The AI is no good

[Sergei]

:mad: :mad: :mad:

Argh! I created an advance operation where Finns are on defence. I thought I'd make two versions, one for AI and one H2H.

The AI has some interesting quirks. I noticed for instance that if the AI is attacking and you let it deploy its troops itself, it deploys them quite okay but right at the beginning of the battle starts to make the weirdest horizontal shifts toward the center, all in the view of the defender. IOW it didn't seem happy with its deployment. This seems illogical, for you'd suppose that the StratAI which makes the battle plan for computer player should be somewhat consistent between the way it deploys and the way it moves after that.

In any case, I knew well that the AI is no attacker, it has to defend. So I made the AI version of my operation with this in mind. At the beginning of my operation (no spoilers) the Finns are defending in trenches behind a rather flimsy line of obstacles. I put the AI troops to the trenches myself and told AI to stick to scenario default. Then I started testing, and... I hadn't reached the defence line when the AI started acting in the weirdest way I've ever seen!!! Finns started coming out of their trenches and moving onto barbed wire, as if they were so bloodthirsty that they just couldn't wait for me to attack. Talk about aggressive playing... the not so funny thing is of course, my Soviets nailed the defenders who were stuck in barbed wire when they could have been waiting in their trenches. I could expect something like that from a Japanese suicide company, but not from Finns.

[gwta]

I don't understand this aggressive defense either.

I have noticed the same, on many established scenarios, the defending AI will send its troops out of its prepared positions and right into wire, mines, etc.

[V]

Originally posted by gwta:

I don't understand this aggressive defense either.

I have noticed the same, on many established scenarios, the defending AI will send its troops out of its prepared positions and right into wire, mines, etc.

No doubt about that. This is evident in my Iron Crusaders scenario. Very annoying. I think I read somewhere that victory flags would help help to anchor the defensive AI, but I'm not sure it helps much. And victory flags will tip off the attacker sometimes ruining an advantage given to the AI. I would like it if enemy infantry were less likely to leave foxholes or trenches early in a defensive scenario.

[dugfromthearth]

yep, I created a scenario "In Media Res" which starts with the Germans dug in for an ambush and the Americans already in the ambush. The Germans quickly decide to abandon their positions and move out of the woods to get shot apart instead of holding ground.

My problem was that to balance the victory points in the scenario I had placed a victory flag at the American start to make up for the losses they take in the ambush. The Germans were trying to take that flag. I removed the flag and the problem was solved.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by dugfromthearth:

My problem was that to balance the victory points in the scenario I had placed a victory flag at the American start to make up for the losses they take in the ambush. The Germans were trying to take that flag. I removed the flag and the problem was solved.

For this balancing purpose the Axis point bonus (positive or negative) should be useful.

[dugfromthearth]

Right, I didn't find out what that did until later. It did exactly what I had wanted to accomplish with the flag.

[Keith]

It's all about how you place the victory flags and where you deploy the troops relative to the flags. Troops should be deployed forward of the flags, otherwise the flags will become contested and the troops will abandon prepared positions in order to counter attack. It is also useful to have a first line of defense well forward of the initial objective flags.