Please fix this game.

[jaredstanko]

i was a little too harsh, the game is perfectly playable in multiplayer, the battle planner is nice, but could use a few tweaks to make planning useful, i DO miss the OOB, but its a small loss.

i still think the AI couldnt account for the new system on launch, though, and i am very confident 1.4 will be a good patch for the ai.

hoi4 blows 3 out of the water on production though, i remember it used to cost almost nothing to make divisions if you made them as reserves as something with a super low recruitment law(volenteer only so you only needed to build 1/4th of your reserve divisions) used some volenteer conscription conscription law, so as france, youd just set that law, mobilize 30 days before the way, and crush germany with like a million heavy tanks(something they couldnt do as fascists because they couldnt have that law). now, everything in hoi4 always costs exactly what it costs. and thanks to seperating mil and civ factrories, fascists have clear and present differences between themselves and democracies. its fantastic.

the war itself, however, is in dire need of tweaking.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

Which is a good thing, right?

I did write this:

I love that you cannot just upgrade earlier equipment but have to produce newer technologies and build production efficiency to a point where you can cancel the old stuff.

 

[KiwiNoob]

There has been minor improvements to the AI but overall the AI is still quite bad. Perhaps its gonna see bigger improvements such as the Japanese AI being able to take the DEI and British Malaya when they join WW2 eventually but its probably gonna take a few more years.

Actually the AI is probably worse than at launch. Many of the 'fixes' are actually just knee-jerks that either fail to address the problem or create new problems.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

Actually the AI is probably worse than at launch. Many of the 'fixes' are actually just knee-jerks that either fail to address the problem or create new problems.

During vanilla when Germany started its war with the Allies the UK AI immediately flies thousands of fighters over the English channel protecting its ships from German Stuka divers and from a paradrop invasion. Somewhere around the Poland United and Ready DLC the UK AI just stopped doing this, making a paradrop invasion of the UK home islands much easier.

 

[lihp]

Just had a good run with British Raj, where Germany was extremely successful in even doing France by September 39 and then going straight for Moscow. Also army weighting looked correct so far, until... Until the UK successfully invaded Rome and got all Italy. All of a sudden Germany supports Italy, neglecting Eastern front and ignoring Eastern front almost, until Berlin fell. Most forces back to Berlin, freeing Berlin, but... at this point it was almost over, since the redeployment(s) plain resulted in too many losses.

Bottom line:
- AI actually does its job.
- As soon as the AI decides between fronts, chaos ensues (AI shuffling).

 

[Nevrion]

Please, that has been said now before every patch. It has only gotten worse!

That feels wrong. I really see an improvement of AI. I used no mods and recognized that progress with AI unit management in central Europe.

1.0 - vanilla - dumb AI
1.2.1 - sunflower - Germany declares war without units on front lines
1.3.2 - TFV - AI unable to defend coast, especially Italy. AI acts suicidal or unorganized in front management
1.3.3 - TFV Hotfix - Some AI issues are still intact, but at least able to defend their coast in most cases

I noticed a lot of threads that show AI issues even with 1.3.3, but I think it improved with each update. I agree, it's still far away from perfect, so I hope for further improvements in 1.4 oak.

 

[KiwiNoob]

Germany almost always ends up with all 200 divisions smashing back and forth between the SU in the East and then the Allied invasion in the west. I like to call it the wrecking ball

Except it doesn't wreck anything except germany

 

[sturnado]

You need to slow down and take a breath.

Also if you had been around and reading the dev comments for the last couple of weeks, you'd have noticed the AI programmer saying there is major improvement to the battle plan shuffle problem coming in 1.4. It is apparently a noticeable enough improvement that when he plays with other people using the current version that you and I have, he misses the improvement.

And no, nothing has changed with org. What you are noticing is that the AI is now using better division templates against you than it used to.

Devs have told us major AI improvements are coming literally every single patch. How gullible are you?

 

[SteveStevenson]

It does suck to have something that is classified as almost good but not quite but it really doesn't help anyone to just say "games bad". While I certainly have my misgivings about the pace of development and choice of development goals I assume that the dev team is doing more than just spinning around in ikea swivel chairs really fast all day and are aware of obvious problems like "AI is a bad".

State a specific problem, justify that it is indeed, a problem, and purpose a sensible solution. Podcat reads a lot of this stuff and you might just influence the game in a major way. It happened for me. Not just to brag, but we would likely still have the phantom factories exploit (infinite factories in MP) if I hadn't brought attention here it here.

 

[Dalwin]

Devs have told us major AI improvements are coming literally every single patch. How gullible are you?

The comment this time was pretty specific and not from the usual PR source. How jaded are you?

 

[stjern]

That feels wrong. I really see an improvement of AI. I used no mods and recognized that progress with AI unit management in central Europe.

1.0 - vanilla - dumb AI
1.2.1 - sunflower - Germany declares war without units on front lines
1.3.2 - TFV - AI unable to defend coast, especially Italy. AI acts suicidal or unorganized in front management
1.3.3 - TFV Hotfix - Some AI issues are still intact, but at least able to defend their coast in most cases

I noticed a lot of threads that show AI issues even with 1.3.3, but I think it improved with each update. I agree, it's still far away from perfect, so I hope for further improvements in 1.4 oak.

The front ai (battleplanner ai) is worse now compared to in 1.21, that says a lot! In 1.33: AI sets upp one front over whole eastern front with one field marshal, then moves all units to half of the front and let the enemy walk to berlin. And in the meantime shuffles units endlessly back and fourth along the front.

