Is AI sniffing out ambush and arty fire mission markers ?

[Guest tero]

After I installed the v1.04 patch I noticed that the AI started avoiding those places I had placed either the ambush or the arty firemission marker.

The most "blatant" example was in the 1st battle of the Mortain operation. I located the (German) arty spotter in a place where it could lay the arty firemissiom marker in the first exit point from bocage on the road. I placed the marker first thing the in first turn as it takes 3 turns for the fire mission to commence and during previous games I had seen the Americans reach the designated spot during the 2nd turn at the latest. On previous, pre-v1.04, games the Americans invariably came down the road to take the small village on the hill. (On the other hand I never placed the arty marker where I did when I did it). Now the AI routed ALL units to a flanking movement and ONLY after I lifted the arty  barrage marker did AI start pushing its HT's and tanks down the road again.

I noticed the ambush marker avoidance during a QB where one of my inf. units spotted a tank heading for a location that was in the LOS of my AT gun. I placed the ambush marker in the tanks projected path and lo and behold the tank stopped short of the marker, nicely out of LOS of the AT gun and remained there for a turn or two after which it took an alternate route that was more secure.

NOTE: both instances were when I was playing as German against American AI.

[Guest Mirage2k]

One possibility is that your FO and AT gun were spotted before any American units wandered into their line-of-sight/line-of-fire. If another unit spotted, say, the AT gun, before the tank entered LOS, the AI might direct the tank somewhere else in order to save it.

-Andrew

------------------

Throw me a frickin' smiley, people!

Your one-stop-shop for gaming news is www.SiegersPost.com ! Hit it!

[Banshee]

I've actually noticed this too but I have yet to test it thoroughly to figure out if I'm just being paranoid.

------------------

Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[howardb]

Just did a QB and the enemy wandered joyfully straight into my arty marker.

[Chupacabra]

AI doesn't get any advantages over human players. None.

------------------

Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Guest tero]

>One possibility is that your FO and AT gun were spotted before any American units wandered into their line-of-sight/line-of-fire.

The FO, I doubt that. I placed it at the end of the bocage row in front of La Houlerie by the wheat field and the Ami deployment zone does not allow (as far as I could check) LOS to that section of the map. The original AI deployment is linear along the road for the most part. The only place I could find is the two storey house but to each that they have to adcance for a few turns AND get a spotter to the second floor before they advance further. The first 6-7 vehicles in the column are Shermans with no infantry riding on them. It is not beyond belief but the in v1.03 I placed the marker further down the road from a different spotting direction and that never made the column change its course until engaged.

The AT gun: possibly. But the tank was running at speed and I have never seen any order except halt stop a unit in its tracks between turns. That is what made me suspicious.

>If another unit spotted, say, the AT gun, before the tank entered LOS, the AI might direct the tank somewhere else in order to save it.

Could happen. But the tank did stop only after I placed the ambush marker.

[Guest tero]

>Just did a QB and the enemy wandered joyfully straight into my arty marker.

Just to be sure: I do NOT mean the preset "speed" arty marker. I mean the actual targeting order given by the FO.

And it did happen in a ready-made, canned operation, not in a QB.

[Guest Michael emrys]

Well, there might be some kind of coding problem (though I can't think offhand what it might be), and if so it should be looked into. But we should keep in mind, as I and others have said before, that unlike previous games, CM permits unlikely things to happen. Units do *not* always react in stereotyped, predictable ways. Just because a tank has come down a particular stretch of road the same way in prior runs of the scenario, it doesn't mean that it will continue to do so forever. Its change of behavior may have nothing to do with what you targetted or where.

That said, it is good that you have brought this to our attention and players should keep an eye out for this.

Michael

[Fox]

Indeed the AI does have advantages Chupacabra..the AI in say, Shermans, when spotted by the enemy (us), has the ability to fire shots, launch smoke and retreat. U can't tell me that the AI just happened to guess when i was gonna come outta the woods and luckily launched some smoke..even if there's 4 sherms vs my tiger....my guys NEVER launch smoke..they seem to wanna try to duke it out hehe...and tero...i didn't wanna mention this...but i noticed MANY times..out in the middle of nowhere...the AI will go in a straight line for miles....get to my shcrek guy hiding in a house with an ambush marker and do a loop just around that spot and continue on..no trees, woods nuthin..never spotted the guy....also noticed the same behavior with tanks vs mines (not daisychain)...tank comin down the road...go offroad just around mines...get back on road...lol....also seen em fly right into em tho too

[This message has been edited by Fox (edited 08-26-2000).]

[Guest Michael emrys]

Hmm. If that's the case, I agree you have cause for suspicion. Y'know, I've seen funny things happen in programs that weren't intended by the designer, where information from one part sort of mysteriously kinda "leaks" over into another part. Don't know enough about programming to have any idea about how it could happen, but that's what I was told. Maybe there's some kind of inadvertant back door the enemy AI is using to gain information it's not supposed to have. Maybe it's time to send in SecDet.

Michael

[Buckeye]

I gotta say something here. The fact is, the Tac AI is the same for both players (human and computer). My Shermans frequently pop smoke and retreat when they detect a threat, but sometimes they don't. And when I play against the computer, it also is not predictable.

