The great official AI thread
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Its a tiny version of Terry Venables (not to be confused with Ray Winstone) who lives in your CPU because he likes the warmth. I think....
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My biggest concern of the AI in 1.3 is large scale battle plans and strategic redeploy and naval invasions. The AI is very good at managing a small front with only a few regions to attack but fails horribly when you have large fronts with large battle plans as the margin for error increases a lot.
I am by far no HoI4 expert but what bothers me the most currently, because it is even for a beginner easily to see how bad the AI is at these tasks are (in this order!):
I am by far no HoI4 expert but what bothers me the most currently, because it is even for a beginner easily to see how bad the AI is at these tasks are (in this order!):
- The AI (GB) throws tons of units in suicidal naval invasions against me (Germany). There is no way those invasions ever had a chance to be successful. Having already failed myself horribly in some scenarios with such invasions (especially one province islands, where you can't land without fighting) I assume this is just a difficult task for the AI in general. A first but minor fix could maybe be that the AI does not try to land in the same province again with the same amount of units. If I have 4 units there and they suicide 10 then until I remove my 4 units they should not repeat suiciding there again and again. They need to land somewhere else or bomb me. This is what a player would have to do in such a scenario. Some naval invasions are simply impossible and the AI needs to consider them. One of the biggest problems for the AI in such cases seems to be to value the Naval Invasions badly. It would make sense to try a risky move for something very important, maybe war ending but in most cases it is just a random port they invade without any chance to successfully land.
- Units need to use strategic redeployment less often when they are travelling along the front. If I have a long front the AI tends to always strategically redeploy units which then have 90% loss of organisation and then loose combat. Again the most important parameter for this seems to be simply the distance. However, in most cases it is absolutely okay to loose provinces and let your units move slowly without the high impact on organisation and the be ready to fight and maybe reconquer what you have lost in the meantime. Supply routes, ports, airbases, victory points might require quicker actions but the AI seems not to act based on the need to be there quickly, but just because it is far away and it is too lazy to walk.
- Large battleplans. This is not solely an AI problem but a combination of half AI and half user interface. If battle plans become large the AI tends to take weird moves. The UI part (does not directly fit this thread but might help as explanation) is that it is sometimes to difficult to tell them which provinces I want and which I do not want and sometimes it does try to take the wrong side of a offensive front and therefore completly moves stupidly. The spearhead battle plan feature was a huge improvement for this problem. The AI part of this. When a battleplan becomes large the AI seems to have troubles to use the available space correctly: Pockets with many own units surrounding an enemy province get too many units assigned as there are many provinces while large front segments where the enemy has units do not get enough units allowing them to break through. In most cases it would be more naturally to assume that a province where the enemy could move into and try to cut me off requires a unit more than a province which already has a own unit defending it. I am not exactly sure but I assume the AI simply does not consider the added bonuses for multiple fronts or entranchment correctly and therefore uses too many units in the wrong area, while a player easily can see "I will easily kill the units in this pocket". (My solution for this is just to NEVER EVER use large battleplans and split the battleplans always in smaller battleplans which are way more robust and tend to bypass many problems)
- Wrong specialized units in wrong provinces. I want my mountaineers in mountains and hills, etc. The AI seems to very often not place my units correctly. I can not pin it down exactly and it could have gotten a little bit better but still too often I question the position my units take along the front.
My own concerns right now is the U.S, Italian and Japanese AI.
The U.S does very little still to aid the Allies, once they have entered the war. They send a few divisions here and there to help out but they launch no major offensives of their own, leaving it predominately to the UK. It would be nice to truly see a successful U.S Operation Torch or assisting an invasion of Italy, let alone handling the Pacific Theatre appropriately.
The Italian AI sucks worser then Italy did in real life. Would be nice to see Italy but up more of a fight rather then surrendering by 1940. Nuff said on that.
The Japanese need a lot of love too. The AI will not attack British or the Dutch pacific holdings let alone the Philippines. They continually remain bogged down in China or would rather send divisions to the middle of Africa then take out Malaya for example. I would like to see Pacific War with the AI starting to develop.
Thats about my only observations thus far.
The U.S does very little still to aid the Allies, once they have entered the war. They send a few divisions here and there to help out but they launch no major offensives of their own, leaving it predominately to the UK. It would be nice to truly see a successful U.S Operation Torch or assisting an invasion of Italy, let alone handling the Pacific Theatre appropriately.
The Italian AI sucks worser then Italy did in real life. Would be nice to see Italy but up more of a fight rather then surrendering by 1940. Nuff said on that.
The Japanese need a lot of love too. The AI will not attack British or the Dutch pacific holdings let alone the Philippines. They continually remain bogged down in China or would rather send divisions to the middle of Africa then take out Malaya for example. I would like to see Pacific War with the AI starting to develop.
