Allied AI Mod Released

[Timskorn]

I'm currently working on the next version so any more detailed feedback on people's experiences is much appreciated. Thanks to those who have already!

Specifically, these are some of the more important things I'm looking at:

1. Russia: Was she tougher? What year did you have both Moscow and Stalingrad?

2. D-Day: When did it occur? Were US troops involved or just British? Did it happen at a critical time for you, or did you have enough units to defeat D-Day?

3. North Africa: Did you ever take Alexandria, or did the British ever take Tobruk or Iraq? Did the US ever successfully take Algiers?

4. General: What difficulty did you play it on and with how many experience bars for the AI?

I'm currently working on the Brit AI in Egypt, the code for D-Day and further refining the Russian defensive AI (Including a Ural Mountains defense should both Moscow and Stalingrad fall).

[ May 08, 2006, 07:23 AM: Message edited by: Timskorn ]

[LampCord]

OK,

Here's my feedback.

First of all, thanks for the mod! It made it a much more interesting game.

1) Russia was definitely tougher. I took Moscow in early 43 but never took Stalingrad because I had already won when I took England on a delayed Sea Lion. I think I would have had Stalingrad by late 43 / early 44 if needed.

One odd thing I noticed was a HUGE number of Russian HQ's. Maybe 5 or 6. I was really surprised that Russia could crank out that many expensive units.

The level 3 tanks put me into a panic and massive re-prioritization on my research. The only thing that saved me was 5 level 4 AF's that ganged up on them before they ate up my helpless AT level 1 Corps.

2) D-Day did occur (I think fall 42) but I caught it in mid invasion and sunk half the units on their way to the shore. I immediately launched a Sealion only to find a huge stack of newly arrived American units waiting for me in England. It was quite a fight gaining a foothold but my complete control of the air and sea by that point won the day.

3) I took Alexandria and Cairo after landing a German HQ, 2 teched up corps and 2 level 4 AF's east the Nile to compliment a rather sizeable Italian contingent I had massed to the West.

Tobruk was never threatened.

The US did not manage to take Algiers although they did try. I had an Italian army waiting off shore to cut off and destroy the attack.

4) I played on the highest difficulty and experience settings.

The biggest problem I see for the AI in open ground is the tendency to leave air and HQ units vulnerable to ground attack. This allows me to destroy, damage or drive off these units before concentrating on the now unprotected and usupplied ground units. Nothing to do with your mod of course, just pointing out that as long as that exists, it will be tough for the AI to put up a fight.

The diplomatic pressure on Spain was very effective. It took away one of my main tactics.

However, now that I know Spain is a lost cause, I would use those 500 mpp's that I spent between Germany and Italy on more productive ventures the next time I played this mod.

One thing that I thought would be cool would be to have a collection of 5-6 viable, optimized AI scripts and the game could randomly choose between them.

That way the player would never know when the game started which strategy he was facing. Then trying to figure out where to apply diplomatic pressure and where to attack first becomes a bit more problematic.

Anyway, just a thought. It would really add to replayability...

[Timskorn]

Great, nice info LC!

1. Glad to hear Russia is tougher, and it sounds that the % probability just happened to create an extra 2-3 HQ's than it normally does. Doubtful they'd do it again on another playthrough. I focus Russia's IT research to ensure a steady income of MPP's to create units.

2. How did you go about dominating the sea around England, did you get higher level subs or were you just overly aggressive with air/sea in preparation for Sealion?

3. Until the 1st patch, experienced players will be able to continue to defeat the AI in Egypt and the US in Algiers. Right now it's impossible to do a 'surprise' hit on Algiers, or reinforce the Brits in Egypt through conventional means.

As for the diplo pressure on Spain, I do plan on making it more variable. Right now it's completely focused on Spain, but I plan on spreading out the %'s a bit more and even try to get Russia in early. Should add enough variety to each replay of the campaign.

Thanks again for the feedback! I'm glad it at least made it a bit more difficult for an experienced player.

[hellraiser]

"However, now that I know Spain is a lost cause, I would use those 500 mpp's that I spent between Germany and Italy on more productive ventures the next time I played this mod."

Well I don't think so. If allies make Spain's attitude 0%, you won't get Hungary and Romania - you need to sink some diplo chits for countering, cuz with 2 lucky strikes for allies, there go your minors Use italian ones on Spain and use german ones for other countries.

