easy job for my naval bombers to wipe out the UK and later the US navy. While the allied fleets patroled england without harming my convoys the japanese navy hand an easy job in the pacific they didn't lose a single ship bigger than a CL in the entire war while I sunk 34! US carriers around England. The only Invasion the Allies tried was with 1 div against my 3divs in Belfast. -> There should be a trigger for the AI after a successful sealion that they stop to send fleets to guard england. Maybe they could send some ships on convoy raiding but should stop that too if their losses get to high. And mybe they should try a REAL invasion of england.

- During my invasion of america a large US fleet were more or less light damaged by my nval bombers and moved to Norfolk for repairs. It stayed there even after I started a amphibious attack on Norfolk with only a light guarded Invasion fleet. they first leaved the port after I took control over Norfolk. -> For the AI the attacking of an invasion fleet should have a higher priority as repairing the ships.

- at one point the Italian AI stoped to fight in Africa. they had stationed large forces in one province in middle africa and watched for years as free france took back middle afrikaa nd cut of the italian troops from the north. Also in other wars I noticed that some AI countrys turned to inactive mode. E.g. in my second war against the SU none of my allies attacked even totaly unguared SU territory

 

[Spruce]

yesterday, the French where overrun and when I reached La Rochelle and Brest they staged a counterattack and re-captured Paris !

 

[Invader_Canuck]

I think the allied AI is still pretty weak.

I have played 7 GC's from 36 to their conclusion in Europe, as well as run 3 hands off games.

Germany has won 5 times, the Soviets 2 times. (I played Germany once and SU twice not counting those results with AI vs AI)

Not once have the allies landed in Italy, or Sicily. Not once have the allies landed in France or anywhere else in Europe. They have beaten Italy back every time and usually quickly.

The one and only time the allies accomplished anything, was when Republican Spain joined the allies, and as the SU was pushing Germany back through Poland they launched an offensive when Germany absorbed Vichy. With Fog on I assumed the Brits, Canadians and Americans were involved. However, when I turned fog off to check it out, there was not a single British, Canadian or American division present. It was all Spain.

The Coldwar went hot with 50 Spanish divisions in western Germany squaring off against over 400 Soviet Divisions along an axis just west of Denmark.

Allied AI needs work I think.

 

[unmerged(55306)]

I notice the AI has real difficulty in dealing with certain situations that aren't historically scripted. Two examples of this in games I've played as Italy:

#1 - Decided to play Italy as a neutral country in WWII, just to see how it would go. Problem was that the Allies did nothing when Germany invaded Poland, so WWII never happened. The Japanese AI didn't seem phased by this development, and decided to launch Pearl Harbour on schedule at the end of '41, which caused the domino effect of USA DOW Japan -> USA Join Allies -> Allies DOW Japan. Now with no one else in the world to fight, you'd figure the combined might of the Allies would stomp Japan flat right quick. But three years later in the game, Japan is still relatively strong. Although it's Navy has been compeletely thrashed, it's Army is still strong and has lost only one or two insignificant islands in terms of territory. Neither the British nor the French seem to be mobilizing forces in the Pacific, and even the USA AI doesn't seem to know how to mount an island hopping campaign.


#2 - In another game, I decided that I was going to invade Spain in mid-36 just before the SCW to boost Italy's industry for the coming war. Suffice to say, I subjected the Spanish in short order, even with most of the Italian Army being older 1918 Infantry with a few Militia to boot. That wasn't really the problem. No, the problem with the AI was exposed three years later in the game when, having allied with Germany early on, I was sucked into WWII right away when it invaded Poland (this time with the historical response from the Allies). So far all to plan, and I always like to attack France right away to knock them out in '39. Usually what happens is I attack from Italy, but the river terrain and re-directed French reinforcements make it a hard slog throughout. The main objective is not to sieze territory (since I lose most of it to Vichy anyhow) but to draw the bulk of France's Army down south which makes the German AI see an opportunity and shuffle over immediately after Poland to blitz France and the low countries around December '39. This works pretty well, and leaves 1940 free for further offensives against either Britain, North Africa, or the Balkans.

This time, however, I decided to try a new tactic, which was to mass the bulk of the Italian Army's 40 or so divisions (not counting garrisons) out of Spain, with only a token force manning the land forts along the French-Italian border to prevent retalitory incusions. Problem for the French AI is that it prepares for War by going with a historical rather than dynamic deployment pattern. Since Spain was a historical non-participant in WWII, the entire Southwest portion of France was left unguarded except for a whole two French divisions on the border, despite my massing nearly 20x that strength on my side of it around May-June '39. So now when September rolled around and WWII started, my Italians marched across the border and didn't meet any credible resistance until I had already occupied nearly all of Southern France! Wound up completely occuping the country by the start of December '39, and was so emboldened by success that I launched a successful invasion of Britain right after to take the Isles by mid-March of next year. Suffice to say, a more intelligent French AI that actually looks at where the enemy's army IS as opposed to where it should be might have prevented that little stunt...

 

[unmerged(30761)]

Soviet Campaign '36 N/Furious, DD 1.1b User Fix and CCIP (Unified China AI fix), GIP .5 for DD and music from Kaiserreich Syndicalist pack

I gave 1/3rd of my starting Red Army to the Rep Spain once the the civil war started and supplied them with enough supplies to have those operational. They won the war and then I couped them. will ally later.

the rest of the Soviet Army went to Nat Chi with about 100 supplies a day and 10 of everything else

They have ic parity with Japan now and about 200 divisions versus Japanese 140 and have beat the Japanese to a stalemate. they are advancing slowly into Manchuria. once i have a surplus of modern infantry I will interviene. and then ally them and have them build me infantry.

I gave 6 mountain divisions to albania. they put them all into their capital and italians crushed them from the south still.

I sold all of my navy to Germany and all fo my airforce to Great Britain. lets see if Sea Lion Happens

1940 now

 

[unmerged(50559)]

In my current 1945 game with the SU, the Allied AI did very well in Bremen. They broke out of my encirclement twice and even threatened me with a counter encirclement a few times.

But then having failed that, it reverted to spoiling attacks instead. Whenever I tried to complete the encirclement it would attack me off and then retreat back into Bremen.

Interestingly, depending on the strength of my surrounding forces it would either reinforce or transfer divisions away from Bremen.

It took quite a lot of logistical strikes (not to mention waiting till spring) before I took that pocket out. It's very good AI..much better than past iterations of Allied AI but....well..still AI..haah