The point has been made before: Charles says the game doesn't cheat. If you play CM often and long enough, you'll find that most of the events that elicit comments of the sort, "The computer must have cheated, because...," can and do occur for both sides.

If you really think you have proof that the computer cheats or has an undue advantage of some sort, save the relvant files and send them to Charles. Otherwise, frankly, it sounds like sour grapes.

------------------

"Don't lie to me, Gustav! You're a stinkin' Mac user!"

[Guest Mirage2k]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I gotta say something here. The fact is, the Tac AI is the same for both players (human and computer). My Shermans frequently pop smoke and retreat when they detect a threat, but sometimes they don't. And when I play against the computer, it also is not predictable. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good point. Also, German tanks are less likely to pop smoke because they usually have an armor/gun advantage over their opponent.

-Andrew

------------------

Throw me a frickin' smiley, people!

Your one-stop-shop for gaming news is www.SiegersPost.com ! Hit it!

[Guest tero]

>My Shermans frequently pop smoke and retreat when they detect a threat, but sometimes they don't. And when I play against the computer, it also is not predictable.

In a recent PBEM my opponent lost a Sherman to an AT-team that was smack in front of it. The Sherman was buttoned up and firing at an area target slightly to the left (his left) of the AT team where the AT-team had been spotted last. It never even tried to engage the real AT team. The thing is the AT team took 4 pot shots at the tank and only the 5th shot made the kill. The tank spotted the team after the second shot but remained on target with the area fire order.

While this was a fortunate turn of events for me I must join him in his gripe about foul play on TacAI's side against his poor Sherman. 5 (five) shots from smack in front of the tank and it never lifted a finger.

>The point has been made before: Charles says the game doesn't cheat. If you play CM often and long enough, you'll find that most of the events that elicit comments of the sort, "The computer must have cheated, because...," can and do occur for both sides.

I am not accusing the AI of cheating, directly anyway. I just begun to wonder if there might be a feature in the game that allows this kind of cheat-like things to happen with the AI (and only in an AI vs human game) and if there are people out there with similar experiences. The AI might be "cheating" without knowing it is cheating.

My totally uneducated quess would be that if there is something to this "sniffing" the most likely suspect could be the map/movement algorithm that renderes that particular spot "unhealthy to pass". I imagine the TacAI algorithm is making its calculations in "real time" and it takes into account any and all new, short term treaths that appear. Perhaps it spots the treath legitimately but the intel is not received from a legitimate source, such as by tracking and leaking through the human player "map overlays".

Perhaps during the combat resolution phase there is a loop back that makes AI rethink its move.... a chess game programs style projection where the program evaluates the short term inpact of its moves.

But as I said I am WAY out of my depth here.

>If you really think you have proof that the computer cheats or has an undue advantage of some sort, save the relvant files and send them to Charles.

I just wanted to make sure before I made any moves. A sort of "is it just me being paranoid, or ..."

>Otherwise, frankly, it sounds like sour grapes.

Sour grapes is having your expert crew expend all their Pzschreck shots at a stationary tank from the flank at 100 meters and miss every single shot and griping about that. Having that same tank go around your newly erected Ambush sign and the team never gets to make the shots is not IMO

[IntelWeenie]

Back to the arty, I have noticed the AI avoiding an iminnent fire mission AFTER the first spotting rounds come in. Could this be the behaviour you were seeing?

------------------

"Belly to belly and everything's better" - Russian proverb

[Guest tero]

Could be.

But the timing is bit iffy. The arty barrage takes 3 turns to start and previously the armour had arrived on scene by late turn 2 at the latest. I will experiment further though.

[Chupacabra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fox:

Indeed the AI does have advantages Chupacabra..the AI in say, Shermans, when spotted by the enemy (us), has the ability to fire shots, launch smoke and retreat. U can't tell me that the AI just happened to guess when i was gonna come outta the woods and luckily launched some smoke.. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This exact issue has come up before. Charles has stated that the AI HAS ABSOLUTELY NO ADVANTAGES OVER A HUMAN PLAYER. Personally, I've seen Shermans under my control behave exactly as you describe. Usually they were veteran or better. So unless you have some conclusive proof that in fact the designer of the game is wrong and the AI does cheat, let it go.

------------------

Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Sirocco]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chupacabra:

Charles has stated that the AI HAS ABSOLUTELY NO ADVANTAGES OVER A HUMAN PLAYER. So unless you have some conclusive proof that in fact the designer of the game is wrong and the AI does cheat, let it go.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I don't doubt that the AI doesn't cheat, but perhaps the AI has an advantage through some kind of subtle problem with the code?

I think that's the point of this thread.

[Chupacabra]

And my point remains that Charles has stated that the AI receives no advantage whatsoever.

Given that he programmed the game, I tend to listen to what he says on programming issues

------------------

Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[weasel]

Crew quality seems to make a big difference in the tac-AI smarts. I was playing a QB last night with the unit quality set to random, which happened to translate to "Elite". The two Shermans I got were eventually overrun by the six regular PzIVs the AI drew, but I was amazed at the apparent brilliance of those elite tanks. They knew just when to disobey my orders, pop smoke, and run like hell. Much, much smarter than regular units.

Still probably not worth the cost, though...

(and then a sharpshooter dropped my bazooka team just as they got a bead on the last remaining PzIV... I was not pleased).