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SacremPyrobolum

Lt. General
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Jul 31, 2012
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Playing NWO2.

I was disappointed at how weak Japan is. Even though they are able to conquer China in a year or two in most cases (though I suspect China was just nerfed to give Japan a chance) their navy remains pathetic even in 1941 when they Pearl Harbor me. Out of curiosity I tagged over to them after it happened and saw they had only 2 carriers and 6 battleships, the same they started with.

Needless to say as America I had 3 time that number of each, with many more on the way. Obviously thats going to happen when the player is America and the AI is Japan, but I still wasn't expecting such an anemic performance from the Japanese AI. They don't even take the initiative to strike at the Philippines and East Indies despite their entire army being freed up from China.

Is there anything I can do to improve Japan's performance without resorting to raising the difficulty level? I really don't want to cripple myself and arbitrarily buff my enemies.
 
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CHEAT==>> for the japan ai....if you want a harder fight as usa.....day 2 of a new usa campaign save the game. THEN edit the save in favour of japan....add free off map IC ( AT LEAST 20)...OIL...ENERGY...RARES...METALS.......AND ALSO add transports and escorts...(fast way to find where to edit the save....open with notepad...seach for tojo....when you find the tech team tojo...just scroll down to where the info on the resources are... be carefull of spelling .) next load that save as japan and add to its build order....long runs of ships and infantry/marines/mountains. if you place it the ai will build it and updated to its latest models. save game. load as usa and play....japan just to weak to build navy and army same time as well as add factories and update units and keep them in supply...just make sure with every free off map IC you add you also add the resources to support it...otherwise japan will resource crash. THE japan you fight will no way be historical and still be run by a AI but will put up more of a fight.
 
I think one problem that the Japanese AI has is handling multiple potential targets. I've seen games into the 40s where Japan despite having held off the US still hasn't taken out the Dutch East Indies which is its only good supply of oil. Also games where it only half heartedly goes after the Philippines. Heck, one game where I was the US the one US unit there held on long enough that the Philippines managed to generate some units and together we drive off the invaders.

I add these last 4 entries to the jap_1933.ai file and it seems to help some. I wonder if there are some other tweaks like this that might help? I should look at what those other targets are; I think they are mostly in China.

It also might help to tweak the production and research targets of the AI. I know historically they built those big battleships but that is a LOT of production that would be better spent elsewhere.

target = {
#Shanxi
1239 = 20
1238 = 20

1241 = 10
1242 = 10
1243 = 10
1244 = 10
1245 = 10
1246 = 10
1247 = 10
1248 = 10
1249 = 10
1250 = 10
1251 = 10
1252 = 10
1253 = 10
1254 = 10
1321 = 10
1323 = 10
1327 = 10
1328 = 10
1329 = 10
1330 = 10
1331 = 10
1332 = 10

#Dutch East Indies

1636 = 25
1647 = 25
1632 = 25
1659 = 25
}
 
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The problem is the fact that there is no AI at all.
The "AI" is a simple routine script. So to enforce the AI u have to eliminate all the AI obstacles. For Japan u need enough supplies and enough naval transports (convoy and ships). Another big problem is the system (combat routine) behind invasions.
When the AI is going to organize an invasion the AI will concentrate the landing army and the naval force in a target province. When everything is assembled they will launch the attack. The problem here; When front situation will change (e.g. AI has conquered or lost provinces, new enemy divisions will popup or parts of the invasion force are damaged (by air attack or port strike or what else)) the AI will restate the routine or drop it at all.
At the end it is very difficult to "tweak" Japan at all. In DH the Japanese AI routine cant handle all the frontlines with the bad unit ratio, bad supplies, bad IC situation and the invasion assemble logic. At the end u would need a real "AI" development to solve the problems.
But that is something PDox hadnt done at all.
As far as i know the HoI IV "AI" use similar "routines" like the HoI II AI so u can see that PDox is only interested in sandbox today ;)
 
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Tweaks DO help, though. Like changing the targets to focus what the "AI" goes for. Sometimes the AI seems to do really well, too. I've seen the Japanese take out the Chinese and go on to stymy the US for instance. For Japan that is probably a "win". But in my last game they just fizzled out and traded the odd province with the Chinese almost the whole length of the game totally ignoring important targets that weren't well guarded (Dutch East Indies) probably prompted by the targetting shown above.

And yes, it isn't really AI and a real AI would be almost impossible for a game like this with the resources available.
 
I'm sorry to necro this thread, but I wanted to ask if people think its a good idea to have Japan just outright annex the Dutch East Indies and Philipines when they declare war.

Its blatant cheating, but I don't trust that the Japanese AI can consistently pull off the frankly brilliant lighting wars that got them access to the vital materials in the region IRL.

The DEI is pretty weak anyways, and I could say that the withdrawl of American forces from the Philippines (which I always do) caused them to surrender without resistance.

Unfortunatly, I think I'd have to write a custom event. There doesn't seem to be an annex command in DH like in HoI4.
 
A big problem for Japan is that a victory on China could totally cripple them.

In a US run of mine, Japan already defeated China in 1939. But they didn't created Chinese puppet: they just kept all for themself, so they have had big partisan activity for the rest of the game and no waves of puppet's troops. IMHO Japans should always release Chinese puppet, it would be a big help for them