Thats about my only observations thus far.
Here is another example of how badly the AI's production and training decisions cripple it. I am the Soviets in my current and ongoing MP game. My ally Sinkiang gave me 29 of their 35 divisions as an expedition. These units had a respectable 7+2 plus supports template. They also only averaged about 15% of their needed equipment. Sinkiang cannot supply 35 divisions within their own borders even with zero fighting and zero infrastructure damage. They had literally built themselves to death.
What the AI is doing: building far more units than it can supply and support.
What it should be doing instead: only building units that can be supplied at the front and for whom it has a chance of providing replacements when needed.
Whatever routine is currently in place that tells the AI when it is time to stop building units is entirely useless. If it is based on manpower, that is useless since raising conscription laws is entirely too easy. Manpower is almost never a limiting factor in the long run.
It should be required to hold back a certain percentage of the gear that its army has fielded as a reserve. This must be a percentage and not some arbitrary one-size-fits-all flat number. It must also learn to minimize attrition.
What the AI is doing: building far more units than it can supply and support.
What it should be doing instead: only building units that can be supplied at the front and for whom it has a chance of providing replacements when needed.
Whatever routine is currently in place that tells the AI when it is time to stop building units is entirely useless. If it is based on manpower, that is useless since raising conscription laws is entirely too easy. Manpower is almost never a limiting factor in the long run.
It should be required to hold back a certain percentage of the gear that its army has fielded as a reserve. This must be a percentage and not some arbitrary one-size-fits-all flat number. It must also learn to minimize attrition.
My experience ahs been that the U.S. takes no meaningful part because it strands so many units at sea that it runs out of convoys. Once a unit is headed to some invalid port, specifically one that it captured in some landing and then lost, they get stuck at sea. They never get new orders issued and continue to sit in place taking 30% attrition for the remainder of the game.
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My current test game is in 1994.
Japanese invade Australia but haven't invaded Malaya which is a far easier thing to do, and would actually give them resources. The Dutch East Indies is for some unknown reason is the leader in the "Benelux" faction along with Turkey (?!?) but in my other games Japan never seems to bother with it anyway. They've been pushed way back by the Russians to the point they are only holding South Korea.
Germany invaded Canada, but for some unknown reason (probably stupid AI), hasn't bothered cleaing up Newfoundland or Labrador which are owned by the UK.
I tag switch to Japan and I can see that they've got (hardcoded?) Naval Invasions of the Philippines, they are wasting 30+ divisions setting up naval invasions from Oman into places like Andaman, south India and Rangoon (which they should be doing by helping the Vichy France in their actual land invasion). they are shifting fronts with almost their entire army in China, to help cover the invasion from Russia. They haven't bothered invading Tasmania to completely kill Australia, nor have they invaded New Zealand to completely secure their southern flank.
They also have no convoys.
Their production is godawful. They only have 56 MIC and 27 Dockyards. They only have 10 factorises building weapons, 10 artillery, 9 heavy tank, 4 support, 5 motorised, 5 advanced anti-tank (why?), 2 light tank, and a handful of bombers/fighters/carrier planes with just 1 factory each.
They have 6 dockyards on convoys, the other 20 or so are being split between a carrier, a heavy cruiser, a battlecruiser and a battleship. Which will take years to build because they have no resources.
They have 2.5m manpower left but aren't recruiting anyone. They are on total mobilisation. Why does the AI keep using this? It's such an awful choice. They are on Extensive Conscription when they don't need to be.
I took over and it took all of 5 minutes to send my troops into the Russian & Chinese VP's to end those wars in late 1944.
I sent my fleet to surround the British and strat bombing them into oblivion, and now I'm waiting to see how long it will take for the Germany or Italians to invade it.
It's now Mid 1945 and Germany is nuking the British but every invasion (about 4 so far) have got into the landing province then been pushed back off the map. There are repeated one div invasions that get immediately slaughtered.
it's happening! The French & Germans have landed near Norwich and reinforced with about 40 divs.
Victory in 1946. I wonder how long it would've taken if I hadn't intervened against the Russians & Chinese and then England?
Japanese invade Australia but haven't invaded Malaya which is a far easier thing to do, and would actually give them resources. The Dutch East Indies is for some unknown reason is the leader in the "Benelux" faction along with Turkey (?!?) but in my other games Japan never seems to bother with it anyway. They've been pushed way back by the Russians to the point they are only holding South Korea.
Germany invaded Canada, but for some unknown reason (probably stupid AI), hasn't bothered cleaing up Newfoundland or Labrador which are owned by the UK.
