What does the AI know?

[mcaryf1]

I am interested to understand what the AI knows.

For example would the AI realise if new loops had been created to make it possible for US troops to move to the UK or N Africa in the space of one turn, which they actually could using liners such as Queen Mary? Would it make a difference if these loops were located on land or at sea?

Does the AI check all "supply" events to see where it might be advantageous to blockade ports by placing units on specific squares?

Is the AI aware if a unit has had its characteristics changed fairly radically to make it simulate another unit type? For example if a Rocket is given anti-shipping capabilities to simulate Japanese Kamikazes.

I have observed the AI utilising multiple strikes where a unit, such as a bomber has them. In my test scenario I have also given other units multiple strikes e.g. BBs, because they had primary and secondary guns to deal with multiple threats, and US fighters, because there were just too many of them to represent with single units. The AI does use these multiple strikes but I am not sure how much it understands about the potential of these units. The AI guide indicates that the AI tries to add up the striking capabilities of all its units but does it count twice for units with multiple strikes?

Regards

Mike

[PowerGmbH]

I am interested to understand what the AI knows.

Afaik the AI has depending on the difficulty level a slightly wider Visibility Range.

Most AI activities are controlled by "Plans", some are carefully programmed, and others are "generic" or randomly planned.

The AI does NOT know if it is advantage to block a specific port.

An Example of a Plans as follow: Allied AI checks how much Units are on the British Islands. Once this Number reaches a specific quantity, AND a specific Minimum date (and other conditions) the AI activates a preset "plan" with a Goal Position (i.e. an Amphibious Plan) to Paris.

Then the Engine boards the planned Unit quantity (With ot Without HQ) on Amphibs (hopefully has engough MPP) and after waiting the consignment to be complete ( preset number of turns to build up ) all the Units launch and try to get on a specific Shore Position (or near to it) with the final Goal Position Paris.

More generic are the Airsrikes, while Naval Activity is as well a "Naval Plan" prepared by the Scenario Design. So i.e. it is wise to have the AI Naval Plan in the same Period (or sightly before) so that they can clean the seas for the Amphibs. Would be ugly if the Invasion Navy comes 1 year later than the Amphibs...

In regard to Unit characteristics: afaik the units choosen by the AI to combat a certain spotted Unit are "preset" in a specific order/rank. This yourself can observe in Naval Battles:

If a Sup is spotted by the Ennemy the AI sends a lot of destroyers to chase it. If the Sub is "Protected" by BB surface Vessels, the Engine doesn't change it's attac, while a Human would probably first try to get rid of the more dangrerous BB....

If no destroyers are available the Engine chooses also Cruiseres for attac, but only as second option.

So if you change the specification of a Sub to "Naval Attac/Denfense" Value 16 the Destroyer would probably still Attac the Sub instead of the BB.

[mcaryf1]

Hi PowerGmbH

Thank you for your helpful reply. How about the existence of a LOOP. I presume the AI is aware in the standard map that it can move from the Pacific to the Atlantic although I do not think I have observed it doing that. So if I create other loops (clearly Brute Force has a lot of different loops due to its map structure) will the AI have a mechanism that it uses to check the shortest effective distance between two points including the existence of loops?

I have observed the AI blockading an enemy port, where supply events have been created, but whether this was done by chance or deliberately I do not know.

Regards

Mike

[PowerGmbH]

I havn't ever seen a AI-Transport or a AI-NavalUnit using Loop Positions.

If the AI Blockades a Port it is normally told to do so ( under certain Circumstances ) by a "Plan".

Regarding Naval and Transports or Units on Sea, this is controlled by the AI Transport/Minor Transport Plans.

i.e. if Axis Tanks sucessfully take Egypt, they would probably receive some "generic" Plans to attac Timbuktu or Capetown, but normally would stand around in Cairo and dring Beer until War's end.

Therefore there are "plans" that control i.e.: IF Cairo and other Positions become "friendly" Positions ( means Egypt conquered and nothing more to do there ) THEN starts a Transport Plan which removes the Units via a Friendly Port towards a previously Planned destiantion i.e. Athens.

If Athens is Allied in this moment, the AI has a problem, because it is not clever enough to look for i.e. to another Active Axis port in the Med...

Therefore a Scenario design would i.e. make 2 or 3 plans: a plan to withdraw to Napoli and another one to Athens or one more to Marseille, in order to have less chance to fail the "escape" from Africa.