[LampCord]

Originally posted by Timskorn:

Great, nice info LC!

1. Glad to hear Russia is tougher, and it sounds that the % probability just happened to create an extra 2-3 HQ's than it normally does. Doubtful they'd do it again on another playthrough. I focus Russia's IT research to ensure a steady income of MPP's to create units.

2. How did you go about dominating the sea around England, did you get higher level subs or were you just overly aggressive with air/sea in preparation for Sealion?

3. Until the 1st patch, experienced players will be able to continue to defeat the AI in Egypt and the US in Algiers. Right now it's impossible to do a 'surprise' hit on Algiers, or reinforce the Brits in Egypt through conventional means.

As for the diplo pressure on Spain, I do plan on making it more variable. Right now it's completely focused on Spain, but I plan on spreading out the %'s a bit more and even try to get Russia in early. Should add enough variety to each replay of the campaign.

Thanks again for the feedback! I'm glad it at least made it a bit more difficult for an experienced player.

2. The whole game for me came down to some really quick upteching of air. Very, atypical research results. I hit level 4 very early. So I built a couple extra. This, combined with the aggressive naval positioning of the brittish (in the channel!) allowed me to force a decisive naval battle with huge air superiority. So there was some luck involved. I also got level 3 subs but it took much longer. They ended up sinking more amphibious units than naval ones.

@hellraiser -

Thanks for the tip! I did not realize that Spain dropping to 0% would have that effect. I guess I would have spotted the % dropping since I look at diplo at the start of every turn but of course by then it might have been too late or I may not have had the spare MPP's to invest.

BTW, what other countries do you like to invest in as Axis? I've gone after Iraq right after the pro Axis coupe but otherwise I've mostly focused on Spain. Getting Gibralter is so huge of course. Not to mention some very uefull units.

[Timskorn]

Cool, well if you get a chance to play it again LC I'd be interested to hear if anything turned out much differently!

[Cheese Panzer]

Originally posted by Timskorn:

I'm currently working on the next version so any more detailed feedback on people's experiences is much appreciated. Thanks to those who have already!

Specifically, these are some of the more important things I'm looking at:

1. Russia: Was she tougher? What year did you have both Moscow and Stalingrad?

2. D-Day: When did it occur? Were US troops involved or just British? Did it happen at a critical time for you, or did you have enough units to defeat D-Day?

3. North Africa: Did you ever take Alexandria, or did the British ever take Tobruk or Iraq? Did the US ever successfully take Algiers?

4. General: What difficulty did you play it on and with how many experience bars for the AI?

I'm currently working on the Brit AI in Egypt, the code for D-Day and further refining the Russian defensive AI (Including a Ural Mountains defense should both Moscow and Stalingrad fall).

1) Yes, better at defending cities and there wasn't the huge pile-up around Riga that currently happens. I finished conquering Russia in late 1944 but partly because all the German Armor headed into the Mideast after Rostov was taken.

2) D-Day occured twice, both times in 1944. The first wave was all British (no HQ), and about 5 turns later the other wave was all American (no HQ either). Easily defeated.

3) Yes, took Alexandria. UK never moved out of Egypt until Iraq/Iran were invaded. US got to Algeriers (2 armies, 2 corps) but with no HQ they couldn't do much.

4) 100%, +1.5 exp.

Overall it was an improvement, I enjoyed the challenge.

[Karhu]

Originally posted by Timskorn:

All ya need to do is extract it into your Campaigns folder. It'll add a new folder called "_1939 Fall Weiß TK Allied AI Mod" and also drop the actual .cgn (campaign) file into the Campaigns folder. That's it, then just load'er up. It's considered its own scenario, so you don't need to mess with the original Fall Weiss folder or campaign at all. You can still play that one as it was out of the box, so to speak.

Thanks again.

Playing on +100, +1.0 experience. Have only got as far as September 1940, but have already noticed that new things are happening - I nearly fell off my chair when the AI RN sallied into the Baltic to have a go at the German ships attacking Copenhagen. However, it was only a carrier and two cruisers, so i was able to trap and destroy the carrier in the narrow waters.

One odd thing - when I (eventually, after shocking weather and jumbled attacks) took Paris in September 1940, France did not fall. It did go the following turn, though. Does this mean France is now surrendering on the same basis as other countries, or is something else up?

