Fighting Withdrawal By AI?

[76mm]

I've been making scenarios lately for a home-brew campaign system. Battles in the campaign are often rather unbalanced, so fighting withdrawals are a necessity.

I shouldn't be surprised, I guess, but the CMBB AI kind of sucks in situations calling for a fighting withdrawal--they'll just camp out by the victory flag and get slaughtered, often to the last man.

Can anyone recommend any settings or design tweaks (victory flag placement, etc.) that would help the AI perform better in this kind of battle? I was thinking about using multiple victory flags heading in the direction of the withdrawal, but suspect that this either wouldn't work at all or would cause strange, unanticipated AI behavior.

The only thing I've come up with so far is to hit the "cease-fire" button as soon as I start the game to allow the AI to escape once they've had enough of a pounding, but that is not really satisfying.

[Peterk]

The AI will defend/attack ALL victory hexes on the map. If it loses one, it will tend to counterattack to recpature it rather than accept the loss; even if the loss is not that important.

For a fighting withdrawal, all I can think of is...don't give the AI any victory hexes at the beginning and make them work back to them (where they will defend to the death, if they make it).

OR

don't have any victory hexes at all and make the AI exit the map to score. Give the AI a victory point penalty so he realizes he MUST exit to get points.

[76mm]

Thanks for the tips. I had thought of the second one, but the AI defenders never seemed to make a move for the exit board edge, so I thought that that only advancing troops would actually try to exit a board edge.

Hadn't thought of your first option; I suspect that it would cause a withdrawal alright, but I'm not sure about the "fighting" part.

I'll probably have to experiment a bit more, but I suspect that I'm just asking too much of the AI.

[Peterk]

Did you give the AI a negative victory point at start of game for #2? You've got to prod him a little bit to realize he's losing if he does nothing.

But...I've never verified that the AI can handle exit for points scenarios properly.

[Peterk]

Another idea. You can try freezing 50% of the AI's stuff so that they only get to move when fired on. That will give you a mix of fighting elements and retreating.

[76mm]

Both are really good ideas, thanks. How do I assign negative victory points? Via the "Axis bonus", or what?

Thanks!

[Peterk]

Yup that's it. Decide how many objectives the AI "should" get for a draw and then penalize him that amount in the Bonus text field.

Let me know how it goes. I'm curious myself.

[Corvidae]

A very long map, AI forces start at the middle,,,

or closer to the attacker, all victory flags are at the rear edge of the map

it looks like this

Attacker, (short space) retreater,(long space)

or

P> 100m }AI> 4000m FLAG

P being the player

AI being the AI,

and FLAG being the victory hex,,,,,

with distances in meters,

i tryed to make an AI retreat map,

i had 10 large flags on the far eastern end of the map, a water obstacle with 3 bridges blocking the retreat,, so the AI had to choose a bridge , and cross to reach the flags, the AI setup zone was 3000 meters infront of the western most bridgehead,,

it flopped,, the AI just rushed to the rear any old way,,,,,it was less a fighting withdrawl than a general slaughter of fleeing russians,,

maybe correct though for summer 1941