Anyway the AI is so clever that nonavtive Units no matter where they are sometimes generically "plan" themselves some Adventure-Offensives, a thing that is quite impressive sometimes, if an Allied Human Player suddenly finds a German Tank Group popup in undefended Karthoum...

[mcaryf1]

Hi PowerGmBh

Thank you for your interesting answer. I agree with you that the AI is pretty clever for a machine based intelligence although of course has difficulty in seeing the big picture that would be obvious to a human.

I have observed the AI happily sending its troops aboard transports to almost certain destruction whilst a human of course would attempt to provide an escort or skip from port to port on a long trip. The only solution to this in my view is to design scenarios where one side is to be played by the AI and it is given advantages such as transports with defense values and AV's with attack values so that it does not need to know that it should provide escorts etc.

With respect to loops I might experiment with some land based loops e.g. between the UK and a notional Mulberry Harbour disembarkation point near Nantes and see how the AI reacts as I guess at least some land units might just fall through the loop to France and, as space is at a premium in the UK, the AI might just keep moving land units to the loop entrance!

I should say I will be away from my PC for a few days so may not be able to respond unless I find an internet cafe.

Regards

Mike

[pzgndr]

I agree with you that the AI is pretty clever for a machine based intelligence although of course has difficulty in seeing the big picture that would be obvious to a human.

There's a difference between what the generic AI is capable of doing and what specific AI scripting is capable of accomplishing. With enough clever scripting, the computer opponent can be pretty nefarious. I am often surprised by my own scripted AI in my A3R mod campaigns.

As for Big Picture, one of the toughest challenges for Allied AI was how many reinforcements to send via naval loop (yes, it can use loops!) from England and even United States to Egypt, and possibly Iraq if necessary, and when depending on Axis advances through Libya and possibly Turkey. The toughest challenge was how to invade North Africa, depending on whether Gibraltar was Allied controlled or not and whether Morocco and/or Algeria were Vichy or Free French (per variant). There's a lot of logical conditions to check to drive the AI into making reasonable choices, the same that would be obvious to a human.

[PowerGmbH]

pzgndr: did you simply set de Destination Port (i.e. Aquaba) and the Engine sends the Units via Loop instead of passing by the Med? or was this with the help of Map-Positions?

[pzgndr]

No, you set the loop tile as a waypoint in the transport script. The AI is pretty good at doing exactly what you script it to do...

[mcaryf1]

Hi Pzgndr

Thank you for the steer to use waypoints for naval loops. I am not sure whether this technique would work for land based loops as "goal" positions there seem to be just the real goal of an offensive etc.

Returning to the issue of Transports I have been thinking about these whilst away on holiday and come to the conclusion that Transports ought to have a relatively high evasion factor. The number of major Transports lost with troops aboard was pretty small in WW2 and almost always associated with an evacuation e.g. the sinking of The Lancastrian in a French port during the evacuation of British troops from France (post Dunkirk). That was the biggest loss ever of Allied troops at sea with something in excess of of 4,000 lives lost. However, compare this with the loss of any SC troop unit and the effective numbers would be hugely greater.

Vast numbers of troops were transported across the Atlantic and virtually none of them were lost. They were generally in fast liners that the U Boats could not typically intercept. Thus an appropriate solution would be to give them a high evasion rating but when I tried to do this I found that the editor will not give Transports such a rating although they can have defensive values.

My next thought was that troop transports ought to be able to cross the Atlantic in one turn (Queen Mary could certainly cross in less than 1 week)but then I found that the maximum action points is 25 so Transports have to spend at least one turn as sitting ducks!

I will need to experiment with Naval Loops and Waypoints to see if this solves the problem, I will need to check if an astute opponent could set an ambush on a known Loop entry or exit.

One other aspect of this is that troops might be effectively out of action for a substantial period. If it takes two turns to travel normally or by Loop then the unit has effectively lost 2 months if the turns are alternate 14 day ones.

I can understand that it might be a sensible game restriction to make 25 x AP an upper limit as the AI would have more potential moves to evaluate, however, giving Transports the opportunity for an evasion rating would be historically accurate.

Regards

Mike

[pzgndr]

Good point on transports. Land loop waypoints do work, in fact I use them for several islands to get 'trapped' units back into the game.

It's possible to use land loop waypoints in lieu of transports to deploy units from UK to Egypt and/or US to England. Problem is if unit density gets too high and units find themselves on the loop tile, then whoosh! off they go. There's more control using the transport scripting. Interesting idea to raise the transport evasion chances...