Results of China game shows AI still broken

[ThuderLizard2]

Played China on regular difficulty and was expecting a decent challenge. Unfortunately, AI is still badly broken in Hoi4 so it was a total pushover. Japan mostly bashed their forces against Beijing and the province by the ocean and the middle border province was rarely attacked. I used this to rest troops and rotate them back to the other two provinces. AI naval invasions were under powered and often landed on places with no ports (see screenshot). Later, after I did a white peace with Japan, I attacked Malay peninsula which was left totally unprotected (see screenshot). When attack by Communist Chinese, the AI just kept attacking into China's hinterlands and totally overextended themselves - they were just cut off and killed easily.

My conclusions after a few games about the still current AI bugs:

* AI continues to bash against prepared defenses
* AI can't execute effective naval invasions even with overwhelming air and sea dominance
* AI still does not garrison critical ports
* AI has no clue about protecting supply lines and will over extend making units easy to cut off and kill
* AI leaves holes in front lines allowing easy advancement

All in all very disappointing given the long list of AI changes mentioned in the patch notes. At a functional level, I see little real improvement. I've posted about the broken AI many times pre-1.5 and often heard the response that "they are working on it for Cornflakes." Well, I've not seen much evidence of significant changes from test runs as Germany and China.

 

[LakeClouds]

Surprising since China was focus of this DLC.

 

[heliostellar]

I keep losing to Japan during the Marco Polo Incident. This is the one Paradox game that I am least skilled at... how are you doing it? I've tried to prioritize good relations with the US and alternatively with the other warlords. Do you just let Beijing go?

 

[ThuderLizard2]

how are you doing it?

I took the subdue warload path and attacked two of the three that didn't submit. This gives mil power which allows you to start to reform the army which you have to do three times and then takes lessons of war decision to lift army corruption. Use your small wing of fighter to get air superior for bonus against warlords - do not use them against Japan. I also increased my army template to 16 and started to build rifles and arty. Once I had some arty built (had to research), added to a new division type which was a basic 7/2 inf/arty. Also focused research on engineering/industry first and got the extra research slot early as well.

I had about 20 divisions on Beijing front and some on the north side as well - maybe 6-7 initially. Keep an eye on the two provinces that Japan will attack. They don't normally attack center province which has the airport. Click on two provinces under attack and manually pull units off the line when org low to center province to recover. Manually move units from center to other two provinces once recovered. Also, garrison all ports with 2 units at least and have 5-10 as rapid reaction force if Japan lands elsewhere.

Japan AI will keep bashing into your units at Bejing and attempt invasions occasionally. After about a year, you can start pushing them back by finding holes or weak pints in their lines.

 

[heliostellar]

I took the subdue warload path and attacked two of the three that didn't submit. This gives mil power which allows you to start to reform the army which you have to do three times and then takes lessons of war decision to lift army corruption. Use your small wing of fighter to get air superior for bonus against warlords - do not use them against Japan. I also increased my army template to 16 and started to build rifles and arty. Once I had some arty built (had to research), added to a new division type which was a basic 7/2 inf/arty. Also focused research on engineering/industry first and got the extra research slot early as well.

I had about 20 divisions on Beijing front and some on the north side as well - maybe 6-7 initially. Keep an eye on the two provinces that Japan will attack. They don't normally attack center province which has the airport. Click on two provinces under attack and manually pull units off the line when org low to center province to recover. Manually move units from center to other two provinces once recovered. Also, garrison all ports with 2 units at least and have 5-10 as rapid reaction force if Japan lands elsewhere.

Japan AI will keep bashing into your units at Bejing and attempt invasions occasionally. After about a year, you can start pushing them back by finding holes or weak pints in their lines.

Interesting... and very helpful, thanks!

 

[LakeClouds]

Japan AI will keep bashing into your units at Bejing and attempt invasions occasionally. After about a year, you can start pushing them back by finding holes or weak pints in their lines.

Seems like a bug in AI code?

 

[Goshawk]

To be fair, AI is much better now. They are constantly moving into empty divisions to create/stop encirclement. And I don't get divisions shuffling across the front line/garrison any more.