My thoughts on 1.03 (w/ a few screenhots)

[NeverMan]

The AI has no need to surrender if it's capital is occupied. Why would it when it gets bonus PP/VP??

The reason a human player surrenders under this situation is because he/she still wants to win the game and in order to do that he/she needs to gain PP (which is VERY hard to do while your capital is occupied).

BUT with the AI, there is no need since it gains free PP/VP.

This whole design decision makes the AI extremely uninteresting to play against. It is much more annoying than it is fun, sitting there occupying a capital waiting and waiting and waiting for an eventually attack or surrender only to realize that the AI MP of the capital you have been occupying for quite some time is just a few percentage points behind you in winning the game.

What is the POINT?? The AI is still absolutely useless and will remain so for quite some time (personally, I imagine forever and consider the AI a solid waste of development time that could be spent implementing internet play and/or streamlining PBEM and/or implementing better multiplayer options and/or making an editor).

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: ndrose

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Actually the AI will not be forced to surrender until they reach Civil Disorder. This happens when the MP can collect no home nation manpower (All provincial capitals and nation's capital occupied at the the beginning of an eco phase).

Well almost every other MP throws in the towel the minute you occupy the capital, but Turkey is the only stingy one that will not surrender.

I found this to be true in 1.02, but in 1.03 I had Moscow occupied for over a year, and had occupied St Petersburg and every provincial capital except Riga and Sevastopol (yes, even Astrakhan), and had smashed the Russian army (the few remaining, fleeing fragments mostly starved in Finland for lack of money for supply) before Russia surrendered.

You should only see civil disorder happen in the eco phase SO it would happen in the first eco phase that you could collect NO home nation manpower. That make better sense?
You seeing something different?

[ndrose]

Turkey did finally capitulate when I occupied Trabizond and Armenia--which reduced its manpower to zero even without landing on the islands. Russia surrendered a bit before actual civil disorder, but still long after they rationally should have.

Meanwhile, France still hasn't gone to war with anyone.

One thing I've noticed is how hard it seems to be to win (the game, not wars) against hard AI now. I don't know whether this is just because it takes longer to win wars. Is the AI getting even more extra VPs than it was in 1.02? Austria has won most of its battles, and all its wars; it has gotten unconditionals now from Turkey, Russia, and Prussia; but it is far out of first place, and several countries are approaching a win. I think I'm behind Russia, even though I occupied Moscow for over a year. Presumably I will overtake them now, but I don't think I can overtake Spain, which looks set to win by virtue of doing nothing.

I wonder if this has something to do with the AI's passivity. It's nice to see it not declaring war recklessly as in 1.02, but this is too far in the other direction. On the other hand, if it can win by doing nothing (even France is way ahead of me, and France should never be able to win without going to war, whereas Spain arguably should be), maybe doing nothing is rational behavior. I wonder if it would become more aggressive on an easier AI setting.

[Thresh]

There are some additional AI bonus going on that need to be looked at.

Todd

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: Tater

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

Here is the mega stack France had that never moved from this spot once it was built up. He never contested for any of that Italian territory, and jsut to the north (unpictured) was mostly dominated by Prussia. This is literally how Europe looked the WHOLE game!!!

The French did the EXACT same thing with their mega-stack in my game. Exact same size and location. And in my game the stack also never moves. This has to be more of a bug than just a bad AI decision...something in the programing is making the French collect in this exact location and then do nothing.

Some other things...
1) The AI's initial fleet dispositions are pretty much insane. If you are going to collect the fleet all in one port there needs to be more than just a 1 factory garrison. As GB I took out the entire French navy and the entire Spanish name within 6 months. The AI has to be programed to either disperse (and protect) the navy to multiple ports (best) OR to better protect the mega fleet in whatever port it's in.

2) The AI's just won't do anything aggressive...even after declaring war. For example, Turkey declares on Egypt...Prussia gets control...Turkey has like 4 Corp in position to attack the lone Egyptian corp...but never does. After 2+ years into the CG Prussia still controls Egypt and the Turk still has 4 corp sitting in Palestine. Another example, Russia is at war with France for over 2 years...not one battle or siege has ever occured...NONE.

