Axis AI - difficulty set to IMPOSSIBLE

[Redmarkus5]

I am running the Axis AI vs me with difficulty at Impossible. As the Soviet player, I am simulating Stalin's days in his Dacha and not making any defensive moves for the first few turns.

Turn 1 - Axis leaps ahead to Riga, Minsk and Lvov.

[Flaviusx]

Redmarkus, the Soviet Union did not just sit tight and do nothing for several turns. Your repeated suggestions along these lines are part of the reason I'm having a hard time taking your suggestions very seriously.

And the whole Stalin shutting himself up in the dacha thing has really become something of urban legend and wildly overstated. By early July he was back in the saddle. Whatever crack up he went through was resolved in the space of a single game turn.

You have imo some extremely outdated notions of what was going on with the Red Army. I'm guessing you do not read a whole lot of Glantz.

[Aurelian]

Were not Soviet units attacking on day 1?

Whether Stalin was in a funk or not, STAVKA was not. The Red Army didn't just sit there.

(Yes, I'm reading Colossus Reborn again.)

[Flaviusx]

Indeed they were. Although they mostly got spanked.

[Redmarkus5]

Turn 2. Axis heads NE from Riga, hangs around outside Minsk (I did move a unit onto the city hex - seem dumb to leave it open) and pushes south towards Tarnopol

[Redmarkus5]

Losses at end of turn 2

[Redmarkus5]

Front lines at start of Turn 3 with FoW now off. Axis AI has left Riga unmolested in its rear. That must surely create some supply challenges. It's advancing in the centre and has cause major damage in the south.

The Politburo has been to see Stalin in the Dacha and begged him to resume command. He has relented and addressed the nation, calling his citizens 'Comrades'. My initial defensive moves start this turn.

[Redmarkus5]

I would love to create a carpet of units in front of Smolensk now, but where do I get them from? The southern front offers the only possibility, but I will resist the urge!

[Redmarkus5]

This is all I have in Riga, by the way. A bit of 'what-if' here, I guess. What-if the Germans were too dumb to take some of the major cities in their path LOL

[Redmarkus5]

Turn 5. Axis AI performance still very good, except for the decision to ignore Riga and the turn spent dawdling outside Minsk.

It appears the AI has an issue over cities - not too keen to take them as the Axis and not too keen to defend them as the Soviet.

[Redmarkus5]

Riga still stands. A few security regiments are approaching though...

[Flaviusx]

Hmmm. Might need to bug that Riga bit.

[Redmarkus5]

Start of Turn 5. Axis AI has taken Smolensk and threatens Vyazma, Riga still stands, but AI is approaching Leningrad.

In the south, things have move more slowly, but a large Axis force looks set to encircle Kiev from the north.

I can't do much of anything as I have no army. Where did the Soviet AI get its carpet of units from in my previous tests???

[Flaviusx]

You have no army because you didn't use it and most of it got pocketed or routed into the Pripyet marshes and never allowed to reposition itself and recover. Much more so than historical, btw, there were no large pockets in SW Front at this stage.

The game is not designed to be played according to your idea that the Red Army checks out of the war for several turns. Don't expect good results from these conditions.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Impossible German AI = Aryan Supermen Raging on Roids. The penalties on the Red Army mean it will shatter if sneezed on, too.

Not designed for the faint of heart or the inexperienced player. I think I could take the German AI on impossible now, maybe. Been thinking about doing that for giggles.

[Redmarkus5]

I'm testing the AI mate. I am hardly trying - I want to see how the AI on Impossible does against an idiot.

My line is somewhat reorganised, but very weak. I have spent admin points each turn building forts in front of Leningrad and Moscow.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Impossible German AI = Aryan Supermen Raging on Roids. The penalties on the Red Army mean it will shatter if sneezed on, too.

Not designed for the faint of heart or the inexperienced player. I think I could take the German AI on impossible now, maybe. Been thinking about doing that for giggles.

When I tried the Axis AI on Normal it refused to advance. This is an experiment.

[Flaviusx]

Fair enough, but bear in mind that at these setting shatter results dramatically rise.

Out of curiosity, can you post a screen showing unit losses? This will tell the tale. Not the equipment and manpower losses, but the actual deadpile. (Which is in some ways much more important.)

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Redmarkus, the Soviet Union did not just sit tight and do nothing for several turns. Your repeated suggestions along these lines are part of the reason I'm having a hard time taking your suggestions very seriously.

And the whole Stalin shutting himself up in the dacha thing has really become something of urban legend and wildly overstated. By early July he was back in the saddle. Whatever crack up he went through was resolved in the space of a single game turn.

You have imo some extremely outdated notions of what was going on with the Red Army. I'm guessing you do not read a whole lot of Glantz.

I'm not writing a book on WW2 - I'm testing your AI to see if it works... So far, we have found one important bug on the Soviet side (the retreat in the south, which will now be fixed in the first patch). You have acknowledged that the Riga thing is possibly a bug. I have reported other bugs with the Soviet AI abandoning several important cities.

I am not saying the Soviets didn't fight - I am complaining about the Soviet AI running away And that's what I have been complaining about since I purchased the game.

I just want to get it investigated and fixed.

Now, back to testing the German AI on Impossible for you

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Fair enough, but bear in mind that at these setting shatter results dramatically rise.

Out of curiosity, can you post a screen showing unit losses? This will tell the tale. Not the equipment and manpower losses, but the actual deadpile. (Which is in some ways much more important.)

here you go

[Flaviusx]

No, that's not the screen I'm looking for. There's another screen you can access from here showing unit losses. (It will be below the aircraft losses.)

This is actually in some respects the most important screen of all in 1941. Units in the deadpile don't come back for a very long time and that matters more than raw losses. So long as units remain in being, they can occupy space and take on replacements. But a dead unit is just gone, possibly for months, and in some cases forever (not all unit types can be brought back.)

That's why pockets are so important. They clear the chessboard of pieces, not just hurt the pieces.

Shatters are almost as good as pockets because they also remove the pieces from the chessboard. At these settings the possibility of a shatter result is very high on the Red Army, and the AI's problems with making pockets disappear. You don't need to make pockets if the units get destroyed outright via shatters.