Difficult Levels + Japan behaving strangely

[angelus512]

Just wondering what are the differences between the difficulty levels in the game.
Like are the differences in difficulty levels as simple as modifiers such as less suply...harder to win battles etc.
Or does the AI actually get smarter as well?

Because I set the game to easy on this last game because normal was proving hard =p But I could win on normal now that I know what i'm doing the easy game just happened to coincide with me figuring out the necessity of U-Boats and taking england down with them + fighters.

Anywho I noticed in this game to my amazement that from when i started until 1947 the Allies didn't build in Anti-Sub Tech to the great majority of their units cept their Heavy Bombers.
I could have 4 subs literally sitting (this is no joke) amongst 12 destroyers and assorted aircraft and my subs creamed them all with no losses no damage.

So I am wondering when i reset it to normal on the next game is the AI going to be just as dumb or does it get smarter?

And as for Japan...my god whats up with that? Japan has got to be the worst coded element of the game.
The Japanese start great. Little naval blitzkrieg of their own, they carve out a nice handy slice to occupy the Allies navy.
But in my game once the Japanese did that they just sort of sat there moving ships and troops around with no particular direction or aim.
Even when I had literally cleared the Pacific and the Atlantic of ALL ships singlehandedly the Japanese refused to advance beyond about say the middle of the pacific with their fleets.
They too suffered from being incapable of upgrading Anti-Sub defences as they could never destroy a british sub.

Also I asked this in a different post but I'll jot it down again just incase I snag somebody that knows but is there anyway to entice Japan into declaring war on the USSR at some stage?
or at the very least make a serious snack out of India? I had to do that one myself too.... *sigh*

Also does anybody try and hit the rest of Africa below the Sahara in their games for the resources in Central and especially South Africa (Rhodesia) etc?

[Petiloup]

The problem is not about Japan being Dumb or Difficulty Level in general but about coding an AI.

I guess they give them a pattern of action to follow but it's difficult to make the AI adapt when the situation changes.

A simple example is if the German goes for a Western front strategy against the AI. Once you take Gibraltar and Egypt then all you need to do is put some heavy ships and light ships or subs in front of Marocco on the Atlantic side and the Allies will not give it a try to invade anywhere else. It seems to be Marocco or nothing. You can take the whole of Africa with 1 militia and the AI does nothing about it or to throw something at you in the Indian Ocean. Meaning you can take your time to take out Russia with minimal garrison in the West. Japan will get crushed in the meantime but Germany will rule the world.

The problem with an AI is that once you see how it "thinks" then you can defeat it all the time unless you give it advantages in troops numbers or strength.

[christian brown]

Polonthi is right, the AI does not get smarter with increased difficulty levels, only the level of combat and supply help.  Reccomend you try a human opponent via a PBEM game for a real challenge....

[teukros]

Yeah the AI is bad. REAL bad. AI Germans don't even know how to invade Russia. I'm just finishing up my second game ever (both times as Russia) and in the first game's Winter Counteroffensive, I surrounded a huge pocket of Germans, maybe 20 units altogether, and massacred them. That was the game right there. Second time, I improved the evasion and attack of my infantry and armor before Barbarossa, and the Germans just seemed to run out of steam - by the time Winter rolled around, they didn't even seem to be a real threat any more. [&:] I was bored so I concentrated on researching the Atomic Bomb for the Russians, got it by Spring '44. [:D] AND Russia had six fleets of Heavy Bombers. Needless to say, the Red Army ran out of steam (and supplies) in Western Poland. Am I worried? Nah! I'm just pissed that the Western Allies got into Northern Italy first. [:D]