ORIGINAL: Ralegh
Hey Odysseus - great guess!
I wish I was smart enough to explain the right things before people ran away with assumptions.
Much of the Austrian army was way out of position, and they needed a bit of time - I didn't mention it, but they were at war with Turkey when I attacked. I reckon lots of human players would get John to throw some militia away to get a look at the French and slow their advance. If John had outpicked Davout, then in the next month he would have been defending in the mountains - and I am pretty sure that is what the AI was hoping for. And a few risks are worth taking with trash corps for Austria to stand a chance against France.
On the other issues in this thread, part of the strategic interest in EIA is becaue of the different situations different countries are in, and EIANW dows reflect that pretty faithfully (cant re-ally within 12 months of breaking an alliance//changed french/british movement order//britain and france needing lots of PP ...)
Hi guys -
that explanation of the AI's choice seems a little bit... optimistic
first off, yes players would want to slow the FR advance - that is NOT done by sacrificing your army
if he really needed to find out what FR had there, a 1-mil corps could have done the same thing at only a -1pp cost. As it is, he's lost 2 pp.s and now faces the entire FR army with only 17 factors remaining, meaning barring disastrous chits&rolls, he will be vaporized. Then there is absolutely nothing between the G. Armee and Vienna.
it's also given FR +3 pp.s for free
and Oh, look - when Napoleon and the whole Armee vaporise what's left of John's stack, that's another +3pps (+6 fr, -4 Au, almost enough to match a conditional surrender)
thinking 'hey if i beat davout i can be defending in the mountains' is again, optimistic.
If you attack superior morale, give them +1/-1 against you *and* the mountain modifier.... you just don't have much chance of winning, so it's not a good idea to base your plan on that. If he really wanted to defend in the mountains, he could have just gone to the Salzburg area (where he retreated to) without giving up the losses and pp.s
the very idea that you need to 'examine' the FR forces is a little thin, seeing as it is the main Davout/Napoleon stack, so you can pretty much assume it's got the heavies...
And it's no good saying 'oh, they were trash corps' - there's *9* cav there, and they will lose all of them. 9cav and 12i is a lot of cash, not counting 36 factors of manpower.
especially with charles off chasing Turks, who's going to keep vienna safe?
I realize it's an incredibly complex game to try to program, but some effort needed to be put in teaching the AI to evaluate odds of victory and also teach it the principles of screening Vienna (and thinking more than just one battle, but what happens to my stack *after* this battle... - do i get overwhelmed, isolated with no forage, is there a better way -- namely picking an important defensive location..)
I'm not saying that these have not been programmed in,
just that what the AI has shown in these reports have been repeated blunders for the AI.
(e.g. this iffy attack, the FR surrender to a tiny GB corps in paris, the turks abandoning Egypt)
Are you showing us only your highlights where you have crushed the AI?
Perhaps if you show us some AAR's where the AI's skills are highlighted instead of the Beta Testers, Matrix would garner more sales.