3) The AI still is making wired political choices. For example, as GB I am at war with France...Russia is at war with France. I ally with Russia. The Russian lands a couple of corp in French controlled Holland...I land there also with 5 corp...the previous eco-phase I give 20 bucks to Russia. The very next turn after I land in Holland the Russian breaks the alliance with me...a pop-up says he breaks the alliance at not cost in PP...HUH!

4) The AI is still doing a lot of lone corp operations. For example, after landing in Holland I start grabing minors (including Holland). The French mega stack never moves...but he does send 4 full cav corp to try to stop me...I crush them all...along with 2-3 other lone infantry corp he flings at me peicemeal.

Darth tater?

Is that you? [:)]

[Jimmer]

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

ORIGINAL: Tater
Some other things...
1) The AI's initial fleet dispositions are pretty much insane. If you are going to collect the fleet all in one port there needs to be more than just a 1 factory garrison. As GB I took out the entire French navy and the entire Spanish name within 6 months. The AI has to be programed to either disperse (and protect) the navy to multiple ports (best) OR to better protect the mega fleet in whatever port it's in.

This is actually easy to work around. It requires some advance work, though, and probably should be done by Marshall in a future release.

First, save a copy of the game's default setup file for France.

Second, make a setup of the French forces with the fleets in several decent locations and protected by garrisons (at a minimum).

Finally, save the setup you created in step two to the default file used by the system (the one you made a copy of in step 1). This will split up the French in an intelligent way.

Unfortunately, this will make it easy to defeat Great Britain if you happen to be PLAYING France. So, you have to do the same thing playing as GB: Make a copy, setup a game with France having used the setup file you created above, and then save the new setup as the British default setup.

The only problem with this comes if you are playing one or the other power and you don't use the appropriate file. Then, you'll have the poor AI at an extreme disadvantage (something it's quite capable of doing by itself, without your assistance).

I haven't done this recently, and I think I will try it again.

By the way, using the same setup file process works for a lot of nations' starting positions. However, the one most critical setup in the game is the naval setups of France and Great Britain. Everything else can be made up for, but mess this one up, and you potentially cripple one of them very early.

This was a bit more complicated than I thought. I'm going to post the setups on the "Mods and Scenarios" forum, including the setup files.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

Here is the mega stack France had that never moved from this spot once it was built up. He never contested for any of that Italian territory, and jsut to the north (unpictured) was mostly dominated by Prussia. This is literally how Europe looked the WHOLE game!!!

RayKinStl:

Can you send me this game?
I would really like to break this scenario out and see what the AI is doing and why.
Very odd scenario since there looks to be nothing that would scare the AI here???

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Actually the AI will not be forced to surrender until they reach Civil Disorder. This happens when the MP can collect no home nation manpower (All provincial capitals and nation's capital occupied at the the beginning of an eco phase).

Was that a deliberate change at some point in 1.03? I didn't see it in any of the change logs.

It's not a clever idea for any power to wait until it reaches civil disorder status before surrendering, as then it will have no money and no army for far too long. Better to give up early.

Refer to Mantis issues 192 and 190, I think this needs fixing.

[delatbabel]

ORIGINAL: RayKinStL

Here is the mega stack France had that never moved from this spot once it was built up. He never contested for any of that Italian territory, and jsut to the north (unpictured) was mostly dominated by Prussia. This is literally how Europe looked the WHOLE game!!!

This is actually part of issue # 35 in Mantis so if the save game could be posted there that'd be great.

There is a general issue with France being too timid from the beginning of the game onwards.

[ndrose]

Update on the game played as Austria:

Finally provoked France into a war by declaring again on Turkey, which was allied by this time (1811). Since the better half of my army was with Charles in the east, I wanted to see what havoc the AI could now wreak with its 10 or 12 full French corps under Napoleon sitting in Turin, as they had been for years. The result, however, was instructive in showing how hard it is to get the AI to think like a person. You can see what it is thinking, and it's trying not to do the suicide corps thing, and it's also trying to to bankrupt itself on supply, but it's having a hard time balancing the two in specific situations.

The obstacle it faced is this: Spain owned Parma and Genoa. The Austrians were sitting in Modena or Bologna (I forget which they started in--I was moving them back and forth after the war started). The problem for the AI was that it didn't want to advance its whole stack that far, presumably because of the cost. (Why it didn't move at least to Milan I don't know.) But it (more wisely than in 1.02) didn't want to attack my army with a single corps. So it sent a couple of corps to besiege the city (Modena or Bologna) where my army wasn't. On my land turn I pounced on the expeditionary force with my whole army. Then the cycle repeated. By the time Charles arrived, having defeated the Turks, the French stack was down to about 6 corps.

