AI Woes (long)

[caralampio]

Now that everybody has been posting their wish lists for CM and CM2, I want to add my pinch of salt. I would like something to be done about the AI.

I'm not meaning to criticize or belittle. I know that programming the AI even to its actual standard is a gigantic labor. And, many times the AI is a half decent opponent under certain circumstances, mostly the first time you play a scenario and if you're the attacker.

Of course, the solution is playing against other people, but I'm sure that most of us still play a lot against the computer. It's available at any time, for as long as you wish, and without interruptions.

I've been trying some scenario designing, and I have found it very difficult to make the AI follow my intent. I tweak forces, move flags, adjust setup areas etc. But it just doesn't get it.

I mean, if I play a scenario as the Germans and totally cream the computer, then I switch sides and as the American I totally cream the computer again, is the scenario balanced? :confused:

Here are a few of the things that need fixing IMHO. If it is practical, or even at all possible, I can't say.

1. Banzai: The tendency to make mad frontal assaults. If at least they were coordinated, but the machine sends squads piecemeal, one by one, running in the open to be slaughtered. The AI makes none, or few, efforts at suppresive fire. In fact, troops should make mad assaults rarely, and only when they perceive that enemy resistance is weakened. Is this programmable?

2. Kamerad! Don’t fire! I love Hollywood!: The notes for v 1.12 said that they had tried to correct the tendency of broken troops to run for best cover towards (!) the enemy. My impression is that they are doing this even more than before. Can broken units be programmed to never, or virtually never, shorten distances to a known enemy regardless of best terrain?

3. If you have sensitive skin, avoid the sun: The opposite of problem number 1, sometimes the AI has its troops stick to what it perceives as best terrain, even if a short run in the open would give it victory. In a scenario that required exiting units, the computer had opened a gaping hole in my line. Its troops only had to run about 40 meters in the clear against virtually no opposition. But instead, it made its troops turn around and make a long detour to a place in the line that had some trees and wheatfields, and which incidentally I still held in force... In other words, it seems that the AI will stick to cover if it finds weak opposition, and make wild dashes in the open if it faces strong enemy defenses...

4. The left hand should never know what the right does: But the AI sometimes takes this to the extreme. If an enemy AT appears and burns a couple of my tanks, I take care in following turns not to send others in front of it. If my AT destroys a computer-controlled tank, other tanks that have seen the gun will act accordingly, but tanks that have not actually seen it will still roll placidly into its field of fire. One would think that radio messages, even friendly infantry waving their hands would warn the other tanks of the danger. I.E. that once a clear and present danger appears, all the AI's forces be allowed to be aware in subsequent turns and act upon it.

5. The broad front: The AI as attacker should be capable of planning pinpoint attacks, i.e. concentrate forces on a sector of the line. Instead, it usually sets up widely dispersed, and attempts three or four separate attacks that will be condemned to failure.

[David Aitken]

What you are suggesting is easy for us to understand with human intuition, but a computer is effectively blind, because it doesn't have the ability to 'look' at the battlefield and 'decide' the best course of action. It can only function by a set of rules, and coordinating its forces on a large scale is no simple task.

This thread says all you need to know about the merits of BTS spending time improving the AI:

CRAP AI, Other BUGS ,Fix Or implement IPX/TCP!!

[ 05-28-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

[Vanir Ausf B]

The best AI fix: PBEM.

[James]

"The best AI fix: PBEM."

No way! Its is a cop out to say it cant be done. Once upon a time what is being done now in CM would have seemed impossible. If they'd shrank from the challenge then we'd have no CM now. Truly realistic AI may seem impossible now but it is the next challenge to be met.

[caralampio]

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. That's the problem with being a newbie, you're not aware that the issues that are new to you have already been discussed ad nauseaum.

As for the recommendation for trying PBEM, I already have done it and have received my humiliations (though many of them I feel are not deserved but adscribable to bad luck). But it is not entirely satisfactory, in the sense that if feel like sitting down and playing a lot of CM, the PBEM turns only last for a minute (sometimes doing nothing but watching the movie) then wait until next day for the next move. And for reasons of my own which I won't go into, I don't play online.

So the bottomline is: The AI sucks as the attacker, but that's the way it is so shut up. It's still the best AI around (I have to agree) and programming AI is very difficult so don't expect significant improvements in any foreseeable future.

Ultimate morale: Against the AI, play only as attacker.

This is the last time I complain about the AI. I won't insult it anymore and from now on we will live as the best of friends. I'll shut up and play.

[rleete]

Use the Computer experience bonus set to +3. That helps make things a bit tougher. Try giving the computer ever larger point bonuses as well. You'll reach a point where there are just so many more of the enemy, that it makes up for some of the dense moves the AI makes.

[Time]

One really dumb thing the AI does is to put all its attacking troops in one place. When attacking the AI tries to achieve a narrow front attack by putting a company or more in a single group of trees. Needless to say this makes them easy to kill off with heavy artillery.

[Grunto IV]

i find that the best way to have a challenge against the ai is to attack into tough odds.

the ai is a poor attacker. that's not to say it will never be improved; that's simply how it is now.

try my scenario, 'midnight' as germans with the ai set to +3 experience. set it to default allied (computer) setup and it should be even tougher.

in any event, if you give the ai a lot more infantry than you've got, and you attack into it, it can be a good exercise in tactics for you. my theory here is that the ai will somehwat make up for its ineptitude with sheer numbers.

remember the default setup; usually a scenario designer will put the defending (ai)guns into decent positions; if you leave it up to the ai, 'it' will put the antitank guns into some strange places.

the 'good scenarios' - at least in this regard - have good initial placement for the (ai) defense. i find that this is most important with the antitank guns.

of course this is my opinion.

if you go to pbem, you will get plenty of 'headaches.'

andy