Happy 2005! (despite grouchy player!!)

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I'm aware that AI cheats, much as I don't like it. What my beef is, and maybe it's a "bug", is when, in the Platinum edition after I defeated France playing as Germany, I set 9 gruppes of Me109Es to watch British traffic over the channel. Suddenly, a contact; I chortled when I saw a Gladiator unit get caught by Galland's boys... but choked when the Glad inflicted huge damage on my Me109s! Then, I got tangled up with British fighters over England and noticed that their organization is 125!! Not even Remotely historical. They bounced my squadrons around until all was lost! Needless to say, so much for a Battle of Britain. I reloaded a save, and withdrew the "Abbeville boys" to a safe distance. Later, invading Russia, my 9 fighter units tangled with 10 of the AI Russians-- and got slaughtered by their 125 organization Mig3s!! So much for my planned blitzkreig! So much for my playing this game, as w/o air support. Germany cannot succeed. Earlier, playing the AI as the Russians, I was made more than aware of the effectiveness of German tactical air... By the way, according to the research screens, Germany was ahead of everyone else... So, is this a (fixable) bug, or a cheat. I'd appreciate your feedback, thankyou.

 

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This is the air stacking penalty which has been endlessly discussed. Per readme.txt for 1.06c:

- The AI is no longer affected by the air-stacking penalty. [ 1.06c ]
- Large airstacks now get severe penalties. [ 1.06b ]

Air units at the fifth and higher levels for humans get a -10 penalty for each air unit while AI air stacks do not. Adjust your stack size to four. You can still use more fighters at times when you have superior tacticians in charge as more fighters have the same cumulative stacks while spreading out the damage more.
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=166856&highlight=superior+tactician

From Fiendix's Leader Effects FAQ http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111075

1.1 Air and naval combat capacity limitations (unlike land).
- The combat screen does not show any leader capacity, but limits are 1, 3, 9
and 12.
- Exceeding the limits causes a -25% penalty. The Air Marshal and Grand Admiral
DO NOT double capacity for the sea and air battles. Thus a Admiral with 10
units in his formation will have 1 unit with a -25% eff modifier for the 10 unit.
- There is a -2% efficiency modifier for the whole formation or stack for
each ship over 2 in one sea. So if you have 14 ships in one sea zone each
ship would get -24% efficiency. Transports do not count for this purpose.
It does not matter if there are 2 formations of 12, you will still get the -2% per unit over 2 (even if both were under grand admiral).
- Transports do not count towards this stack -2% penalty - however they do count
towards stack limit (the -25% penalty).
- For air combat this penalty is -10% per each air unit over the 4th. So 12 air planes
in one zone will give a total of -74% efficiency (max penalty).

- The max penalty for overstacking units in one zone is -74%.
- The AI is not affected by the air-stacking penalty.

BTW the 125 organization Mig3s are probably not what you remember seeing in combat. This is their combat effectiveness number, not their organization number. Max fighter organization limit is less than 100 in standard HOI.

You can always hit F11 to get a screen shot of any battle which can be analyzed later. ScreenSave99 is their file name where the 99 part is a series of consectutively numbered bitmap images which can be seen by any graphics program such as Paint.

 

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Well known issue? Good! What's the solution?

Thank you, Mr Heidle, for your thorough reply. Before I wrote my query I looked at the file called "Known Bugs" (or something like that) and after reading the first 50 or so about other issues, I admit I gave up looking and wrote the note. You're clarified my problem: Do I understand now that this is an advantage (cheat) given to AI? That I am going to be hammered by AI air in any and all scenarios? As the Russian playing against AI I saw my 9-12 divisions of dug-in, strongly fortified defences get smashed by stacks of AI tac air; my fighters destroyed en masse. I figuered that that was the way it was for the Russians. But now, as the Germans, the reverse is happening. So, am I to understand that this is a well known issue, and that my only solution is to organize my air into groups no larger than four? Therefore, my 4 fighters will still face, say, 10 enemy fighters, and will now have the benifit of dieing more slowly. Regarding the enemy's Organization/Effectiveness, thanks for the pointer, but I still saw that British Gladiator unit chew up large numbers of Me109Es. Something's still wrong. I've enjoyed the game, especially building up industry and tech, but if I can't apply the strengths I've built to a fair enemy AI (I did read among the posts something about the AI building forces far faster than "humanly possible") then why play? Unless there's a solution, and not a clarification of the way things are and have been since 2001, why should I go back into my game to watch my 60 Panzer/Panzer Grenadier/Moterized divisions I launched in June 1941 get ground up by the AI air forces? Thankyou for providing this opportunity to vent. If I'm missing something that I can do to get around this problem, please let me know. There has to be a way for these thousands of HOI gamers to see a campaign through to a successful end. :wacko:

 

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Use fighters in different size stacks as indicated in the Air War over Europe thread. The biggest problems left with this are:
1) as Germany the Brit AI will rebase 12 fighters from London to Calcutta and this will slaughter your smaller stacks.
2) as Germany it's very hard to invade the USA because they will have equal fighter tech and will be able to bomb your land divisions relentlessly
3) you can build AA brigades. Inf AA are relatively cheap and three in a stack of 12 inf will start to damage bombers. You could also build cheaper and faster AA brigaded Pz div to followup your standard mobile div. As Russia I have done this while keeping my small fighter stacks out of harm's way.

 

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Thanx, I'll try your advise.

Thanks again, Mr Heidle. You gave me some practical advise I will try out. I was wondering about those "Death Star" formations of British fighters periodically flying far further than mine can, all the way across Europe to India?! Now I know. I have been building up German flak strength throughout Germany. And whenever possible, I had been adding AA brigades to mobile ground forces, as they also add punch against enemy armor (happiness is a battery of dual-purpose 88s nearby). Hopefully then, they can attrit Soviet air strength while my slowly rebuilding fighter groups (in small stacks), will try to pounce on unescorted enemy bombers, well clear of their fighter stacks. Looks like I should spend some serious time reading past postings on game play and strategy, as I see that "real world" S&T will only get you so far...