Weird AI behaviour

[Hibernian]

Hi, I'm playing CORE 0.4.0 with all the latest updates, and I'm experiencing some strange AI behaviour.

I'm playing as the Soviet Union, I beat the Nazis and managed to take over most of Europe. I allowed Germany to become my puppet as the DDR and this is where the oddness comes in.

The DDR does practically nothing but produce Money, they have like 40,000 money units and are still trying to make more. I loaded up a game as the DDR and their production sliders are set almost completely to Consumer Goods, and I have no idea why. It's not like they have any dissent to get rid of, and it's not just a short term glitch, it's the 1950's now and they've been doing it for years.

This is really screwing up my game, I need them as a useful ally but they hardly produce any military units even though they have 223 IC. And because they won't dedicate any IC to production they constantly run out of resources and I have to funnel in my own to compensate. When I played as them I was able to get about 400 IC and was totally self-sufficient in all resources except oil. They should be giving me resources not the other way round, they're not a useful ally, their just a drain, all the AI does is make money and never spends it.

So can I get some help here? Is there a way I can edit the save game or the AI files, so that the DDR AI produces something useful, instead of money? (i.e. what lines of AI code would I have to change to force them to produce something else?).

Thanks.

 

[Hagar]

Well Dec is the one who can honestly answer best, but I presume the DDR AI is pretty much your run-off-the-mill, generic AI, or perhaps even worse: Vanilla AI. So far focus has been towards making the game perform as historically as possible in a standoff game during the war. The postwar setup still needs a major overhaul. So postwar WWIII scenarios including released nations (however plausible the DDR actually is) is on the to-do list, just not that high compared to other things. Though I wonder if we ever actually will get to them with HoI3 round the corner...

 

[Hibernian]

Ok thanks, I think I figured out what the problem was. The DDR had no Manpower and I think that's why they weren't producing anything, so the AI just produced money instead. I gave them some manpower in the save file and that seems to have done the trick. I then had to change the AI military production lines because all they were building was Garrisons, now I've got them building tanks, ships and planes like I wanted. They still don't seem to be self-sufficient though, so I have to just give them resources, but it's worth it if they build an effective army.

I really think there should be some generic event for new nations to get a one-time Manpower boost, because otherwise it just takes way too long for them to build up manpower. In the VIP mod for Victoria there is an event like that, it gives any new nation 1 free Infantry division and coverts 10% of the population to Soldiers, which gives them a chance to defend their new country. Maybe somebody could come up with an event that gives like, 20 manpower per owned province, or something like that.

Speaking of the AI though, there's still some major issues in CORE. When I was fighting the Germans on the Eastern front they never once used their Air force even though they vastly outnumbered me (only Italy bombed me). Japan is still getting its massive Army trapped somewhere, this time after they beat China they had 150 divisions stationary in southern Thailand facing off against a British army of about 30 divisions. They just sat there for most of the war and when the Americans invaded China they didn't move to defend it and just got cut off and destroyed in a pocket.

BTW, isn't the American AI supposed to liberate Japan after they have occupied it? It's 1957 in my game now and the Americans and British are still occupying Japan and China.

One other Annoying issue I've encountered again is the revolt.txt file, none of the nations can be liberated after 1954. But my game will go on until 1964, so I had to change all of the end dates. I don't understand why somebody didn't just do that already for people with Armageddon.

Anyway, other than that it's a great mod. Thanks.

 

[Hagar]

Well I do know the AI might get bogged down at times if running a continuous game without reloads. But Dec should be able to give more insight into the AI mechanics, the Betas into their observations regarding AI behaviour in-game.
As to the timeframe, well the mod is exclusively designed to cover the 1936-1952 timeline. So all of the tech trees and such are mirrored on that timeframe. That Armageddon will allow you to play until 1964 is more of a bonus, but certainly not actively supported. It's complex enough with the current setup being cramped as it is. And post-war events are pretty much all Vanilla events, so there's room for improvement there.

 

[HistoryMan]

The DDR is not a nation we have any events for in CORE 2, so it (unlike Vichy or Croatia, for example) gets no initial manpower pool or other resource pools.

Tim

 

[el alamein]

Hi Hibernian,

As a rule of thumb, I usually save/reload every 3-6 months pre 1939, and once war starts in Europe I save/reload at the end of each month. This helps to reset the AI with regards to balancing up it's front line and redeploying aircraft and ships. I found during beta tests that saving/reloading would have different results than leaving the AI to run for months or years without resetting. Sometimes the differences were quite major. This is more of an AI bug than anything that the CORE team can fix.

Not only does reloading every month help the AI but if your game crashes you haven't lost hours of gameplay either!

Hope this helps - try reloading an earlier save game and compare the difference when you save/reload monthly.