Das Reich Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 Whenever I playtest a scenario I design to be vs. AI, I always just use EFOW. But I was wondering if I should be just turning off the FOW all together so I can closely watch the AI move its units around, to maybe get a better idea of what to change to get the AI to put up a better fight. Anyone have some hints or something to look for to get the AI to play a little better game? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchildstein (ii) Posted January 11, 2003 Share Posted January 11, 2003 playtesting against the ai with fog of war off is probably a good idea, at least some of the time. some of my 'seat of the pants' observations about playing the ai: 1) it will (counter) attack to take any flag controlled by the human player. 2) it will 'funnel' its infantry along narrow routes when it moves them; the more the infantry and the longer the distances covered, the more this becomes apparent. 3) it doesn't handle large groups of vehicles too well, although sometimes its 'pluck' or 'caginess' is admirable. 4) if you set a group of ai-controlled units to 'hide' when you're previewing the map in the editor, it appears as though they do now remain hidden during the actual play of the scenario, especially if you 'anchor' them with a flag nearby. this appears to work with infantry (haven't tried it with afvs). i don't know if this is due to my changed perception or some actual tweak which went in between version 1.0 and 1.01. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Das Reich Posted January 11, 2003 Author Share Posted January 11, 2003 Originally posted by manchildstein II: 4) if you set a group of ai-controlled units to 'hide' when you're previewing the map in the editor, it appears as though they do now remain hidden during the actual play of the scenario, especially if you 'anchor' them with a flag nearby. this appears to work with infantry (haven't tried it with afvs). i don't know if this is due to my changed perception or some actual tweak which went in between version 1.0 and 1.01.So this helps to keep them in one place? I have noticed that on defense, the AI seems to move around too much. Losing suprise and giving away free shots at the units in progress. But, if youhave use a victory flag to keep them in one place, you ar pretty much telling the player where the AI is going to be. Would "dummy" victory flags and house rules help to get past this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olle Petersson Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 Using no FOW is good for one purpose only; to see how the AI makes it's own setup. Once the battle begin (with the first order phase) behaviour will be very different from a setting with FOW. The AI now know the location of all enemies and TRPs and will act accordingly... Cheers Olle 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Das Reich Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 Originally posted by Olle Petersson: Using no FOW is good for one purpose only; to see how the AI makes it's own setup. Once the battle begin (with the first order phase) behaviour will be very different from a setting with FOW. The AI now know the location of all enemies and TRPs and will act accordingly... Cheers OlleVery good point which I had totaly forgot to consider. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manchildstein (ii) Posted January 12, 2003 Share Posted January 12, 2003 you may be able to make some flags unoccupied, and put other flags where there are ai troops, and the ai troops will stay in place. it is not clear to me whether the ai goes after uncontrolled flags, or just flags controlled by the human player. along the same lines, i'm not sure if ai units with 'hide' orders will go after human-controlled flags, or just stay put. the only thing i've really noticed is that, before the patch some hidden ai units in a particular scenario were all moved around after i called a ceasefire in a scenario, and this was with a flag nearby. after the patch, the same units seemed to 'stay put.' this could be a red herring though. anyway, as a rule of thumb if you hide the ai units, and put a flag nearby, they stand a better chance of staying put. i'm embarrassed to admit that i haven't researched this more. my method has basically been to put the ai into a defense, and give the ai control (none controlled by the human, none uncontrolled) over all of the flags at the start. then if i want troops to stay put, i use 'hide' on them. further, i mention in the briefing that 'earlier recon has shown enemy units in the area. their general locations are marked by victory flags.' what you could do would be to specify that the scenario be played with 'flags off' (shift-f) and then use the 'landmark' feature (ctrl-leftclick in the map editor) to indicate the 'real' scenario objectives. one thing i've done lately has been to use more small flags, so that the battle is decided more by combat losses, than by actual 'control' of the flags. it seems to me that by using 'flags off with objectives as landmarks' combined with just a few small flags to anchor the ai defense, that some really spectacular scenarios could be created versus the ai. anyway, come to think of it, when the human player takes a victory flag, i believe that 'all bets are off' as to the ai units 'staying put.' and since this is at least partially true, then it allows the designer to implement some very interesting ai counterattacks. but as i've mentioned, i really haven't researched this in depth... these are just impressions... i just kind of 'wing it' and then if something i design is enjoyable to me - win or lose - i upload it to the depot... admittedly, my scenarios are not the most heavily playtested prior to upload... for me the bottom line is this; the more time you spend in the editor the better your battles are apt to be... edit: oh, and if you're happy with your scenario that's probably the most important thing... [ January 11, 2003, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Das Reich Posted January 12, 2003 Author Share Posted January 12, 2003 Originally posted by manchildstein II: anyway, as a rule of thumb if you hide the ai units, and put a flag nearby, they stand a better chance of staying put. i'm embarrassed to admit that i haven't researched this more. my method has basically been to put the ai into a defense, and give the ai control (none controlled by the human, none uncontrolled) over all of the flags at the start. then if i want troops to stay put, i use 'hide' on them. further, i mention in the briefing that 'earlier recon has shown enemy units in the area. their general locations are marked by victory flags.' what you could do would be to specify that the scenario be played with 'flags off' (shift-f) and then use the 'landmark' feature (ctrl-leftclick in the map editor) to indicate the 'real' scenario objectives. one thing i've done lately has been to use more small flags, so that the battle is decided more by combat losses, than by actual 'control' of the flags. it seems to me that by using 'flags off with objectives as landmarks' combined with just a few small flags to anchor the ai defense, that some really spectacular scenarios could be created versus the ai. anyway, come to think of it, when the human player takes a victory flag, i believe that 'all bets are off' as to the ai units 'staying put.' and since this is at least partially true, then it allows the designer to implement some very interesting ai counterattacks. but as i've mentioned, i really haven't researched this in depth... these are just impressions... i just kind of 'wing it' and then if something i design is enjoyable to me - win or lose - i upload it to the depot... admittedly, my scenarios are not the most heavily playtested prior to upload... for me the bottom line is this; the more time you spend in the editor the better your battles are apt to be... edit: oh, and if you're happy with your scenario that's probably the most important thing...This is the kind of information I have been hoping to get. And sorry I should have posted this elsewhere probably. I am going to try and put of this stuff into action and see what happens. I especially like the "flags off" option. But one question about that, should you ask the player to turn the flags of before he starts the scenario? Like have him load some scenario he has already played and then use the option to turn off the flags? Would that then carry over to this battle so that when he first views the map, there are no flags at all. Otherwise, if the player waits to start the scenario to turn the flags off, he will possibly be contaminated and see the "hidden" flags and take something away from the battle. Anyways, I'm going to get back to work on this, and will post in this thread whenever I send it to the depot. If anyone wants to try it, post a message here, its fictional, small and still in the very early stages, but can certainly be played. I have a hard time playtesting it as the Germans because the Soviets need the suprise which I already know exists to have much of a chance at winning. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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