So what advantages does the AI enjoy?

[willgamer]

Just so we're all on the same page, can we talk about what are all of the advantages enjoyed by the AI.

I'm pretty sure it's documented that the AI always plays with FOW off. Does this imply it has maximum recon of everything as well? Does it fly recon anyway?

Does the AI follow the same air rules? Does it use the Air Doctrines at all? Does it follow the "must be first mission, or no fly" rules?

Does the AI pay exactly the same admin costs... is it constrained by admin at all?

Does the AI set locked/unlocked for SUs? Does it set the number of SUs/HQ and let the default up/down migration of SUs occur?

Does the AI observe the same supply rules for both distance and MPs?

Does the AI use refit?

I'm sure I've missed some..... [>:]

I'm not going to rehash "Can the AI escape pockets in some enhanced way?" since that's heavily discussed else where.

[Grim.Reaper]

ORIGINAL: willgamer


I'm pretty sure it's documented that the AI always plays with FOW off. Does this imply it has maximum recon of everything as well? Does it fly recon anyway?

Really? The AI does not follow FOW? They can see all your moves and know where your forces are located? Interesting...

[Gandalf]

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper

ORIGINAL: willgamer


I'm pretty sure it's documented that the AI always plays with FOW off. Does this imply it has maximum recon of everything as well? Does it fly recon anyway?

Really? The AI does not follow FOW? They can see all your moves and know where your forces are located? Interesting...

From the EBOOK manual:

3.3.3. GAME OPTIONS

...
Fog of War (FOW): On/Off for each player. If checked on, human players are limited by FOW rules (see section 13.2) The default setting is FOW off.
...

and

13.2. FOG OF WAR (FOW)

...
Note that computer players are not affected by FoW, however, the AI does have the same DL restrictions as human players.
...

DL = Detection Levels

[Grim.Reaper]

Thanks for the additional info on FOW. Since I don't have the game yet, can you clairfy what that ultimately means? Does it mean basically the AI knows where your units are at all times all across the map? I'm confused by the difference of detection levels and what that means in relevance to FOW.

Thanks!

[KarlXII]

This is a very interesting and important post. We must know if there are any cheats available for the AI except the FOW rules (which for me means I will never play with FOW ON against the AI)

[LarryP]

I bought the game two days ago and this is a subject that very much interests me. FOW... [&:]

[Gandalf]

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper

Thanks for the additional info on FOW. Since I don't have the game yet, can you clairfy what that ultimately means? Does it mean basically the AI knows where your units are at all times all across the map? I'm confused by the difference of detection levels and what that means in relevance to FOW.

Thanks!

Even though all the enemy units are visible to the AI (no FOW effect), the detection levels affect the combat results. This is why you will read various threads suggesting a high level of air recon (multiple missions over the same area) to build up the assigned detection levels of those same visible enemy units. The AI's (or human player's) combat results are better for the units seen/observed that have had a higher detection value assigned to them via recon or other means.

Hope that's clear to someone that doesn't have the game yet. Sorry if it isn't.

[Grim.Reaper]

ORIGINAL: Gandalf

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper

Thanks for the additional info on FOW. Since I don't have the game yet, can you clairfy what that ultimately means? Does it mean basically the AI knows where your units are at all times all across the map? I'm confused by the difference of detection levels and what that means in relevance to FOW.

Thanks!

Even though all the enemy units are visible to the AI (no FOW effect), the detection levels affect the combat results. This is why you will read various threads suggesting a high level of air recon (multiple missions over the same area) to build up the assigned detection levels of those same visible enemy units. The AI's (or human player's) combat results are better for the units seenobserved that have had a higher detection value assigned to them via recon or other means.

Hope that's clear to someone that doesn't have the game yet. Sorry if it isn't.

Thanks for the clarification. So if I'm understanding correctly, the AI can see everything, but they perform better in combat based on the detection level, which is increased by "pretending to recon". However, for a would-be purchaser like myself, this might be a deal breaker for me. If the AI can see everything about my forces, just seems odd for a game like this. I can understand giving the AI some advantages, but make it an option instead. Kind of bummed, but maybe I'm still missing something.

[Gandalf]

The way I see it, no programmer can develop an AI to think as good as a human player (unless they have access to a super computer), so a few helps here and there such as "seeing" the enemy units, etc. is not that big a deal compared to cheating by giving the AI units inordinate amounts of extra strength in combat etc. If the programmer saddled the AI with the exact same restrictions as applied to rules such as FOW along with the fact that it absolutely won't be able to think and react as good as a human player, it would be a walkover in a very short period of time and the game would rapidly become shelfware. There has to be some help given to an AI in order for it to be a challenge for single-player games.

[Grim.Reaper]

ORIGINAL: Gandalf

The way I see it, no programmer can develop an AI to think as good as a human player (unless they have access to a super computer), so a few helps here and there such as "seeing" the enemy units, etc. is not that big a deal compared to cheating by giving the AI units inordinate amounts of extra strength in combat etc. If the programmer saddled the AI with the exact same restrictions as applied to rules such as FOW along with the fact that it absolutely won't be able to think and react as good as a human player, it would be a walkover in a very short period of time and the game would rapidly become shelfware. There has to be some help given to an AI in order for it to be a challenge for single-player games.

I don't disagree that AI can never be as good as a human. However, maybe its just me, but allowing the AI to know the location of all your forces seems like an extreme in the other direction. Why not make this a game option? This way people can decide it. I know I wouldn't be a great player so I'm sure the AI would have given me a tough time regardless.

I know I might be in the minority on this one, I'm just a little disappointed with this information since I was so close in pulling the trigger.

[KarlXII]

How has FOW been handled by the A.I. for the hundreds of others strategy games released since the 1980:s ?
Is there none that have played by the same FOW rules as the human player ?

