Blitzkrieg AI weakness

[hendriks65]

First, an awesome game, I played SC1 quite a few times but could beat it at max settings and +2 computer bonus.

I played my first Axis Blitzkrieg global map campaign a few weeks ago and had not read any rules prior, so I restarted after finding out that amfibious invasions had really changed (and for the better). I played on 100% expertise and +1 computer bonus. I had no problem with the USSR jumping war readiness when I invaded Yugoslavia. Prior to that, France had been a problem due to not much room to manouver and Norway a problem as I though I needed airpower but a single army can defeat the Oslo corps, which is good. I had the UK navy intercept and half one army and 2 units (one tank) were destroyed in France, so not very good. I had forgotten diplo and hadn't really checked research. Axis minors came in only in early 1941, and while being busy in Greece, I had to declare war on the USSR. The north is almost impossible to breach, behind the river and plenty of units so slow going there. The south was much better but Odessa is heavily defended and difficult to take, Kiev is a bit easier. I'm not sure anymore if I took Moscow in 1941 but I don't think so, I had no idea Japan would be at war with the USSR so they overran me there and occupied some Japaneese possesions, after that, I was able to stall them there.

I had expected a strong opposition in 1942 in the east, but by the summer of 1942, Moscow had fallen and Finland was not even in the game, but I had taken Leningrad as well. Combination of right airpower, full strenght armies and surrounding. It takes long, but you get there. Sevastopol fell very easy in 1941. After that, I was wondering how long it would take the USSR to surrender, I had to take 5 more cities, even behind the Ural which is very very slow going. Finally, in 1943, it surrendered and I was very surprised about the rather lame opposition and lack of units and offensives. I invaded the UK in 1944 after destroying the bulk of the US armies that kept coming in slow pieces, sometimes an HQ without ANY support, so my planes and units had them come with joy into France. After London fell, I stopped.

I am enthousiastic about this game though and ordered WaW as well, started Barbarossa in there and that looks very good, even at 0% expertise and 0% computer bonus, I'm not getting very far, so I downloaded 1.4 and will start better.

I have now started a new Blizkrieg global war campaign with 100% expertise and 2 as computer bonus. did France in August 1940, rest historical, invested HEAVILY in industry tech as I know this decreases build costs, did so for Japan as well which is at industry level 3 now but I see no reduction in unit costs. I do see a reduction in unit costs with germany which is at level 2. did much more diplo too but unable to get the Finns so far and have 20% per turn, late 1941 now and they are at 79%. Thailand joined and the USA is not at war with Axis yet, but at 80% as well. Barbarossa is going badly, I was busy with Yugoslavia (by the way, I don't think you should ignore them but I do think it should not cause such a big problem for the USSR with regards to war readiness, I've read that, is that true?) when their war readiness went to 90%, so I had to declare war and was not totally prepared. I had waited for the industry techs to hopefully kick in a bit but they didn't and part of the army arrived late. I have now in november 1941 only taken Riga, am behind the Dniepr and destroyed 5 USSR tank units which is hell. Also, they seem much more on the attack, although not very clever but stretching my time. I have infantry weapons level 2 now, so that should be better but I have the west very underdefended with 4 corpses and Italy is helping in the USSR with 3 armies, a plane an HQ unit. North Africa only holding the original Italian cities, Etheopia is lost, but the UK does not press their attack, I conquered the Djibuti harbour, and have NO units there at all but it is still being attacked by a bomber unit from the UK which would be much better used against Axis shipping in the med. Also, I know UK has armour and units in NA, but they seem reluctant to use any, maybe they are preparing an invasion, I only have 1 corps on Rome...

Japan, well, I made a mess of that as I didn't know amfibuous warfare very well, and not where to expect opposition, but even though it went quite bad I took the historical Japaneese expansion by 1942-3 and had in ALL that time not ONCE seen a USA counter attack, or trying to land somewhere or tying naval engagements, actually, no USA at all. I was about to launch invasions into Australia when I stopped.

All in all, very good game and very happy with it and a good break from Hearts of Iron, but I think the AI can be tweaked to play a bit more aggressive and clever...?

[ June 12, 2008, 04:47 AM: Message edited by: hendriks65 ]

[Timskorn]

I think is only a problem with the Global War mod, which seems to be better suited for multiplayer. After playing both sides, I've also noticed that USSR seems to be disadvantaged quite a bit from the standard Fall Weiss campaign. I don't even recally seeing a Russian Winter event.

In any case, if you play Fall Weiss in the WaW expansion you will be going against a fantastic AI over SC2's. It doesn't compare to a good human opponent but it will surely give you a much better challenge than in the Global War mod.

