Fixing the US Naval Ai

[unmerged(74599)]

Is it possible for the patch to include a mechanic that tells the AI to build and assign screens for it's new aircraft carriers?

The US has over a dozen carriers in it's build queue, and if in the hands of a a human player, they could easily crush my paltry Japanese navy. But I know the AI will send them at me one at a time, unescorted, to be destroyed by small groups of escort ships. It's a shame really, how they are being squandered like that. I feel that this is one of the major failings in the Pacific war part of the game.

Is adding this possible?

Yes, its silly that. That is why I always play against humans. It is the best fix. That said, the problem may be somewhat resolveable using the ai parameters as it is set now, simply by increasing the number of minimum core "attack fleets" that the US has. Right now I think it is set to one. Setting it to 2 might help. I think that might resolve in more well designed fleets.

If it works, the next step would be to create a set of generic ai events that changes the "attack fleet" parameters as navies expand for every ai.

If you are willing to test it. I will write it up.

 

[son of liberty]

So do you have any ideas on how to make the ai use real fleet compositions?

 

[unmerged(74599)]

Nope. But it would be nice if it wouldn't float those dinky little fleets with one CV around.

Don't think anyone will ever fix the issue of the TP's through ai modding, but perhaps we can do something about those small fleets. Not today. First thing you might try is taking a save and changing these lines in the US ai set up:

            min_core_attack_fleets = 1.0000 
            num_attack_fleets = 4.0000

use various parameters with Nofog on and see how it doea. Might do the same thing with Germany too, to see how it affects submarine fleets.

 

[MartinBG]

I do not think that German submarine fleets are going to be affected by these AI parameters, because subs most probably are used for convoy raids and as such are controlled by different AI. But it won't hurt if someone keep an eye on German subs too

 

[unmerged(106255)]

Ok, I did two groups of test for this. One with 6 idle US carriers (plus all the other little groups on ASW and transports sailing to random places), and another test with the same plus 25 idle destroyers. I played for 8 days for each, with various values for each variable.

As far as "min_core_attack_fleets" goes, changing this doesn't seem to do anything.

"num_attack_fleets" was far more important. This controls the amount of individual fleets patrolling the country's shoreline. In the test with the destroyer deficit, setting this number to a large value resulted in all the carriers patrolling the coast unescorted. A value of 1 resulted in 1 carrier on patrol, and the others sitting idle in port. With excess destroyers, a large value would result in all the ships patrolling, but the carriers were properly escorted. A value of 1 resulted in one properly escorted CTF patrolling the coast, and the other carriers were assembled into one big group, properly escorted, for a port strike against Oahu. This happened whenever I ran this particular scenario. Changing "num_attack_fleets" makes the AI more aggressive, changing it's disposition from defense to offense.

I think the real problem is that the AI is simply not scripted to build enough screens. With enough screens, the AI will assemble a properly configured naval force every time. What I think needs to be changed is that the US should be made to build less carriers (I had sunk 66 US carriers to my 1 by the end of 1948), and a run of, say, 4x10 destroyers should be started every 2 years. This, so all the US capital ships have a steady stream of ready escorts they can be paired with upon completion.

Unfortunately , I can't make heads or tails of the US AI's build priorities. The save game data says one thing and the build queue does something completely different.