The biggest AI weakness so far has been not killing off severely weakened units when it had a clear opportunity to do so. In one case, a French army on the Maginot preferred to launch a pointless attack at the Siegfried line opposite rather than move one tile to destroy a level 1 German Army, as I'm sure any human player would have done.

Am looking forward to the rest of the game!

[Timskorn]

Thanks again for the feedback guys! Useful in working on the next version. Unfortunately some things will have to wait to be fixed until the 1st patch.

Karhu: I've played a lot and I noticed on 2 occassions when France didn't fall immediately after taking Paris, but it seems rare and never went longer than 2 turns. I certainly haven't touched anything regarding their surrender scripts, anyway.

[CharonJr]

Hiya,

great work on those improvements.

Played yesterday on +100%, +1.0XP. Ended the game in August 1942 (after taking Moscow; UK/London was taken during an earlier Sealion). Took Denmark/Poland on turn 2, LC on turn 3, France in April 40 - but the tank in Paris was a nice touch

Concerning your questions:

1) Yes, Russia was tougher due to the better teched units. Sadly it threw this advantage away by attacking my – equally teched - entrenched units behind the river to ex-Poland (SU joined the Allies before I was ready for Barbarossa – was just getting some units back from England).

2) Since the game ended in 1942 there was no D-Day.

3) I took Alexandria fairly easy, mainly since I have been able to defeat the British fleet in the Med and used 3 AF in addition to 1 tank, 2 German and 2 Italian armies. The US did attack Vichy-France with 2 corps in spring ’42 (declared war on the turn they landed), but was easily beaten back.

IMO the remaining problems can largely be attributed to the “core-AI”.

Not getting Spain to join the Axis till England was out of the game was nice.

CharonJr

PS: IIRC it was the Polish flag that flew over Monte Cassino after the white flag was taken down.

[Timskorn]

Charon: Thanks, and you beat it in 1942?? That's pretty amazing, but I suppose that it's possible if you can perform a successful Sealion against the AI since Egpyt is typically a lost cause for the UK.

One of the adjustments I'll be doing is garrisoning UK troops better to help with a potential Sealion. It seems pretty easy for most people to do agains the AI however.

I've also noticed the general AI is pretty weak in determining when and what units to attack, like you mentioned in your Russia situation. When they should be sitting and defending (clearly outnumbered and outgunned in their area) they attack over a river in the dead of winter. Other times they make decent decisions, but some like these can have big repercussions especially if they are attacking with a key unit like a tank. It seems difficult for the AI to focus on eliminating a single unit, so they end up just damaging a bunch of units.

[LampCord]

Yeah, as mentioned in another thread, Sealion is going to be next to impossible to stop without some sort of modification to amphibious assault. Germany's army is so huge once France falls that its trivial with the current system to send 6-8 units accross and with air and naval support, just roll through Brittain like you did France.

The counter problem is any sort of restrictions on amphib will make it that much tougher for the Allies to pull off Overlord so its a real delima!

Not sure what you can really do to stop Sealion. I think it would be tough for a human and darn near impossible for the AI with the current rules.

[Timskorn]

I'm tinkering with dropping German amphib transport points from 10 to 4 and see how that goes. You can only really land on the S/SE of the UK with this, and need 2 turns to reach it from Denmark.

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Timskorn:

I'm tinkering with dropping German amphib transport points from 10 to 4 and see how that goes. You can only really land on the S/SE of the UK with this, and need 2 turns to reach it from Denmark.

One problem with the 4 AP's for GErman amphibs.

Invasion of Norway.

At 4 tiles per, it would take 4 turns to reach Trondheim.

In game terms, that's 4 times 2 weeks (... assuming late Spring/Summer time Ops, and one week for each side) = 8 weeks, or 2 MONTHS to get the troops from Kiel to southern most landing area.

First patch will provide a pretty good compromise between what was possible... and that which allows the '39 Campaign Game to remain within acceptable parameters, IE,

Given that - in ANY WW-2 GS Game, board or computerized, there HAS to be some certain abstractions in the many strictly tactical areas.

In general, I notice that very many are asking for: a large-scale game to be small-scale in those particular areas that they most especially like to play around in.

That is alright, but at some point, we have to accept "best possible solution" as opposed to... an impossibly achieved perfection.

The "amphib question" WILL BE solved. As with all else, it's only a matter of time.

