Pushing for Stalingrad while Berlin falls?!?

[Wellington]

How is this possible? Isn't the AI programmed to defend the capital? I got the impression that the nations capital is important.

 

[Cpt.Cross]

if it can push it will push. Ai tries to get troops everywhere it has territory. Its why the UK is often lacking troops on the British isles as its troops are on holiday in Belize

 

[Wellington]

On the serious side, I think this decreases realism. Without being a programmer it seems obvious that the AI has extremely complicated choices to make in this game, still I wish they could fix this.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

On the serious side, I think this decreases realism. Without being a programmer it seems obvious that the AI has extremely complicated choices to make in this game, still I wish they could fix this.

What really hurts is that despite Germany losing what appears to be a main industrial centers, it still has enough "power" to conquer the Soviet Union. The Soviet AI needs a serious rework, one that should have come with NSB, to minimize the ability for the Germans to overpower the Red Army on historical.

 

[Wellington]

What really hurts is that despite Germany losing what appears to be a main industrial centers, it still has enough "power" to conquer the Soviet Union. The Soviet AI needs a serious rework, one that should have come with NSB, to minimize the ability for the Germans to overpower the Red Army on historical.

Well, when you have sufficient numbers of good divisions, and are winning, there is not much need for new material. Playing Japan now, Regular level, China and India are conquered and I really dont need anything but oil. With strong veteran divisions losses are very low. If Germany has oil reserves and is in the same situation, more or less, they can go on fighting a long time. But they should defend Berlin. Nothing else make sense.

 

[Volbound]

On the serious side, I think this decreases realism. Without being a programmer it seems obvious that the AI has extremely complicated choices to make in this game, still I wish they could fix this.

A lot of games are bad. I just do something where I pretend the AI defends Capital.

In Imperator Rome,, you can ask for Carthage right away as Rome and take their most valuable province.

In Rome TW 2, Carthage defends Spain but leaves Carthage open to conquer.

In EU4, you can demand London as France and claim it.

There is all kinds of stupidity like that in all of the strategy games.

 

[Hermerico]

I have not played a single game where Germany hasn't lost Berlin and 70% of its core territory to the Allies (usually U.K invasions in Niedersachsen or the Netherlands) while still steadfastly holding the eastern front in place.

Unless I'm directly playing the Soviet Union, i see Germany capitulating before the USSR even gets to Poland.

Even if i am playing the Soviet Union, it is not uncommon to see the U.K suddenly landing in Hamburg and steamrolling Berlin in 2 months while Germany still outnumbers me in divisions.

It seems like the German AI grossly underestimates the Allied threat once they land in Europe, even if directly in German soil, while simultaneously being completely unwilling to give up an inch of eastern Europe to the Soviets.

 

[Volbound]

I have not played a single game where Germany hasn't lost Berlin and 70% of its core territory to the Allies (usually U.K invasions in Niedersachsen or the Netherlands) while still steadfastly holding the eastern front in place.

Unless I'm directly playing the Soviet Union, i see Germany capitulating before the USSR even gets to Poland.

Even if i am playing the Soviet Union, it is not uncommon to see the U.K suddenly landing in Hamburg and steamrolling Berlin in 2 months while Germany still outnumbers me in divisions.

It seems like the German AI grossly underestimates the Allied threat once they land in Europe, even if directly in German soil, while simultaneously being completely unwilling to give up an inch of eastern Europe to the Soviets.

It is likely because they send troops to other fronts like Africa.

Still German AI is still a lot smarter than French AI. Kind of ok because war seems anti-climatic if France goes down easy.

 

[KubiG37]

To me it feels like Germany does actually overprioritize the Soviet Front.(Maybe because it’s so large?)

Last time I played as SU, I was surprised how difficult it was even as a player against AI (note I never play ‘meta’ ) the AI was throwing everything at me, all the tanks it had, all the planes (and all planes thr Axis allies had), yet when Allies landed 20 infantry divisions in Normandy they walked through most of France and Belgium as if there wasn’t a single german unit.

I checked via observe, and there really werent’t almost any, yet in SU I have 5-10 Axis divisions stockpiled in every single province!

 

[WilliamG55]

This is exactly reminiscent of the situation with France, when you bypass their defenses and simply enter Paris - capitulation.

In fact, it kills the atmosphere of the game quite a lot.

For such situations, it is necessary to enter the capital garrison. Encrypt the AI in such a way that it has reserve divisions as much as possible to protect the capital.

AI does not prioritize the protection of its "native territory".

AI is unable to assess the degree of threat. Perhaps for this, a special reserve army of 6-8 divisions is even needed. The size of which will depend on the size of the army or human resources. And name this function "Call Militia".

 

[Simon_9732495]

To me it feels like Germany does actually overprioritize the Soviet Front.(Maybe because it’s so large?)

