AI GRRRR

[ChrisND]

Here is a list of the things I have seen the AI do, consistently:

1. Insist on loading the amphib troops of a Norway or England invasion in Brussels, right in full view and range of Allied aircraft. Even with my entire royal navy parked right next to it, the AI would still load up troops, one-by-one into the transport meatgrinder. I cannot tell the AI where to stage the invasion. I can give it a general region, but it picks the port itself.

2. Run strength lvl 5 cruisers out of their safe ports to attack a full-strength 7-ship British flotilla.

3. Uses subs as if they were battleships.

4. Declare war on a country while all of the invasion troops are on the other side of europe, then move said troops through the mud for about 10 ten turns to get there.

5. Ignore the weakened tank sitting in Paris to attack the fortified troops of the Maginot Line.

I'm about ready to give up the scripting, since it just means the AI troops muddle in a different place.

[ChrisND]

PS I know I sound like a broken record and that this is being worked on, just had to vent.

[Edwin P.]

I saw the Brussels port action in my first test of your scripts. And the Transports just sat there to take the pounding. I will have a look at your scripts, as I may know the solution. Try moving the Friendly position to that German port in the East. That might solve the proble. No guarantees.

Also, AI transported to Italy but had no Italian HQs to send. It would be nice if you could make a HQ a prerequiste for a transport script.

Ie. #Require_HQ= 1 (would activate scipt only if HQ was available to transport)

[ChrisND]

The friendly position for that is currently Copenhagen.

As for the Italian HQ problem, my short term solution to that is going to be a one-turn script forcing the AI to buy an HQ.

I also need to write a script that keeps those Italian forces at Tobruk until they amass enough of a force. Right now the AI just marches them piecemeal into Alexandria

[Edwin P.]

My guess is that you will need a 5 turn script to force the Italian AI to purchase a HQ with zero spending on Research and Diplomacy for those 5 turns.

[Major Spinello]

Normal Dude, all valid points regarding weaknesses of the general AI. I hope your voice is heard and Hubert will continue work on the vanilla default AI! Obviously, there is only so much one can do through scripting.

[Major Spinello]

... and please, don´t give up scripting!

[Hubert Cater]

Normal Dude,

How about using a Garrison script to Garrison an area close to Kiel or even Konigsberg. Then once the units have Garrisoned each position (use this as a cancel condition for the script) immediately call for an Amphibious script with an activation condition requiring those tiles to be garrisoned. This way you can control the location of where the units will load up... i.e. they will go to the desired port (as specified by the #FRIENDLY_POSITION more consistently).

Note, with the next patch the DoW will be declared much more ideally as well when Amphibs are in proper range.

[ChrisND]

Hubert,

That's a good idea, I'll try that out. How strict is the AI when it selects units with proximity to the first FRIENDLY LOCATION flag?

Thanks.

Chris

You are the friggin man. Nowhere else can the fans have this close of contact with the game developers.

[ June 08, 2006, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: Normal Dude ]

[ChrisND]

Tried out the Garrison idea Hubert, unfortunetly even if the garrison plans are set to only one turn, they stick to their garrison plans and the AI randomly selects units and loads at Brussels as usual. I'll keep trying

[Hubert Cater]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

Hubert,

That's a good idea, I'll try that out. How strict is the AI when it selects units with proximity to the first FRIENDLY LOCATION flag?

Thanks.

Chris

You are the friggin man. Nowhere else can the fans have this close of contact with the game developers.

Thanks as I did make this game with moddability in mind and I definitely want to help out the creative juices as much as possible .

In terms of strictness it should be absolutely strict to take the closest units available. Note that this #FRIENDLY_POSITION flag is used this way only for AMPHIBIOUS and SEA_TRANSPORT plans. Also, it may skip taking units, relative to #FRIENDLY_POSITION, if they occupy a city that is within reach of enemy units or if the city is threatened overall.

[Hubert Cater]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

Tried out the Garrison idea Hubert, unfortunetly even if the garrison plans are set to only one turn, they stick to their garrison plans and the AI randomly selects units and loads at Brussels as usual. I'll keep trying

Did you set a #CANCEL_CONDITION for the Garrison plans?

Take a look at how I have the BEF retreat from France. At the point that Paris becomes threatened, i.e. an Axis unit within 2 tiles of Paris, I have a Garrison plan take affect that moves the BEF to Brest, but the catch is to have the Garrison plan cancel as soon as the BEF reaches Brest. This way you can set a BUILD_UP_SEA_TRANSPORT plan right away with an #ACTIVATE_CONDITION for when the BEF reaches Brest.

Another way to help the Amphibious plans is to have a #CANCEL_CONDITION take into account enemy naval unit locations, i.e. if there are enemy naval units close to your desired embarkation ports then the plan will not take effect, but if you have it as #TYPE=2 then it will keep trying until the ideal conditions are met.

Also, to make sure units are always selected for plans use the #STEAL= 3 flag as this way it will always steal units from either Offensive or Defensive plans, i.e. less likely to not have units available for the desired plan.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[Hubert Cater]

Normal Dude, for the land DoW plan issue I would suggest play testing a few times with a much higher #LENGTH value to see just how long it takes the AI to get enough units within the ideal strike range position then set the #LENGTH value to the appropriate number.

Note, I did this with the existing Barbarossa plans and sometimes it works out better and sometimes not exactly ideal, depending on the current situation, but you can usually get the general ballpark correct.

[ChrisND]

Actually after I made that post I realized that I could use the CANCEL position.

I think the problem I have been running into is that the AI sometimes doesnt have the MPP to move the garrisons to Konigsberg for the Norway attack. Other times it just doesnt, for reasons I honestly dont know. And I do have it set at STEAL 3.

As for setting it to a TYPE 2, the problem with that is that it keep checking for it forever, when I only want it to happen within a certain time frame. Can you set multiple #DATE flags within a script, or even a range of dates? That would be most helpful.

[Edwin P.]

I would like to see a variable Condition with a cancelation flag - i.e. Teh Plan to Invade Spain would be canceled when/if Russian Readiness exceeded 70%.