In the north, meanwhile, the handful of French corps that had been fighting the British (the only real warfare France carried on all those years), met the Swedes, Danes, and a few German minors under Mack in a more freewheeling war of movement. The AI played better here, but still didn't concentrate its forces enough, and I was able to win most of the battles and take minors including Holland. The war's still going on, but Austrian victory, which should have been impossible, seems assured.

What should the AI have done? I can see the difficulty of writing a general rule that would cover this case. And of course I don't know how much money it had. (Though one would think, having done nothing, it should be rich.)

Ideally, it would already have been set up on a depot to the east of Milan when the war started. But barring that, it could either make the calculation to spend the money for one turn to move its whole army forward (and it could have placed a depot in Milan to cut the cost, rather than supplying from Turin). Or (even better in this case, since Spain was about to win the game on points), declare against Spain and eat Parma and Genoa as a snack before advancing on Modena. The Spanish army was in Portugal and posed no threat.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: delatbabel

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Actually the AI will not be forced to surrender until they reach Civil Disorder. This happens when the MP can collect no home nation manpower (All provincial capitals and nation's capital occupied at the the beginning of an eco phase).

Was that a deliberate change at some point in 1.03? I didn't see it in any of the change logs.

It's not a clever idea for any power to wait until it reaches civil disorder status before surrendering, as then it will have no money and no army for far too long. Better to give up early.

Refer to Mantis issues 192 and 190, I think this needs fixing.

Del,

I think this was added in 1.01.

I somwhat disagree with this a bit. IMO it is not a good idea for Russia to give up early. She can usually hold out long enough for another MP to press an invader enough so that they have to pull back and give up the deep invasion. Cossack units can constantly make supply lines difficult to maintain. It is very difficult for Russia to move into Civil Disorder for a reason. I think Turkey can be similar simply because of the feudals and the difficulty in assaulting Constantinople.

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

ORIGINAL: delatbabel

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Actually the AI will not be forced to surrender until they reach Civil Disorder. This happens when the MP can collect no home nation manpower (All provincial capitals and nation's capital occupied at the the beginning of an eco phase).

Was that a deliberate change at some point in 1.03? I didn't see it in any of the change logs.

It's not a clever idea for any power to wait until it reaches civil disorder status before surrendering, as then it will have no money and no army for far too long. Better to give up early.

Refer to Mantis issues 192 and 190, I think this needs fixing.

Del,

I think this was added in 1.01.

I somwhat disagree with this a bit. IMO it is not a good idea for Russia to give up early. She can usually hold out long enough for another MP to press an invader enough so that they have to pull back and give up the deep invasion. Cossack units can constantly make supply lines difficult to maintain. It is very difficult for Russia to move into Civil Disorder for a reason. I think Turkey can be similar simply because of the feudals and the difficulty in assaulting Constantinople.

I agree, particularly when it comes to Russia.

I have seen a lot of people play Russia the wrong way. They try to play Russia as if it was some other country, when in fact, it's it's own beast with it's own strengths and weaknesses. Turkey is also.

Right now, invading AI Russia is not a problem, it's actually very simple to do. Usually when I play the AI I make the mistake of thinking it is thinking like a human and so it takes me longer to get the surrender because I'm always protecting depot lines, etc...

[Marshall Ellis]

One of the things I have added and looking for some feedback on is a focus on supply lines by special units such as Cossack, Freikorps and Guerilla units. These units are now more focused on attacking supply lines. They should be looking for unprotected depots.
 
 

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

One of the things I have added and looking for some feedback on is a focus on supply lines by special units such as Cossack, Freikorps and Guerilla units. These units are now more focused on attacking supply lines. They should be looking for unprotected depots.

I'm not sure what you mean. Should Cossack, Freikrops and Guerilla need to be supplied? I said no way.

If you mean are they effective against supply lines? ABSOLUTELY!

In the CleverDevils2 PBEM game the Tu is behind held back (or least I think this is why) because of the looming 5 cossacks. Maybe this will change after Dec, I don't know.

[ndrose]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

ORIGINAL: delatbabel

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Actually the AI will not be forced to surrender until they reach Civil Disorder. This happens when the MP can collect no home nation manpower (All provincial capitals and nation's capital occupied at the the beginning of an eco phase).

