Working Strategically Together With Faction Allies (Supreme Commander)

[agentgb]

Given the move to less micro management, and that in most cases having an ai has an ally can be counter productive sometimes, mostly due to them having there own interest, or somtimes none at all, will we see a move to influencing or commanding on a theater scale like that of Eisenhower, supreme commander of the allied forces.

To give a further example, looking at the last WWW, with italy being slighty underpowered, idol and having no direction, due to not having any idea of what they should be doing, should germany be able to tell/influence them on what they should be focusing on military wise & strategically for the greater good of there faction?

Would a Supreme Commander feature for a faction allow the ai to function somewhat better & cooperatively? There was somthing similar in hoi3, but you could only designate a point of attack, select nations you wish to participate and hoped they would turn up eventually, but for all you knew they sent garrison units, or couldn't send anything due to having no ships. Would having some influence over there direction on production, focusing on a unique strength for them to concentrate on be beneficial to the faction efforts? (such has having germany concentrating on it's land forces, japan navy & airforce, italy navy & military? dictating areas that you believe they should limit themselves to or seek to expand too, giving them orders to seek out convoys? or would it take away some of abilities for the ai to perhaps further it's own exploits in conflict of there own interest, or dumb down the ai? or basically rob the game of any tactical fairness?

The reason why i suggest this apart from what i have stated above, is that in a multiplayer game, players will often focus mainly on a few strengths for there country for the greater good of the faction. I thought if the ai could be influenced in such a fashion also, it would stop ai nations being picked off easliy or being predictable.

E.g

Germany tells Italy to focus mostly on reforming and inceasing the size of there navy, while only limiting themselves to the mediterranean, at the very least this will damage the british navy and make britain divert production to replacing ships.

 

[LordOfWar16]

You shouldnt be able to basicly dictate what the AI is doing. That is simply plain boring and unrealistic. You cant simply dictate another leader how he has to lead his country. Especially the Axis members and the western allies and the soviet union were anything but great allies that worked well together. They simply had similar interests or saw an benefitial cooperation. Mussolini couldnt care less about Germany and basicly followed their own interests and the balkans simply were more scared of Stalin than of Hitler.

Gamewise the AI is alot improved since HoI III and you can actually see that to some degree in WWW, mind they play with an in development built and the AI isnt 100% done, where the Spanish and Italian AI thought the german player would have more use for their units and offered them as expeditionaries.

Other than that you can share battleplans with your allies (a button in the bottom right).

It should also be noted that in World War Wednesday the Italian AI was a bit handycapped due to the fact that germany accepted Yugoslavia into the axis and thus cut the italians off from their potential industrial capacity. Besides that balancing isnt done yet and the AI probably work in progress, probably one of the reasons they brought in an USA and Japan player.

 

[agentgb]

@LordOfWar16

i see what your getting at, but in the www, and even in hoi3, if italy fails in africa, they will mostly if not attacking the balkans, sit there quite content with themselves, it could have been handy if italy was instead using that time to build up a navy? When playing mutilplayer games, players will often focus on what there main strengths will be throughout the game and help each other accordingly.

 

[LordOfWar16]

@LordOfWar16

i see what your getting at, but in the www, and even in hoi3, if italy fails in africa, they will mostly if not attacking the balkans, sit there quite content with themselves, it could have been handy if italy was instead using that time to build up a navy? When playing mutilplayer games, players will often focus on what there main strengths will be throughout the game and help each other accordingly.

well, yeah. An player will always be better than an AI of course, even if Wiz is secretly an AI wizzard. That said Wiz doesnt do the main lifting on the HoI IV AI (he works on stellaris at the moment) but sent his padawan as lend lease. The USA and Japanese AI didnt seem to do that well in that work in progress built either, which is probably the reason for the 2 players joining in.

 

[agentgb]

well, yeah. An player will always be better than an AI of course, even if Wiz is secretly an AI wizzard. That said Wiz doesnt do the main lifting on the HoI IV AI (he works on stellaris at the moment) but sent his padawan as lend lease.

yeah Johan was mumbling that the US wouldn't even send him IC , following week, two players stepped in, on behalf of the US & Japan, even in hoi3 it quite easy to have the US send IC, so i knew the ai wasn't refined just yet.

 

[LordOfWar16]

yeah Johan was mumbling that the US wouldn't even send him IC , following week, two players stepped in, fon behalf of the US & Japan, even in hoi3 it quite easy to have the US send OC, so i knew the ai wasn't refined just yet.

well, you cant send any IC but i guess lend lease is what you mean. Besides that it is understandable that the AI doesnt work properly in an campaign where they basicly switch builts every week and alot of stuff changes. For example, daniels infantry only tactic without artillery wont work forever aswell.

 

[CharlieFox]

For me it would be enough if USA Ai finally realized that perhaps it does not need all its mechanized divisions to guard against a Mexican invasion while the UK player is invading France and Italy completely on his own...

 

[LordOfWar16]

For me it would be enough if USA Ai finally realized that perhaps it does not need all its mechanized divisions to guard against a Mexican invasion while the UK player is invading France and Italy completely on his own...

I am sure they will atleast offer expeditionaries, just as Spain, Italy, Hungary and Latvia did in the world war wednesday streams if they think you can handle the divisions better than them in the european theatre.

 

[agentgb]

I am sure they will atleast offer expeditionaries, just as Spain, Italy, Hungary and Latvia did in the world war wednesday streams if they think you can handle the divisions better than them in the european theatre.

The British Delegate to the US Delegate

"build me an army worthy of mordor!"

 

[Sir Garnet]

There should be no reason for the US to exped forces to Britain. Whether under one battle plan or separate ones, US and UK forces can invade Europe side-by side. For AI, there just needs to be a mechanism to propose or accept battle plans or at least objectives for joint operations.

 

[agentgb]

From what i've been seeing from the WWW, the player can pretty much just take another allies forces for themselves? which i suppose fixes this problem somewhat, but the composition may be a bit undesirable i guess.

@Sir Garnet no you are correct to a point, but the supreme allied commander of europe was Eisenhower, and it was his job to make sure they were all beating to the same drum, in africa, greece & malta, the italians were feckless, and needed german assistance which then pretty much led to the germans effectively running the operation, same was also true on the eastern front versus the russians, which saw the german led operation supported by italians & romanians that made up army group south, and took there orders from the germans. But i would like it for it to go further then that, i'm talking about influencing what another country builds, perhaps at a political point cost though.

With what your saying about the AI, i agree, somthing would need to be done to make them better at working cooperatively, what i was merely proposing aisdes from the synchronised planning of objectives that would support each others interest instead of being left to follow there interest of there own accord and thus being picked of suitably in the same fashion, was also a concentrated effort in supporing each other via production,

so for example,
the germans ai says to the italians, "i see you have an interest in africa" "if you build more warships and do a better job contesting the med from the brits, we can finish of those dastardly brits for you!" "those ships could also then help us later in operation sealion!" and from that both countires are seeking mutal gain to fulfill each others interest. I think if you could spend political points telling another country of "what you would like them to produce more off" and then with a strategic planning screen give some form of direction of were they should be operating in order to better help the alliance, could make the ai work and support each other alot better.

Afterall this is exactly what would happen in a multiplayer game.

 

[ArcandSpark]

I hope the devs look at this idea and implement it because this would be very helpful to people both in MP and out of it. Also this could be a lot of depth added to the game and make helping your AI team get stronger actually worth while.