Just some thoughts & saliences about the AI

[La Bumm]

Hey,

I did a lot of new games with different nations in singleplayer & multiplayer since the release of Waking the Tiger. Everytime with historical focus turned on.

I also had some runs just in observer mode to have a look what will happen.

There were some noticeable things:

• Italian AI is far better now, it won the war in Africa every single time (it didn't lost its whole fleet so it shipped a lot of troops over there - also the german AI did that)
• The German AI conquered Poland, Benelux, Denmark (sometimes also Norway) and France every time before 1940. It then won against the soviet AI mostly in end of 1942 (beginning Barbarossa in summer 1940)
• Nat. China and the warlords didn't won a single time against Japan.
• British AI is completely overwhelmend by managing the different theatres, fleets and the Airforces.
  
• US AI is spamming infantry divisions around the world, which maybe helps - but neglect the other aspects of production.
• All AI nations are rushing trough land doctrines (even Haiti did that) so Germany almost finished the tree before the war started. Also they all have a focus for industry, Artillery, Antitank and fighters. I saw just ONE single time an AI researching something in the naval doctrines. Not one big AI player researched a ship (just saw that the USA had a new carrier model once).
  
• The AI nations lost tons of ships against each other. For example the USA had in one game about 30 ships left - and the new produced ships were put in singleship fleets.
• Nat. Spain joined every time the axis in mid war.

I then strenghten Nat. China, France and GB for one tier and the game went a lot more historical. It took Japan 3 Years to take china down, Italy lost Africa after 18months of heavy fighting (france rescued GB in that case) and the german AI horribly lost against the soviets and surrendered in early 1943. Then the Allies won against Japan until middle of 1944.

I had a deeper look for Nat. China because it lost everytime, I played one game with them and steamrolled Japan in a single year. There are some problems with the AI and foci I think:

• Nat. China didn't changed its laws a single time. So after a year it has no recruits left.
  
• It also starts with the help of foreign countries foci which has no effect because the AI needs to spend some political points after that to strenghten its relationship to this countries - then it is possible to go the tree down.
  
• Most of the time Nat. China is therefore to late with the foci that deletes the mali it has from beginning and strengthens it own war efforts against Japan.

All in all the AI is doing better (in my opinion) then before. Sometimes it is still to agressive, but the stuff I described should be easy to change and repair.

For you guys, feel free to add your suggestions and observations.

PS: Maybe it would be helpful to give the doctrines a year as the other researches have. Maybe that avoids the AI from rushing trough.