Was that a deliberate change at some point in 1.03? I didn't see it in any of the change logs.

It's not a clever idea for any power to wait until it reaches civil disorder status before surrendering, as then it will have no money and no army for far too long. Better to give up early.

Refer to Mantis issues 192 and 190, I think this needs fixing.

Del,

I think this was added in 1.01.

I somwhat disagree with this a bit. IMO it is not a good idea for Russia to give up early. She can usually hold out long enough for another MP to press an invader enough so that they have to pull back and give up the deep invasion. Cossack units can constantly make supply lines difficult to maintain. It is very difficult for Russia to move into Civil Disorder for a reason. I think Turkey can be similar simply because of the feudals and the difficulty in assaulting Constantinople.

I'll buy this in regard to Russia, and maybe Turkey *if* it can still raise feudals. But, to return to the game I played as Austria, I had occupied all feudal-producing capitals, so those corps were gone forever. Turkey had no means of ever raising another army or retaking any capitals. It still had Trabizond and Armenia, but with no money it couldn't build any corps. Meanwhile my supply was not a cost since I had moved my army home (and on to other wars), just leaving behind the impervious 1i garrisons. I finally put Turkey out of its misery by moving Persian troops in to occupy the remaining capitals. That was years later, during which Turkey had been pinned in the fiasco zone.

In re: cossacks, does the AI remember to rebuild them (and to build extras if Russia is invaded)? My impression is that in 1.02, if you killed the cossacks, they never came back. As you point out, they can be very effective for disrupting supply.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: NeverMan

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

One of the things I have added and looking for some feedback on is a focus on supply lines by special units such as Cossack, Freikorps and Guerilla units. These units are now more focused on attacking supply lines. They should be looking for unprotected depots.

I'm not sure what you mean. Should Cossack, Freikrops and Guerilla need to be supplied? I said no way.

If you mean are they effective against supply lines? ABSOLUTELY!

In the CleverDevils2 PBEM game the Tu is behind held back (or least I think this is why) because of the looming 5 cossacks. Maybe this will change after Dec, I don't know.

We're on the same page.

I should have clarified a bit more like: "focused on ATTACKING supply lines."

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: ndrose

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

ORIGINAL: delatbabel




Was that a deliberate change at some point in 1.03? I didn't see it in any of the change logs.

It's not a clever idea for any power to wait until it reaches civil disorder status before surrendering, as then it will have no money and no army for far too long. Better to give up early.

Refer to Mantis issues 192 and 190, I think this needs fixing.

Del,

I think this was added in 1.01.

I somwhat disagree with this a bit. IMO it is not a good idea for Russia to give up early. She can usually hold out long enough for another MP to press an invader enough so that they have to pull back and give up the deep invasion. Cossack units can constantly make supply lines difficult to maintain. It is very difficult for Russia to move into Civil Disorder for a reason. I think Turkey can be similar simply because of the feudals and the difficulty in assaulting Constantinople.

I'll buy this in regard to Russia, and maybe Turkey *if* it can still raise feudals. But, to return to the game I played as Austria, I had occupied all feudal-producing capitals, so those corps were gone forever. Turkey had no means of ever raising another army or retaking any capitals. It still had Trabizond and Armenia, but with no money it couldn't build any corps. Meanwhile my supply was not a cost since I had moved my army home (and on to other wars), just leaving behind the impervious 1i garrisons. I finally put Turkey out of its misery by moving Persian troops in to occupy the remaining capitals. That was years later, during which Turkey had been pinned in the fiasco zone.

In re: cossacks, does the AI remember to rebuild them (and to build extras if Russia is invaded)? My impression is that in 1.02, if you killed the cossacks, they never came back. As you point out, they can be very effective for disrupting supply.

There could be a case made for Prussia - Austria. This could maybe be tweaked.

The cossack improvement should be in 1.03

[testcase4321]

A couple of thoughts I wish to add to the 1.03 testing. . . .

I've only played Russia so far, 3 complete games I believe, so these comments are from the Russian viewpoint only.

