Polish-ed up AI

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I did rework the polish ai a little.
It is now changing according to the progress the germans make in poland.
I'll try to explain to you how it is supposed to work via pictures.

Take the first picture: On the outbreak of war the polish ai tries to man the borders to germany, but put a high priority to the protection of the four provinces that are linked by the green line, let's call it priority-front.
Now, this border is easily manned in 1939 with 60+ divisions in the standard scenario. I also reworked the polish industry a bit by an event that installs an administrative genius. Further i wrote some new technologies that enhance IC-output. So Poland starts with 80 divisions into war. (Not shown on pic, it's 1936 )

If Germany takes Ponan, the troops have to retreat, have to close the gap at lodz. The occupation of Ponan now triggers an event that switches poland's ai to one that now puts province priority on the dotted line.

The second picture shows the same procedure for Bydgosecz.
Put it shows more: If that new front breaks(if one of the blue provinces is taken), polish forces will gather in Lublin-Warszaw(purple line).
If Lublin is taken(yellow dot), they will entrench altogether(all troops remaining and not cut off) in Warszaw(black dot of death).
I rewrote the countries starting file, and lublin has a level2 fortress, warszaw level4.

This could be done for any country and if properly worked out could really make it harder for a human player

 

[McNaughton]

That is really cool. One thing to really test this AI mod is to try and break it. Do every cheap move you can to break the AI, for example, mass a lot of troops in East Prussia and strike down into Warsaw, and see how the AI behaves. Since most people actually defeat the AI by not playing on its terms, our best bet to make it challenging is to try and anticipate cheap moves by the human player and add contingent counters to all possible moves.

This looks really promising, and with enough dedication I think that all of the Major Nations can have significantly improved AI files that can react to even majorly unhistoric moves by the Human player.

Great work!

 

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I cannot take Poland in the 1936 scenario in 1936.
I nearly could not test the triggering of taking lublin.
But i must admit germany only has 40divs then and i have also given the polish army 2 defense doctrines.
But i really gets hard. You'll need heavy air support and outnumber them big time.

 

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One cheap move would be till now the break at B.
Then swap all armie to Elbing and head south quick to torun with all might. Then strive on and *hope* that you can take warszaw quick. But keep in mind that there is a river and warszaw is alwys keeping a garrison of three divs as soon as you take B

 

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This seems like a great idea if playtested enough to make sure that it doesn't make the AI more predictable.

 

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But many times the polish army reinforces defenders too fast for that. After the fall of B. the ai also adjust

withdraw_odds = 0.05

This should keep them there until they are disintegrated. (I hope this value is right indeed, and not just 1/x would be right)

 

[KaiMaster]

First off I love the options that exist for upgrading the AI... and this looks like an awesome start.

But what happens when the Germans fail and open up their own lines... is there an AI file that you can swap to that says "aggressive mode" and it starts to push the germans back? The ability to reclaim the ancient Polish homeland of Berlin? hahaha

If the German player does in fact attack too early and gets spanked, Poland should bloody their nose.

Or would the AI just reinforce all borders and hold the line?

+++++
Ok ok that's probably unlikely. But here is a serious one for ya...
+++++

How about when the German has a huge # of tanks in Konigsburg...

One thing the human can do is convoy into Konigsburg and put 20+ divisions there, and charge between the rivers and gut Poland and their "strong" front line, rounding the river and hitting Warsaw and its 3 defending divisions with Rommel and 9 panzer divisions. The other infantry there can follow Rommel, hold the supply line, and mop up the other small lightly/non defended Polish provinces.

The current 1.03 AI for Poland collapses doing this on very hard/aggressive. I'll build up some on the line to get their attention and keep them occupied.

Poland takes a little longer to fall as the troops on the front are more skirmishing with Poland until Warsaw falls, but then the coup de grace and the line collapses and Germans pour in from all directions.

Would your troops hold the line and stand proud as their capital gets ransacked?

