Strange game and AI reaction

[Rolend]

Last night I decided to try something different with the 39 campaign game. I took the Germans and right after the fall of Poland I took out Denmark. I then just left enough troops on the Siegfried Line for defense and I sent out my subs and navy to harass the RN and disrupt convoys. I then declared war on Russia in early 40.

The strange part was how the AI reacted. First the French and English just kept hitting the Siegfried Line every turn not doing any real damage. Next Italy, Hungary, Romania and Finland did not join me even though I was easily rolling over Russia. They all stayed totally out of the war.

Then in late 40 as I was on the verge of taking Moscow it committed the Siberian Troops. This should NEVER be allowed to happen before late 41 as those troops were needed against several skirmishes with the Japanese in Manchuria and had the Russians pulled those troops out the Japanese, not yet focused in on the U.S. would surly have made a big push into Russia.

Once I finished off the Russians by mid 41 I quit the game as I figured it was a done deal.

It was fun for a change but I do think the scripts need some tweaking for players who like to take different approaches to the game as I did. Yes I know you will say that I can tweak them but I am not much for that, not very good at it, I would just make things worse LOL.

[Timskorn]

They will come, it's just going to take some time. For my mod I've spent most of my time just tweaking and testing the basic AI, and now I'm slowly adding in scripts to account for player actions. If HC doesn't have at least one other person working with him full time, I can only imagine how much time it takes for him to both be patching the game and correcting/adding scripts AND testing both vigorously for bugs.

The scripts themselves are relatively easy to add, it's testing them that takes a long time (basically playing full games or 3/4 of a game each time). Even when you think your scripts are good, it takes multiple testings to see if the AI just happened to get lucky on some rolls.

I'd imagine HC is probably working on the code more than the scripts, unless he has the manpower to do both (or time!).

[Lars]

Originally posted by Rolend:

Then in late 40 as I was on the verge of taking Moscow it committed the Siberian Troops. This should NEVER be allowed to happen before late 41 as those troops were needed against several skirmishes with the Japanese in Manchuria and had the Russians pulled those troops out the Japanese, not yet focused in on the U.S. would surly have made a big push into Russia.

You pull the gamey early invasion of Russia and you're complaining about the Siberians showing up early? Manchuria is meaningless compared to Moscow, what did you think they were going to do?

In point of fact, yes, the game isn't balanced to be played this way against the AI. But a human player might have torn you a new one.

[Rolend]

I am not so sure how gamey it really is. I mean both the French and the English could of walked into Germany while they were still in Poland, the Germans had NO armor at all in the west. So what did they do with this advantage? Nothing and that is why they call it the phoney war.

To be honest I don't think England or France really wanted a war with Germany and had Hitler really turned his focus to the east and Russia a year earlyer I am not convinced they would of done any more then they had when Germany was in Poland. So I play this as a 'what if' type of game.

Actully having Romania, Hungary and Finland in the war would of been over kill but had Italy joined it would of made my task MUCH harder as there would of been no way they could of fought off England and France on their norhtern border or in N. Africa so I would of had to divert a lot of units that I used to roll Russia.

As for the Siberian troops I disagre with you. Even in late 41 when things looked really bad for Russia Stalin didn't want to pull those troops out and use them at Moscow because he was sure he would then have to fight a two front war, something Russia just could not manage. His spy master, sorry forget his name, reasurred Stalin that it would be ok because by that time the Japanese were fully into their up coming pacific war with England and the U.S.

Lastly I was not really complaining, just pointing this out for the people who do scripting and for the game makers. Yes a real person would of kicked my butt for doing that and I would like to see the AI a bit better so it too would kick my butt which really shouldn't be that hard as I suck LOL.

[Hubert Cater]

Rolend,

I've added some scripts to handle this type of Axis strategy, i.e. France and the UK will no longer sit idly by and in fact this is already incorporated in the updated demo from a few weeks back.

This will also be a part of the first patch

Hubert

[Panzerkeil]

Richard Sorge was the name of Stalin's spy.

[Rolend]

THANKS HC for the reply, sounds like that first patch is going to be killer, with a few of the bugs fixed and the scripts tweaked this already killer game is going to be that much more fun. THANKS for your hard work and continued support of not only the game but these forums. You don't see that very offten from a game maker.

@Panzerkeil Thanks I knew it I just could not remember his name, siggghhhh like so many other things that go with old age so is my memory

[Retributar]

I concur with Rolend!, ...he has stated the fact's EXACTACALLY !!!.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Rolend:

Then in late 40 as I was on the verge of taking Moscow it committed the Siberian Troops. This should NEVER be allowed to happen before late 41 as those troops were needed against several skirmishes with the Japanese in Manchuria and had the Russians pulled those troops out the Japanese, not yet focused in on the U.S. would surly have made a big push into Russia.

Not quite. The battles between Russia and Japan were in 1939 and completely discredited the "Northern" faction.

The Japanese were never going to strike Russia again after that, but the Russians didn't know that - hence they kept the troops there.