Game Bugs:

1. I find that after conquering bits of Turkey my corps remaining in conquered Turkish provinces sometimes randomly teleport back to Russia. In fact, this has happened 3 out of 4 times so far, and I have no idea why. In fact, it just happened in the game I am currently playing (troops transported to Odessa). It tends to happen in Winter (February) as this is usually right before my spring campaign

2. I can no longer invade England across the channel in France. This occurs even when there are no blocking British fleets.

3. Taking London does not force the Brits to surrender, but I just read the comments about requiring the loss of all manpower production, so Im all set with this.

4. Placing fleets from Free States. This happened in previous versions as well, and Im not sure if it's a bug or just something goofy. When I conquer Sweden or Denmark and turn them into free states I seem to be able to place their fleets whereever I wish. This includes in the Black Sea, which I have done often. It would seem that a restriction to placing fleets in the home country makes much more sense.

AI problems--definitely not an all-inclusive list

1. AI should not have 'Withdraw' as a defensive option. While I appreciate not losing troops needlessly, I find it a bit annoying when any neutral country withdraws troops and essentially lets me take their capital unimpeded.

2. I have noticed that the AI chooses the 'right' options for alliances. i.e. Austria/Britain/Prussia always seem to ally. However, even though they ally they are not able to work together. In fact, while declaring war on every major power in the game I find that only Turkey has invaded my Russia, and even then the Turks seem to be content to attack only provincial corps and not push the attack.

3. To keep the Turks at bay, I find putting one grouping of 3+corps on my border plenty of a deterrent. I havent decided yet what is more cost effective. . .keeping those 3 corps there on the border or actually invading Turkey.

4. My declarations of war against Austria/Prussia/Britain have led to exactly zero corps invading Russia, coming towards Russia, or threatening me in any way. The game tends to pile up troops in the capital cities (particularly Austria) leaving the rest of the country open.

5. Fleet actions are still a bit suspect. I find the Brits dont concentrate their forces against the Russia Navy, leading to significant British losses.

6. I don't see the French conquering any of the big power territories. They do a better job with the minor states at least, but are not aggressive enough. They also tend in my games to leave large forces in the Swiss area, and do not pull back until Paris is threatened.

7. I have no idea what the Spanish are doing all game, but with close to no combat and at the Hard AI level, they seem to be my closest competition for game winners.

Overall game recommendations

1. Instituting the "Alternative great power" rules is really a must (mostly for PBEM play, sa the AI isnt up to challenging humans yet). It shakes up the game quite a bit and throws a wrench into the standard Turkey/Spain/France alliance vs British/Austria/Prussia/Russia alliance.

2. This game really needs something like a 'badboy' rating. Another term for this is a 'Hate' rating (depending on what other games you have played). These terms refer to the computer opponents reacting to human players on the basis of the human player actions. Essentially, the more aggressive and powerful a human player is, the greater the likelihood of the computer players all ganging up and attacking the human player. I cant tell if EIA has this built into it, and from what I can tell it does not. But my expectation is that at some point, if I as the Russian player have conquered 1/2 the globe, then I should be a target for the AI.

3. The small map in the right bottom corner of the screen just bothers me. Its almost, but not quite useful. In addition to marking colors for conquered nations, it really should have a similar scheme for Free States. It is sometimes difficult to tell how powerful nations are, or how much they have spread, when a significant portion of their holdings dont show up on that map. I dont see why we cant have all the conquered and free state nations the same color.

4. Others have mentioned this earlier, but I think this is worthy of bringing up again. There needs to be a better way of cycling through free states during the economic phase. As Russia I tend to only have a few free states until later in the game, but even still I occasionally forget to build troops with Free states and its quite annoying. I dont know what it would take to implement this, but it should be considered.

Okay, thats it for now. . . . . .

6.

[testcase4321]

Addendum. ..

The teleporting troops teleport just after the temporary access to Turkey expires. However, the troops are in conquered green territory and it is unclear why the game tends to kick them out of their posts.

This has happened to me both in conquered Turkish and conquered Austrian territory.

[gwheelock]

ORIGINAL: testcase4321


4. Others have mentioned this earlier, but I think this is worthy of bringing up again. There needs to be a better way of cycling through free states during the economic phase. As Russia I tend to only have a few free states until later in the game, but even still I occasionally forget to build troops with Free states and its quite annoying. I dont know what it would take to implement this, but it should be considered.

This is easy; just open your main country's statistics window & then cycle thru the "freestates" list.
(Double-clicking on a list entry will select that country & center the map on it)