[willgamer]

I remember another question about the air war that I forgot (senior moments, [8|])-

During the human player's turn, there are AI buttons that automate various aspects of the air war.

Do these buttons use the same routines that the AI uses on its turn, or are these "AI assist for the human player only" and the AI never uses the same code?

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: karlxii

How has FOW been handled by the A.I. for the hundreds of others strategy games released since the 1980:s ?
Is there none that have played by the same FOW rules as the human player ?

Searching is always a problem for the AI because it has to handle all the "not-there" information somehow. So either
the AI does lots of searching
(and looping through lots of empty data) to reduce the blank spaces and wastes time and resources or it just doesn't have a good picture
based on searching.

And of course an AI FOW database would be the size of the regular game position database and mostly empty
and mostly searched repeatedly. Very inefficient and sure to totally confuse the AI and the AI programmers.

Remember that human pattern-recognition is based on hundreds of millions of years of evolving a whole nervous and sensory system
to spot and target all kinds of things in all kinds of environments. AIs have nothing at all like that.

Giving the AI a complete picture saves so much computer time that it is probably an essential step in making the game playable and making
the AI able to come to some kind of decisions.

Even with knowledge of all positions on the map, the AI probably sees a lot less than a human player since it has to prioritize its "images": for example, it probably spots some threats and responds to those rather than checking on where you might have shifted your Luftwaffe Field Divisions, ie, it cuts out of loops and decides much faster than a human in terms of levels of threats and opportunities.

[LarryP]

I want to hear from a beta tester or developer on this FOW issue as this is turning out to be like sports casting. [:(]

[Grim.Reaper]

ORIGINAL: LarryP

I want to hear from a beta tester or developer on this FOW issue as this is turning out to be like sports casting. [:(]

I to would like to hear from the dev team or testers on this item, as I'm sure other would-be buyers would also like to know. Is there something we are missing where this isn't as bad as it seems? At least for me, this answer from the dev team will help me finalize my purchase decision.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: willgamer

Just so we're all on the same page, can we talk about what are all of the advantages enjoyed by the AI.

I'm pretty sure it's documented that the AI always plays with FOW off. Does this imply it has maximum recon of everything as well? Does it fly recon anyway?

The AI knows strategically where all enemy units are. However, it plays by the tactical rules of the detection level of units. So it must fly recon to increase detection levels of enemy units just as a human player should. Is knowing where the enemy a big handicap? Yes. Is it needed. Yes. We think the AI plays in it's own fog of war and doesn't need additional fog of war. It does not use the information nearly as well as a human would. In fact, other than trying to get a handle on where major German armor concentrations are located, it really doesn't use the information at all (and most of the time it's fairly obvious where the German armor is). If you want to play against a capable AI this cheat is imperative. It may prevent some ability for strategic surprise, but the computer is not thinking very strategically anyway, and it is very hard to pull off strategic surprise. Tactically, it really isn't taking advantage of the extra information. This isn't the first Grigsby game where the AI ignores FOW.

Does the AI follow the same air rules? Does it use the Air Doctrines at all? Does it follow the "must be first mission, or no fly" rules?

Yes, AFAIK, the AI follows all air rules that the human player follows.

Does the AI pay exactly the same admin costs... is it constrained by admin at all?

Yes and no. It pays for some things, but others are "free". It abuses this in two ways. If set to 110% morale it can build up to a given number of Soviet units for free. It will build a fortified line along the Svir river line even if it doesn't have the admin points. On the other hand, I don't think the AI is trying to replace it's leaders. I think it just takes what it has. A human player can choose to spend admin to change leaders and this can be very important.

Does the AI set locked/unlocked for SUs? Does it set the number of SUs/HQ and let the default up/down migration of SUs occur?

I'm not 100% sure. I don't remember if the AI just leaves all HQ's with a support level of 3 or if it makes some adjustments. I think it just leaves everything at 3 and lives with the results of the automatic system.

Does the AI observe the same supply rules for both distance and MPs?

Yes, unless you change the logistics level, in which case it gets some help.

Does the AI use refit?

I don't remember. I think it does, but can't tell you how or if for sure it does. I need to check with Gary on that.

I'm sure I've missed some..... [>:]

I'm not going to rehash "Can the AI escape pockets in some enhanced way?" since that's heavily discussed else where.


The AI does not always move it's units like a human player. It does do some warping if it judges that it is in a supplied situation near a rail line and not moving through zocs (not sure exactly what the limits are, but we worked hard to try to avoid warping out of possible pockets). This warping is needed because the AI cannot do the unit shuffle when forming a line like a human player would naturally do. On the downside, you may have noticed that the AI has a very hard time keeping it's unit integrity intact, so it is constantly suffering combat value reductions in combat. We tried to make an AI that could play well but not cheat in ways that would make valid strategies ineffective. Based on some of the posts about the AI, we've done a decent job. But I also see some players already crushing the AI after only a week or two of playing, and when that happens increasing the play level is called for. Eventually, all human players that invest time in playing the game will get good enough to beat the AI at the normal level, because humans learn and the computer does not.

[LarryP]

Joel, thanks for your reply. Now imaginations can rest. [;)] [&o]

[Grim.Reaper]

Joel,

Thanks for replying and being open and honest about the AI. Although not sure if I agree with them, especially FOW, but at least you provided us would-be buyers with the information we needed to make an informed decision. Much appreciated.

[Grotius]

The fog of war implementation seems fine to me. The AI is giving me a good, fair, tough game.

[randallw]

The AI flies lots of air recon missions on me, so the belief that it knows where I am, but without full unit info, seems correct.

Another AI advantage is that it does not have to garrison captured cities.