Awesome work! I hope I'll have time to play this on release with Stellaris on the horizon and my workload at work which will be increasing from middle of the year!
Let`s say I want AI to launch invasion of Romania if AI can`t purchase Romanian oil for some reason, being either their law, prohibiting them from trading, or them being of wrong ideology.Not sure what you mean by this. By tweaking various values you can significantly alter the behavior of countries, but the underlying algorithms are C++, and as such not changeable through scripts.
It doesn`t have to be huge, even if AI would be able to consistently recognise and exploit small 1-5 divisions 1-3 province pockets, it would be huge improvementI cannot say either yes or no with any conviction here. The AI does know things like taking advantaage of weak spots etc, and the multiple systems that touch movements and priority can certainly give rise to such behaviour. But planning large complicated operations in advance is tricky. Something I want to look more at in the future.
Also keep in mind that the AI is still in deveoplment, and will continue to be improved even beyond release
Some question about AI that come to my mind :
- Did it uses xp to make variants ?
- How it handles research to make new division template ? Is there any "pre-made" template with latest tank/infantry equipment researched, or did the AI make his own according to some algorithm ?
- Last but most important : are the naval invasion by AI in HoI 3 corrected ? I saw Australia launch an invasion of Yugoslavia with one division like a suicide in the last WWW, it remember me the AI of HoI3 when USA send 2 infantry division in Murmansk or 6 armored division in Holland without support... It's my greatest fear, as without a proper uses of naval invasion by the AI, USA and Japan are doomed to make nothing...
Good Read. Intresting stuff. Most of the time AI countries getting cought unprepared is there are going to be "helping" feature to make sure they are ready for war?
Also Is there going to be second AI diary for Battle AI? Thats the other half of the gameplay.
@SteelVolt
Important things for modders:
1) How hard/easy is it to implement new unit types and tell the AI how to use it and how much to produce (balancing production numbers)?
1a) F.e example I want to add escort ships. So they have Special Tasks:
- Do not mix with fleets
- Just go for submarine hunting
- go mostly on convoy escort duty
2) Can we tell the AI some Kind of production Ratio, or at least how does AI handle and itself produce and develop the techs of them?
- So AI sees the use of it
- AI decides how much are usefull of them (because of the missiontypes it has)
In Hoi3 I find it very complicated because of lacking programming/Scripting skills
Cheers for the DD Steelvolt , and to you, Wiz and Groogy for all your work . Really looking forward to HoI4, and for me the AI is the most important part, and it looks like it's in a good pair of hands . So much coolness in the various scriptable features - specific behaviours for different leaders is brilliant (and will be a boon to modders), as is the peace deal side of things and being able to push the AI towards specific templates (presumably altering this based on whatever triggers we roll with?) Debug view also all kinds of awesome .
Does this mean the AI has both the Battleplan AI (shared with player) and it's own "tweak things to deal with situations as they arise" AI? Very cool if so .
On the first - big props, non-cheating AI is always my preference . On the second, will it still be possible to mod in a bit more coup and influence party popularity-friendliness for crazy sandbox games?
Only answer if easy, but are there triggers for intelligence (ie, is it possible for an AI UK to focus production more on battleships if its intelligence sees nations its threatened by (or GER/JAP specifically, however it's best to set it up) building BBs, and similarly if instead it sees Germany building a stack of u-boats, to focus on destroyers instead?
Does this mean there will be leaders like Patton who are much more aggressive (risking losing more troops for a faster land win) and more careful (risking less troops but advancing not so fast) leaders like Montgomery?
That's an interesting question - what cheats do the AI and the player get in this game?
The production part is highly scriptable, but roles are less so, at least for now. Hope that answers it.
It doesn't make much sense. Nation without any good AA did not, in fact, rely on AA, but ones with good AA (like the late-war USA) made their battleships into AA platforms that minced plane wings. One should look at American battleships to see the full possible effectiveness of the category; Japanese or Italian ships ignored the issue so completely it gimped them (even though the Vittorio Veneto battleships mounted some great AAA - just not enough in number).Battleships are weaker to airplanes(Relies more on heavier guns rather than AA), so in this case it would better to invest in Naval bombers and carriers. If you invested in Cruisers or Destroyers, then it would be easier to invest in Battleships. Naval battle is more of "what counters what".
Let`s say I want AI to launch invasion of Romania if AI can`t purchase Romanian oil for some reason, being either their law, prohibiting them from trading, or them being of wrong ideology.
I would need to determine IF Germany has troops to spare, are those troops strong/weak/mediocre compared to Germany, what kind of countries can jump to Romanian defence. Let`s say it is a national focus, so if conditions are fine, Germany declares war. That is what I mean. How complicated of a logic can we put into this scripts?
Or, let`s say I want AI to occasionally try different troops composition. So, let`s say I want Germany to have 3 broad strategies:
-historical
-focus on cheaper troops and faster wars, motorised instead of tanks, ex.
-go for navy.
I want the plan being set somehow, and then AI knowing it, would work towards it, let`s say a hiden event, depending on who player is, picks an AI strategy, depending on some weights.
Can I make all areas of strategic AI to work with the plan?
In HOI3, I would just set a country flag, and then would check the flag in country - specific LUA script.
Can something like this be done for HOI4?
It doesn`t have to be huge, even if AI would be able to consistently recognise and exploit small 1-5 divisions 1-3 province pockets, it would be huge improvement
How will the AI handle forts and coastal fort? Norway for example would probably be a better choice for a/multiple coastal fort rather than USA.