The global war mod is a lot of fun though, I've been playing it as multiplayer but I believe it needs some tweaking, the #1 issue being Russia.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

This scenario is a beta really; Russia is missing a bunch of mines and oil wells, while Germany has one more than vanilla Fall Weiss. Much of the AI has not been scripted (Japan and the US in the Pacific in particular-in the game I played as Axis the US had a huge fleet partying at anchor in the Atlantic while the Japanese Navy rampaged through the Pacific). Wait for the PDE version.

[hendriks65]

Okay, I switched to WaW Fall Weiss now, playing 100% experienced and +2 allied bonus. Have to say this game is great, the map is much wider and allows for many more options. Many things I wasn't aware of, i.e. getting 3 corps when Oslo falls, I did it stupidly again as I never want to redeploy due to the costs, but this gets you late to the ports unless you use Koningsberg. So, I started in April with it and landed an army which easily took out the Norwegian army of 3, but couldn't advance into it, I was so worried the AI would redeploy a unit from one of the 3 Norwegian cities to oslo but that didn't happen, and taking oslo the next turn got me the corpses and the country. Simular with Denmark. France went far easier as I expected due to the tanks and their double hits, killed one army of French and landed paratroopers in the middle, French in full retreat after that and ignoring their magimot armies, which I think they should have used to put pressure on my left wing. 2 more turns required and Paris fell and so did France. I'm always unsure about the Italians, never know what to do, attack in NA which seems almost pointless or attack Greece, I did Greece after an Italian HQ was ready and in Albania. Pretty difficult those Greeks, if you land 2 armies next to Athens it should be possible but I'm not sure they would surrender immediately. Took me many many turns and required the use of a German tac bomber. In the meantime, due to NA understrength, UK has luanched and succeeded in taking Tobruk and is advancing at speed, I now need to transport those Italian units in Greece to NA. Did quite some damage to the UK fleet which sometimes makes rades close to Italy and although the italian is totally hopeless, if you can hit 2-3 times, you do quite a lot of damage.

After Yugoslavia which was very easy again, I was late again and started Barbarossa on July 7th. Rapid gains in the beginning, but looks like Riga is difficult again. Tried to surprise assault Smolensk but there was a corps there, AI not totally braindead No Russian cities taken on 2nd turn yet, I have infantry weapons 2 and they have 1 but doesn't seem my units are THAT deadly as with infantry weapons 3 in SC2.

Some points;

- Why is Finland so difficult to get into the Axis, isn't Finland a natural axis minor? Spend 300 MPP on it now and Finland is only at 37%.

- No UK bombing of French or german resources yet, they only hit Caen and Brest.

- Can surface ships hunt supply lines like subs?

If not, why not? Bismarck etc were send out solely for that purpose.

Excellent game so far!

[Hubert Cater]

Hendriks65,

Glad to hear you are enjoying the game

For some of your questions, if Finland does not join via diplomacy they should join once the Axis near Leningrad.

For surface ships, they currently cannot hunt supply lines like subs.

Hubert

[SeaMonkey]

But you're going to fix that....right.....Hubert?

[Blashy]

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

But you're going to fix that....right.....Hubert?

Thing is, it might start to make subs somewhat obsolete.

Then again I still find subs overpriced. So if they were less expensive and surface raiders were added, subs would still have appeal. My 2 cents.

[SeaMonkey]

See what happens when you jump to conclusions Blashy!

They can dive, run silent, not to mention the editable parts of causing greater convoy damage, dive percentages, etc. :cool:

My statement was well thought out, contemplated, tested, and arrived at by irrefutable evidence following the Scientific Method.

[SeaMonkey]

Oh.. and Hubert, I noticed that sometimes my subs don't pass through CAs and BBs when running silent just lately.

Is that a design decision, is it a percentage, cause I seem to remember I tested it when WaW first came out and it worked.

Is it dependent on ASW tech application to capital ships?

[Hubert Cater]

SeaMonkey,

Good catch and it looks like I introduced this bug as I needed to deal with the situation for when Subs were in 'Silent' mode but the player selects a final destination tile that actually has an enemy unit. Looks like I handled this situation too well and it has stopped Subs completely.

Anyways, long story short this is now sorted out and will be corrected for the next patch.

Hubert

[Minty]

Let capital ships raid covoys, it is realistic and would be SO much fun. They would or could be devasting (imagine KGV and sisters vs Norwegain trawlers) but would have diplo conqequences, not as deniable as a sneaky torpedo