I tag switch to Japan and I can see that they've got (hardcoded?) Naval Invasions of the Philippines, they are wasting 30+ divisions setting up naval invasions from Oman into places like Andaman, south India and Rangoon (which they should be doing by helping the Vichy France in their actual land invasion). they are shifting fronts with almost their entire army in China, to help cover the invasion from Russia. They haven't bothered invading Tasmania to completely kill Australia, nor have they invaded New Zealand to completely secure their southern flank.
They also have no convoys.
Their production is godawful. They only have 56 MIC and 27 Dockyards. They only have 10 factorises building weapons, 10 artillery, 9 heavy tank, 4 support, 5 motorised, 5 advanced anti-tank (why?), 2 light tank, and a handful of bombers/fighters/carrier planes with just 1 factory each.
They have 6 dockyards on convoys, the other 20 or so are being split between a carrier, a heavy cruiser, a battlecruiser and a battleship. Which will take years to build because they have no resources.
They have 2.5m manpower left but aren't recruiting anyone. They are on total mobilisation. Why does the AI keep using this? It's such an awful choice. They are on Extensive Conscription when they don't need to be.
I took over and it took all of 5 minutes to send my troops into the Russian & Chinese VP's to end those wars in late 1944.
I sent my fleet to surround the British and strat bombing them into oblivion, and now I'm waiting to see how long it will take for the Germany or Italians to invade it.
It's now Mid 1945 and Germany is nuking the British but every invasion (about 4 so far) have got into the landing province then been pushed back off the map. There are repeated one div invasions that get immediately slaughtered.
it's happening! The French & Germans have landed near Norwich and reinforced with about 40 divs.
Victory in 1946. I wonder how long it would've taken if I hadn't intervened against the Russians & Chinese and then England?
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- What the AI is doing wrong
Save game is attached.
- What you think it should be doing instead.
- Any potentially relevant context, as many things when are crazy in one situation is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in another. For example, if Japan does not invade USA it may simply be because they are getting their ass handed to them by Soviet."
Hmm.. Can't think of any relevant context.
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Hi, Recently finished a game as Germany in Ironman mode. I defeated the allies and USSR and noticed the USA still isn't active. It sent some units to Africa, but there wasn't any presence in Asia or Australia. After landing in UK and defeating the British I took the some provinces in South America and eventually made some invasions in the South around Texas and Mexico. The USA had been building some fleets and had some divisions trying to defend itself but it was too late.
I am still disappointed by the lack of activity by the USA. They should be the major presence in the game in Both Asia Pacific and European theaters.
I am still disappointed by the lack of activity by the USA. They should be the major presence in the game in Both Asia Pacific and European theaters.
Let's present the matter sucintly :
Exhibit A : Belgium as player. First game as Belgium. Nine 40 width divisions ready in October 1939, six of them still readying thanks to poor manpower
German AI stopped cold in it's attacks, with minimal allied help-following on that matter history, France and UK send most of their troops in Netherlands, where they are massacred. By late november 1939, a Belgian counteroffensive take Koln.
Exhibit B : France, who have thus to endure German attacks directly against the Maginot line (The Belgium division cover the Ardennes) and in the Alps. The Maginot line is pierced on the Rhine and on the Sarre by mid September and the Italians are on the Rhone in October.
Exhibit A : Belgium as player. First game as Belgium. Nine 40 width divisions ready in October 1939, six of them still readying thanks to poor manpower
German AI stopped cold in it's attacks, with minimal allied help-following on that matter history, France and UK send most of their troops in Netherlands, where they are massacred. By late november 1939, a Belgian counteroffensive take Koln.
Exhibit B : France, who have thus to endure German attacks directly against the Maginot line (The Belgium division cover the Ardennes) and in the Alps. The Maginot line is pierced on the Rhine and on the Sarre by mid September and the Italians are on the Rhone in October.
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A Tale of Two AIs
I think most HOI4 players would agree that the game's AI is major issue, failing to provide an average player much of a challenge unless they're playing as a minor country. However, Paradox has been working hard to improve the AI, and I can say that I've definitely noticed them performing better. My current campaign is with Australia on the 1.3 patch and the Together for Victory DLC. In this campaign I have encountered two very different AIs. One that is performing amazingly well, and one that is just absolutely terrible and unable to even engage in the war. This is tale of those two AIs, with screenshots for illustration
The Amazing German AI
The German AI is usually absolutely terrible, which ensures that most games as the Allies are nowhere near as challenging as they should be. Instead Germany usually collapses as they find themselves fighting on far too many fronts, usually because they declare war on new countries without finishing up current fronts. This was often caused by Germany's national focus tree, but it seems this issue may have been fixed. Germany in my campaign has done extraordinarily well.