Or what if the Soviet human player attacks before Germany even contemplates the idea? More AIs should have ways of dealing with things and eventualities (the more historical the better) like this. Even if it makes their AI files long heh

 

[Generalisimo]

some questions:
what happens i fthe germans took SUWALKI?
and if they take TORUN?
the polish army quickly goes to Warsaw?
that will be an easy exploit, just concentrate some panzer in KONIGSBERG and that's all, you end with Poland in just 1 week...

don't take it wrong... but i have seen some of your screenshots that you shown your "hands of game"... i do consider them important, but to have a good test, you must know what the AI does against a human player....

 

[unmerged(14312)]

sounds like a good ai! good work!

 

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torun and suwalki are added meanwhile. This thread came up when i had first implmented it.

 

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Reply to Kaimaster,

"But what happens when the Germans fail and open up their own lines... is there an AI file that you can swap to that says "aggressive mode" and it starts to push the germans back?"

It should, because it did happen historically.
1. IX 1939 the german basically attacked Poland from the north and south. (from Prussia and Czech). They did NOT attack direct using the shortest way thru Poznañ, because there stayed the strongest polish army 'Poznań' (10 polish div)
The Poles defended whole border (we were foolishly counting on our allies...). But,

The biggest battle in September Campaign 1939 - began on the Bzura River (halfway Poznan - Warsaw). It started in 10th Sept (i'm exact not sure) - when gen. Kutrzeba (the one 'offensive' general) spot that german flank is weak and there possibility to attack and cut off german panzer armies attacking Warsaw. It was his reckoning and his decision becaue he was cut off from HQ.
The polish troops were fresh (they did not fight - they only retreated from their homes) + some troops from north (army 'Pomorze' - polish corridor)

It was bold and succesive move. In first few days couple of german div were destroyed. Many panzer div were threatend to cut off.
So german retreated from Warsaw and all german reiforcements were directed to Bzura.
Thanks to that battle campaing lasted 5 weeks, not 2 weeks as originally planned by Hitler. (1940 french campaing went as planned)

By the way, Poland defended itself for 5 weeks against combined Germany and Russia (since 17.IX).
France + UK + Belgium + Holland defended themselfs for also 5 weeks with much better strategic position.

uff, just, few historical facts.

 

[Halibutt]

Originally posted by N!ghtY
(...)If Lublin is taken(yellow dot), they will entrench altogether(all troops remaining and not cut off) in Warszaw(black dot of death). I rewrote the countries starting file, and lublin has a level2 fortress, warszaw level4.
(...)

N!ghtY beware! The famous polish disease has arrived!

I have two cents to add: you can make this ai both chalenging and historical. The historical plan of polish HQ was to retreat to "Romanian bridgehead" and hold this area (Lwow in HoI) as long as possible, after it was certain that Vistula line cannot be held. Maybe it would be a good idea to simulate this? Especially when in most of my games Warsaw (Warszawa) is taken before Lublin falls.

Another thing is the fortifications. The most heavily fortified areas in 1939 were Pommerania Corridor (Danzig), Silesia (Cieszyn) and Modlin Stronghold (Warszawa/ Ostroleka). There were some fortifications on the border with East Prussia as well (Torun), but relatively weak. For unknown reasons Paradox refuses to implement them into HoI, but they were there and they did put up a strong resistance (Danzig province and Warszawa / Ostroleka region fought until the very end). Implementing them into your mod might be a good idea. OTOH fortifications in the Lublin area are totally ahistorical.
Cheers

 

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I agree with Halibut that Poland was fortified in real life, particularly in Warsaw and Danzig. I remember reading that the Germans brought in old dreadnaughts to bombard Danzig to help their troops get in.

Petep, I read that the Germans intentionally attacked around Poznan to cut it off from defending Warsaw because the Poles put the bulk of their forces on Poznan anticipating the German attack. It was based on Hannibal's strategy at Cannae. I didn't know that the Poles from Poznan caused the Germans so much grief when they attacked the Germans from behind. Thanks for the info. The story I read said the Germans had a really tough time breaking Warsaw and had to rail in some heavy artillery to help in the affair. All this with Russia back-stabbing the poor Poles! A very valiant struggle.