Last time I played as SU, I was surprised how difficult it was even as a player against AI (note I never play ‘meta’ ) the AI was throwing everything at me, all the tanks it had, all the planes (and all planes thr Axis allies had), yet when Allies landed 20 infantry divisions in Normandy they walked through most of France and Belgium as if there wasn’t a single german unit.

I checked via observe, and there really werent’t almost any, yet in SU I have 5-10 Axis divisions stockpiled in every single province!

Human players often act similar.
They throw everything against the Soviets and in the West there’s often only 1 Division per port and if 1 port is lost this results immediately in a huge western front.

A losing Axis player then often changes Plan and moves everything ( planes and tanks) to the east to kill dday.
But without progress on the eastern front the Axis will lose anyway, so you can also see players going „all in“ and trying to cap the Soviets first and ignoring the dday.

Tl;dr:
There are much dumber AI moves than this and if you are losing you can sometimes only choose between 2 bad decisions.

 

[WilliamG55]

Human players often act similar.
They throw everything against the Soviets and in the West there’s often only 1 Division per port and if 1 port is lost this results immediately in a huge western front.

A losing Axis player then often changes Plan and moves everything ( planes and tanks) to the east to kill dday.
But without progress on the eastern front the Axis will lose anyway, so you can also see players going „all in“ and trying to cap the Soviets first and ignoring the dday.

Tl;dr:
There are much dumber AI moves than this and if you are losing you can sometimes only choose between 2 bad decisions.

I agree.
But let's evaluate such situations from the standpoint of how to act optimally.

More than once I saw a situation when an enemy division walks near the capital and does not even try to protect it - it looks strange, to say the least.

On the other hand, the AI has 5 divisions per cell (although two are enough) on the front line, but does not even think about throwing them over to protect the capital.

 

[Terracos]

The problem is somewhat "simple": The Soviets need massive lend lease to be able to push Germany as the supply issue that hamstrings Germany to push further into the SU also works the other way around and attrition just burns Soviet equipment so it becomes a massive stalemate where no one can push.

If you want the Soviets to push Germany you need to throw half of the US production at the SU. The problem is, a AI US will not do that and that weakens the SU a lot, or better not boost it.

The massive superiority of the Allies after D-Day is because they have all the stuff for themselfs while letting the SU fail, restulting in an Allied victory instead of a team effort.

 

[Hermerico]

Still German AI is still a lot smarter than French AI.

I think France's problems are more related to it having paper army with crippling equipment shortages a smaller military industry than Poland, as well as a plethora of crippling events and spirits that prevent it from ever moving past this incredibly weak starting position.

France SHOULD lose because of terrible AI, not by making it weaker than Poland.

 

[Volbound]

I think France's problems are more related to it having paper army with crippling equipment shortages a smaller military industry than Poland, as well as a plethora of crippling events and spirits that prevent it from ever moving past this incredibly weak starting position.

France SHOULD lose because of terrible AI, not by making it weaker than Poland.

In new updates though they will send 50% of their army to Africa and they will also keep divisions guarding their coasts lines.

 

[Beagá]

Nah, it really should come from bad doctrine (well that already quite happens but should be worse) plus bad research cacabilities, so they keep from putting radio on their tanks, plus one man turret on most of their tanks.

The problem is that if france should have 3 research slots for more time... Well then so should be Poland and other minors. It´s a huge balance problem and not easy to fix.

 

[Volbound]

France isn't too bad. I beat Germany with them solo in a game the other day playing Historical AI. You just have to know what to do with them. Their focus tree is very important and slowly gets rid of most their debuffs in time.

Also if you lose Netherland/Belgium, you are basically screwed.

Anti-Tank guns are very important to have as France. Another thing that I did as France was really build up my air force.

I did use an easier sitting than Standard though so that helped as well.

 

[Beagá]

I did use an easier sitting than Standard though so that helped as well.

Stop right there. Easy difficulty doesn´t count for anything.

try doing it in normal, either with Allies or Entente.

 

[nymet260]

I think France's problems are more related to it having paper army with crippling equipment shortages a smaller military industry than Poland, as well as a plethora of crippling events and spirits that prevent it from ever moving past this incredibly weak starting position.

France SHOULD lose because of terrible AI, not by making it weaker than Poland.

Thats the thing, France is actually strong just the vanilla AI path for focuses is so bad that it prevents it from ever doing anything. I poop you not they will spend like 3 years in the economic tree for no reason! Like for example the AI will never resolve the manpower shortage crisis nor the disjointed government, so what happens is that even if France survives to 1942, they have 0 man power and have 0 PP to scale up their military draft laws or take better economic laws or the correct focuses to remove their penalties.

When I played germany in expert AI I noticed the mod maker made sure the french AI took proper focus paths and it ended up making them much more tougher opponent especially since they dont have disjointed government so you couldnt just rush paris and be done.

 

[KubiG37]

In new updates though they will send 50% of their army to Africa and they will also keep divisions guarding their coasts lines.

Yesterday I saw a polish division in France, in historical game! That was hilarious (fk our country, let's help France instead )