This is Germany and the Axis Powers in December 1942. Germany quickly annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, then they and Italy invaded and defeated France. Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey have all joined the Axis. Together they defeated and made peace with the Soviet Union, Spain, and China. Germany took control of all of Russia, China became a puppet of Japan, and Spain became a neutral country. I eventually defeated Japan's Chinese puppet and forced them off the mainland, which is reflected in the pictures. However, Germany also took over all of Syria and Egypt, gaining control of the Suez Canal. By the point of the screenshot I had already pushed them back to Turkey though.
So you'll see that Germany has done incredibly well, far better than I've ever seen them do. The only reason the Poland faction still exists is because the Soviet Union conquered them before Germany could declare war on them. They were freed once the Soviets surrendered. I've been quite pleased with how Germany has done, and I'm glad to be facing a real challenge. They were even able to push back an invasion I later launched on them, though it still took them far longer than it should have.
The Lethargic & Broken Allied AI
The Allies on the other hand have done extremely terrible, and at times it appears that they may actually be completely broken. Here are some screen shots from September 1944
The same issue that usually destroys Germany, declaring stupid wars due to national focuses, has now affected Britain. They declared war on Denmark, Norway, and Sweden because they all had a small minority of communist in their country. This move made absolutely no sense considering that the Comintern faction had essentially been destroyed. Instead is just forced the Scandinavian countries into the arms of the Axis. Britain also allowed India to break away and join the Axis. However, these issues really aren't that big of a deal and can be dealt with.
What I can't deal with is a completely passive Allied AI that doesn't even seem to know it's in the middle of a world war. I first began to notice issues with the American AI as they sent several Allied countries volunteers. The American volunteers never moved from their original landing points. So there were about a dozen American divisions just sitting in Istanbul for about a year or so. And the 5-6 divisions they sent me never left the island they arrived on. These issues with the US continued even after they joined the war.
The above two screenshots are of the American army sailing to the war by way of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in 1946. Everything seems fine right? Well those divisions have been stuck in those same locations for about 3 years. I have no idea why they got stuck. Perhaps the ports they were supposed to go to fell into enemy hands, though I doubt that could be the case for most of those divisions (particularly the ones in the Pacific). And even if that is the case, the AI should be able to redirect them to different ports.
I tried tag switching to the US and ordering the units to a different port (which I didn't do until right after this screenshot, 3 years after they got stuck). However, the AI must of canceled my orders as the units remained in place several months later. I then tag switched to the US again and deleted all of their stuck divisions. They were then able to send some more divisions, however the majority of them are once again stuck in the middle of the ocean. A few divisions did make it though, and now in 1947 America is finally getting involved in the war.
The British AI is experiencing some major issues as well.
This is a picture of the majority of the British army in May 1946. At the point that I'm at in the campaign now, their army has been sitting in those same locations for almost 6 years. They have plans to invade France and Germany, but they just never send their troops. I invaded Germany, establishing a beachhead that remained open for 6 months, yet the British never sent any divisions to this invasion to help out.
This campaign has been one of both excitement and irritation. I've been extremely excited to see the German AI doing so well, and they have provided quite a challenge, something I've really enjoyed. However, the AI Allies have been a source of severe irritation as they essentially haven't done much to help me. I've conquered China, Japan, Turkey, and Italy mostly by myself. And now I'm working to defeat Germany, also with very little assistance. I really hope that whatever has caused this issue with the Allied AI gets fixed, as it has really ruined some of the fun of an otherwise amazing campaign.
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One thing that I noticed was the issue that USA has with its divisions. If you tag to them, you will probably see that they have no convoys, only have one or two dockyards to build more and are out of imports on everything because of convoys. They probably also have naval invasions in the Pacific holding convoys, when the divisions cannot even get to the launch points. This has to be a design and/or bug fault regarding the usage of convoys by the AI - non-AI won't let you get into that situation and will warn you if you have issues.
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Your game played out much differently than mine. I found the Axis AI to be lacking. Whilst Comintern AI and Allies AI was smart.
Savegame? Submit in AI-thread? Ping podcat?
This has been happening to me, too. Currently you get either brilliance or boredom. But as you are writing, the issue not only lies in the AIs evaluation algorithms, but also in the focus trees. Maybe a (partial) redesign is in order for the next patch?
You had the communist Spain win the civil war? I haven't seen that a single time since tfv came out.
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Yeah they didn't have any convoys. Would that affect divisions that are already at sea?
Yes that's how it usually goes in my campaigns as well. Hence why I was so pleased to see Germany do well in this campaign.
I intend to submit a bug report with the save file so that hopefully the issue can get fixed.
Yes sir, this is the first time since the official launch that I've seen AI Republican Spain win the civil war.
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Happened a few times in vanilla and was a huge source of land xp as the USSR. I have done all the new achievements and the fascists won within 6 months every time.
I think that is because there is a bug issue and the divisions start moving, on convoys, and then lose their convoys, possibly during a load. Look at https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-allied-troops-sitting-idle-in-oceans.995046/