[Timskorn]

True, but imo it's a small concession, and one that can be alleviated if you launch from the Denmark area, which would still allow you to hit it in one turn, two max with 4 movement points.

For an overall solution HC will have to be the ultimate decider on that issue, as it will have a bigger effect on MP games.

[Lars]

Is amphib really even necessary for the northernmost city? Transport seems to work ok. After Oslo goes, you just unload.

[Timskorn]

Ah, right, Trondheim. Yeah that's a bit further but, as you say Lars by the time you capture Oslo you'd only need to do a transport.

[Desert Dave]

Copenhagen to Trondheim is also 16 tiles.

GErmans invaded even farther north than that, but Narvik is not on the map.

Same difficulty as mentioned.

Still talking 4 turns = 8 weeks.

4 AP's is just too low.

Unless,

All you are after is "slaughter in the water."

Folks can test it out for themselves.

See what happens.

Report back.

Since this forum is, in a real sense,

ALSO a "beta forum."

One of 3, now.

TK, you and Edwin P

Are doing brilliant work

In that 3rd Dimension, I have nothing

But utmost respect

For all your dedication.

Many gamers will, one day, finally,

And,

REALLY come to appreciate what you are NOW

In process of doing.

Cool shades, babe! :cool:

[Desert Dave]

Is amphib really even necessary for the northernmost city? Transport seems to work ok. After Oslo goes, you just unload.

It is if you want to beat the alert

UK Player to that port, Lars.

O/W, UK gets the 15 MPP's for holding

The mine and Trondheim,

While GErmany gets nothing,

No matter if they hold

Both Oslo and Bergen,

Since the convoy has ended

Once Trondheim is enemy controlled.

[Timskorn]

Again, for the purpose of playing against the AI, this is still a small concession to essentially having the game end for the UK after a Sealion if the range isn't drastically lowered.

[Karhu]

Originally posted by CharonJr:

PS: IIRC it was the Polish flag that flew over Monte Cassino after the white flag was taken down.

Well done. Clearly I'm going to have to make these more difficult in future.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Desert Dave:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Is amphib really even necessary for the northernmost city? Transport seems to work ok. After Oslo goes, you just unload.

It is if you want to beat the alert

UK Player to that port, Lars.

O/W, UK gets the 15 MPP's for holding

The mine and Trondheim,

While GErmany gets nothing,

No matter if they hold

Both Oslo and Bergen,

Since the convoy has ended

Once Trondheim is enemy controlled. </font>

[mustang96]

I personally never do the Sealion invasion because it's to easy! That's my one rule when playing the AI, no invasion of England. I know the goal is to win but keeping the Uk in the game makes it more realistic. Germany in WW2 was never really close to invading and if they did it would of been a bloody mess!

Mustang

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Lars:

Good point. I'll have to remember to put the CAs in position to block any attempt.

Which is what happened in the real deal Norwegian invasion, true?

And a naval battle between Kriegsmarine and RN then ensued up along Norwegian shores.

But he'd have to be really alert, since Norway usually goes in 1 turn. The UK amphib would probably never show up in time.

If you take Oslo then you'd have to wait a turn before you could Op Move a unit to Trondheim.

Maybe a couple or even 3 turns if the city has been reduced by Carrier which gets a fortunate "strat hit."

Though, you may have landed an Airborne unit as near Trondheim as you could get... except, it may not have enough supply to move out of the mountains.

Agree that it would be a kind of gamble, having the UK amphib in the water ahead of time (... recall how the SC-2 AI would do this?), ready to land IF GErmany would declare war, and Norway falls in one turn.

And, declaring war and landing IF GErmany does NOT do so... entails certain Diplomatic risks, especially Sweden, which would jump 30 to 40 % toward Axis at 100% trigger.

So, you might want to have a Diplo chit already placed in Sweden, or be prepared to do so post haste.

Well, Sweden may then eventually join the Axis, in which case you'd best be prepared to land some more forces.

Who would want to give GErmany some free troops, after all?

Of course, we have to wait and see IF the amphib range has been changed for default game, and if so, by how much?

Transport would probably stay the same, so... THAT means...

... all in all?

Damned if I know what!

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Retributar:

[

The American's declared war on 'Vichy France' in early to mid 1943...

America should never declare war on Vichy - the US much preferred Vichy to de Gaulle, and even allowed a Vichy Govt to stay in power in Nth Africa after Torch.