Also, the moddability of the front AI has been greatly reduced since 1.21, back then it could be improved a lot by tweaking the defines, seems like that is hardcoded now. Same with AI template logic and unit training, much more hardcoded now and no longer support custom units so its no longer a sandbox game anymore like it used to be.

Devs have told us major AI improvements are coming literally every single patch. How gullible are you?

So true, I predict we will soon have Mr "Axe99" tell us how commanders in real ww2 actually often gave bad commands due to lack of intell so the current AI is actually perfect.

 

[sturnado]

The comment this time was pretty specific and not from the usual PR source. How jaded are you?

The "usual PR source" is and has been developer updates and developer comments specifically assuring us AI issues would be addressed and improved.

I like you. You're a funny, funny guy.

 

[KiwiNoob]

The comment this time was pretty specific and not from the usual PR source. How jaded are you?

Reasonably jaded actually. We're heading towards the one year mark and one of the most basic requirements for an enjoyable game is not working and has perhaps even gotten worse since launch.

It sometimes gets lost in the grizzling but the reason this is so frustrating is that HOI4 is so close to being an absolutely fantastic game - but then WW2 breaks out, the AI goes bats**t crazy and ruins everything.

No doubt - once the AI works this will be my favorite game. Until then this game is my biggest frustration/disappointment.

 

[Dalwin]

The "usual PR source" is and has been developer updates and developer comments specifically assuring us AI issues would be addressed and improved.

I like you. You're a funny, funny guy.

If you actually knew me at all, you'd realize that I am in fact a very funny guy. You'd also realize that gullible does not enter into my personality even a little bit.

You seem to see all the devs as being equal in this context. I am saying that some of them represent the usual face to the public and have more experience spinning the same kind of comments for which politicians and PR spokesmen are famous. Some of the devs are more involved in the work and rarely have any comments for the public. Their comments also tend to be of a different nature. I see those as being different. Perhaps it is the years that I spent in the PR business that has me making these distinctions.

Reasonably jaded actually. We're heading towards the one year mark and one of the most basic requirements for an enjoyable game is not working and has perhaps even gotten worse since launch.

It sometimes gets lost in the grizzling but the reason this is so frustrating is that HOI4 is so close to being an absolutely fantastic game - but then WW2 breaks out, the AI goes bats**t crazy and ruins everything.

No doubt - once the AI works this will be my favorite game. Until then this game is my biggest frustration/disappointment.

I totally understand your viewpoint on this. It still has the potential to become my favorite game as well. It already is in the setting of an MP game. If not for MP, I'd have stopped playing this a long time ago. Too many feel that public single session MP games are all that is out there, That is not true. Get a good group of like minded individuals and all the ugly aspects to MP can be avoided.

 

[melkor88]

There is a big update coming soon, and it should help with the AI issues.

 

[lihp]

There is a big update coming soon, and it should help with the AI issues.

*sigh* Point of some posters in this thread is: we already read this kinda statements - 10 months ago for first update, then for the second and the patchs between... Yet, we still have the same (or similar?) documented issue. That issue is called AI shuffling.

Most of the oldies of us are used to Paradox giving us a release version with... *weird* behaviour and bugs. We are used to the first patch improving stuff, where the thrid patch of the first update usually makes the game playable within the first 3-4 months. Having a day 1 "bug" still after 10 month must be new for most of us.

Maybe now some more ppl understand the frustration of some...

 

[Nevrion]

The front ai (battleplanner ai) is worse now compared to in 1.21, that says a lot! In 1.33: AI sets upp one front over whole eastern front with one field marshal, then moves all units to half of the front and let the enemy walk to berlin. And in the meantime shuffles units endlessly back and fourth along the front.

Maybe we have a different game, but in 1.21 Germany (for example) wasn't able to beat Poland in most cases, because they abandoned their front lines. How can you say 1.33 is more worse than that? In the current version I saw a couple of successful attacks against France or Soviet Union. Maybe Germany isn't the exclusive indicator for AI strength, but I played some games without AI gone crazy. AI has still problems and for a hardcore gamer, AI is probably too easy and dumb, but like I said, I see improvements.

 

[stjern]

Maybe we have a different game, but in 1.21 Germany (for example) wasn't able to beat Poland in most cases, because they abandoned their front lines. How can you say 1.33 is more worse than that? In the current version I saw a couple of successful attacks against France or Soviet Union. Maybe Germany isn't the exclusive indicator for AI strength, but I played some games without AI gone crazy. AI has still problems and for a hardcore gamer, AI is probably to easy and dumb, but like I said, I see improvements.

You are talking about a different problem. I was talking about the ai handling of a specific front. And with a proper mod in 1.21 the issue you mention was not a problem, it was due to bad nf/event ai scripting in the vanilla game.

There is 100% something wrong wth the frontline ai in 1.33, notice how Germany will often mass troops for offensives in the mountain areas of hungary for example, must be a wrong negative sign somewhere in how the ai sees some modifier.

 

[Adamgerd]

Huh, how else do you use your army apart from the ai planner. And then I must be horrible at organizing the army, because when I once organized the army manually, I lost nearly immediately, while when the ai handles it, I can actually win. I have no idea how you can attack with your army without the ai?

 

[wildbillhdmax01]

In all honesty, I'm very Skeptical about 1.4 until I get my hands on it. Every single major patch was supposed to "fix the AI". Here we are 3 major patches later(4 if you count 1.3.3 which was also pretty big), and a year later. I mean shuffling has been a problem since day one, Africa has been a problem since day one, now only to be fixed by making the sahara desert no man's land(because they couldn't fix it, so this was the only option, which btw they admitted themselves, and i'm am happy about it.), AI abandoning fronts has been a problem since day one. When is it going to stop?