Jump to content

Question regarding AI "cheats".


Recommended Posts

Don't mean to stir up any bad feelings, I just want to know if what I think I am seeing, is actually what is happening.

I played the attack on the armoured train several times as the Germans. I noticed the 76 AA guns would hit me with virtually every shot, and usually a kill. While my tanks could do little to them.

I tried cheating by dropping about 40 rounds of 81mm on each (at least 15 hitting right in the middle of each foxhole they are in). No damage.

The funniest part was attacking with infantry, and the second AA gun was down to 2 guys, but they would not even drop, getting a shot off before they succumbed to 3 squads (all happening in the 60 second turn).

Then I played the Russian side, and the hits went down to 1 in 3 or 4 shots and they ran at the drop of a hat.

So, my question is, does the computer "cheat" with much better hit percentages and much harder to hit (at them) percentages?

I understand to make games balanced, cheats are a necessary evil. I have been playing computer games since 1980, and have seen a long history of this.

Just wondering if what I think is happening, truly is?

TIA

Thomas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not sure what is going on but it is quite possible that you are just a little unlucky with fanaticism. Fanaticism makes for very hard to kill soft targets - not because they are invunerable to fire but because they very rarely get pinned down and never panic or break. This is a very deadly combo for an AT gun. In my experience of playing this game for over 3 years I can say I have never suspected the AI of cheating - being very lucky yes, but never cheating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you say 'no damage' you might be looking at Fog of War.

For all you know the enemy crew is panic'd, wounded, hiding, trembling at the bottom of their foxhole. Then after awhile they're upgraded to 'cautious' & 'taking cover', then a little while after that they're back to tank-killing again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BFC has on more than one occasion assured us that the AI does not cheat, and I for one am inclined to believe them.

What does happen is that low odds events are allowed to occur and it is the nature of chance that in any finite string of events you may see a cluster of improbable ones appearing in a higher frequency than the raw odds would lead you to expect. That's called luck and it's been observed and reported many times. Usually no one minds or makes a stink about it when the breaks go their way but howl mightily when they go against them. But so far as I know, every time a supposed "cheat" has been put to a sufficiently rigorous test, the alleged bias has disappeared.

I think that if you were to play this scenario through a bunch more times you would see the results tend to even out.

Michael

[ November 07, 2003, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: Michael Emrys ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mike's, thank you for your input.

You might be right about them cowering and such, but I was expecting to knock out the open guns, especially with about 15 81mm mortors dropped in each foxhole. I don't know.

I do know the one had a full crew of 6? guys. Somehow I saw the one before it was taken under small arms fire, but after the mortors had been dropped.

Oh well, no use arguing about it. They say no and that's fine. Just wanted to get an official statement.

Thanks for all the input. smile.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i think you are more suffering from the lousy artillery model with the "interesting" fall pattern smile.gif Try an onboard battery and drop 40 rounds, that'll do it.

It is easy to see that the computed opponent does not enjoy a hit probabilty benefit: Set up 20 tanks against 20 tanks of the same kind in an empty scenario and run it a few times. You will usually see that one side will dramatically win but that this side is not neccessarily the computer side.

The TacAI (as opposed to the computed opponent) seems to have some minor furtunetelling abilities, like recognizing HQs (apparently accidentially backdooring through a mechanism which is based on value of the enemy unit, selecting target priorties by price of the enemy unit). But whatever advantage there might be, both your unit's TacAI and the computed ooponent's unit's TacAI have the same advantages as long as you don't interfere with additional orders.

[ November 14, 2003, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh.

I guess you just had bad luck then smile.gif You might start arguing about the lethality or suppression of the 81mm mortar rounds in CMBB but on-board 81mm fire from two mortars should have done it in 2 minutes.

However, in CMBB, suppressive MG effects are extreme and don't take cover into account. The best sequence for your attack against heavy weapons positions is to have a HMG or in lack of that a vehicle MG area fire near the heavy weapon. That suppresses it quickly. While it has its head down under continuous area fire from the MG you start bombing it with HE from mortars or tanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by redwolf:

However, in CMBB, suppressive MG effects are extreme and don't take cover into account. The best sequence for your attack against heavy weapons positions is to have a HMG or in lack of that a vehicle MG area fire near the heavy weapon. That suppresses it quickly. While it has its head down under continuous area fire from the MG you start bombing it with HE from mortars or tanks.

Thanks, I will remember that. I am a bit of a newby to this game and am learning things all the time (with each scenario I play). smile.gif
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...