Nighty, I think the human is not so likely to hit Poznan first and would either attack around it like the Germans did or, of course, do the nasty Konigsberg attack.

By the way, thumbs up on this Ai-programming thing you're doing. Any chance on doing it for other nations? It must be a lot of hard work.

 

[Halibutt]

Originally posted by RodentDung
I agree with Halibutt that Poland was fortified in real life, particularly in Warsaw and Danzig. I remember reading that the Germans brought in old dreadnaughts to bombard Danzig to help their troops get in.(...)

You probably meanWesterplatte defence. Nice map of it can be found here. But it was not the only fortification we had in the Corridor. The main bulk of polish fortifications laid more westwards, on polish territory. Good english language info on it can be found on the Polish Navy Homepage and on the WWII page.

I couldn't find english info on the fortifications in other regions so I'll simply post the maps here.
Lodz area
all polish field fortifications according to PSZ (official polish info on WWII)
Silesia (province of Cieszyn
Cheers

 

[Aetius]

How about the peace time AI? What kind of priorities should it have?

 

[Halibutt]

Originally posted by Aetius
How about the peace time AI? What kind of priorities should it have?

We can try to plan it if the polish tech-tree is made at least a little more historical. The way it is now, it makes no sense to invest in anything more than artillery and doctrines. There's no chance to get the historical polish WWII equipment in HoI 1936 scenario.
Cheers

 

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N!ghtY

Since this original idea is now a couple of months old, I was just wondering if you had any success with this, or if you decided it didn't work?

I was also wondering, how does it work if (heaven forbid) the USSR, or someone else besides Germany attacks?

 

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.
The point is it is too much scripting and it is good against another ai. But if a german human player blitzes the AI is far too slow to adopt it.
And Poland is a land far too small to allow for "grand strategy"

 

[unmerged(13037)]

If historical...

If you play historical - and the ai has been set to defend according to historical priorities - might make the game more interesting.

When I say play historical, most players impose a certain degree of restrictions upon themsevles. For example as Germany completing a balanced range or research, rather than just doing tanks and infantry - and not shipping thousands of tanks to Canada in 1940 just because the game allows for it...

I think this could be quite promising - imagine something similar for the UK - would make Sealion a lot harder to pull off.

Might also be some scope of improving Russian ai - it would be great if the Soviets tried to encircle German units, since this was the Soviet strategy.

 

[KaiMaster]

I agree the scripting could be pretty nasty... but Poland is *the* perfect example to use. Not too big like Germany or the UK (oh man the coding for one of those two would be terrible) but not too small either. Poland could reasonably grow a little and become more of a power in the world. If a few things were different (as can happen in HOI) the whole outlook could change.

The AI should be broken into 4 parts assuming we can swap AI files:

1) peace-time
Until the techs match historically (or the Allies give the Polish suitable techs) they have to research all arty and maybe infantry techs. Building infrastructure is a no-no for the most part

2) defensive war
I consider this the period where Poland has under like 30 territories. You can make the German player (or USSR) player have one helluva difficult time with taking Poland. In history it took around 5 weeks, there is no law that states it can't take longer And possibly give the Allies time to join early changing history as well. N!ghty's description of the AI is just the first part, the AI would need additional scripting to handle alternative attack routes etc. And more USSR options. What if the USSR invades first...

3) peace after a period of war
This should have some tech development with arty, but also build as much as possible with available manpower and rebuild fronts.

4) offensive war
Let's assume the USSR joins the allies or something and Poland is still alive. With Germany taking a beating in France, there is nothing that says the Polish AI has to just sit there... it could switch AI files to "offensive" and start to take back the opponent. This AI is optional though, for the short term you could just have a purely defensive Poland and that would be OK.