AI leaving defensibly position for cheap attack

[Dragoon.]

I was replaying the low countries scenario when I noticed I can bait the AI repeatedly to give up a good defense position.

For example the AI has garrisoned a city that lies behind a river with a bridge. I take a cheap unit, say some auxiliary infantry and let them mount their trucks. Drive them next to the bridge and I place an arty behind them. On the AI turn the garrison will abandon the city move on the river/bridge hex and attack the truck always. Of course since they are on a river hex and suppressed by defensive arty fire I take little damage. Next turn the former garrison unit obliterated by my forces and I take the undefended city.

It's OK the AI goes after targets of opportunity, but abandoning a city which is protected by a river to attack from the very same a unit that has arty support? [8|]
I noticed the AI does that even when defending victory hexes.

[SeaMonkey]

Oh yea, this is definitely a problem for the AI, it'll have to be tweaked.  There are going to be, I'm sure, a lot of improvements to the AI in following versions as slowly but surely enough code is added to script the AI to different conditions.
 
The modders will need a lot of this mechanism to deal with the idiosyncracies of each created scenario as PC evolves into a great game, the foundation has been built.

[RandomAttack]

On the flip side, I've found just the opposite in some cases. In the Kursk battle as long as I don't approach/attack a lot of the "static" defenses, they will just sit there the entire battle. I don't even need to leave a token force "just in case", etc. I can just disregard them entirely. There were even a few Russian tank units that never moved at all. Guess it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation to some degree. Sit in your lovely, but irrevelant, defensive lines-- or venture out and risk getting crushed by my awesome panzers. [;)]

[Dragoon.]

The interesting is the AI doesn't do this when my infantry is on foot, but in general as soon the AI see any truck transport it goes wild in disregard of the situation. Like it's a lure.

[Rudankort]

ORIGINAL: Dragoon

The interesting is the AI doesn't do this when my infantry is on foot, but in general as soon the AI see any truck transport it goes wild in disregard of the situation. Like it's a lure.

It is just against a truck the AI sees a favorable combat prediction (even from a river), but against infantry it is probably not that attractive.

[SeaMonkey]

Nothing wrong with acting on an opportunity, but when leaving a defensible line, fortification, river, bridge, etc. the AI needs to ascertain if it has a support unit or two to protect the position it is leaving.

[Apollo1967]

Or the AI could only move infantry from a defensive position when the target is not supported by artillery. On the other hand, a tank doing this actually makes more sense, since it is a mobile unit that is much more likely to be able to damage a unit despite artillery support, and traditionally tanks are better moving to the attack rather than sitting in a defensive position.

[Razz1]

A tank will never do this, as the AI is programmed not to garrison cities with tanks.

Another thing that affects the AI is whether it is programmed as passive, default, or defender mode.

I believe defender mode will never move.

The development team can correct me if I am wrong.

[Visery]

The AI have been doing this since People General (my first experience with this franchise). All I need to do is to present some tasty recon unit and it would roll armor out of artillery and AA cover for a bite.

[Dragoon.]

Now where I know it's hard not to abuse it. Cities protected by a river are some of the hardest places to attack. The city provides entrenchment levels, reduced damage, force close combat and the river gives penalties to the attacker. It would take causalities and what is more important time to take the city but so basically 0 turns. Since it would take 1 turn anyway to setup force across the river in preparation for an attack or x numbers turns to maneuver around and attack from behind. Instead I just breeze through the defender and the city next turn. If the unit had just sit there doing nothing and waited to be killed or bypassed it would have hurt me in the most damaging way it could, by losing time/turns.
I mean in the end in all scenarios the AI forces are destroyed by the human army. The goal of the AI should not be to kill but to delay it's inevitable defeat.
However I can not imagine how much work it cost to script the AI to take terrain features, proximity of enemy forces and setup into it's tactical consideration. I think and I mean "easy" in quotes would be to instruct the AI to forty city hexes with infantry units if it detects the enemy in their vicinity. Not to move them even if it has support as this would cause it to lose valuable entrenchment levels if it switch places with an other unit.

[Rudankort]

As was mentioned, this topic is very complicated. Too passive AI is also a huge problem, you can essentially move your units around, in trucks or whatever, and not fear anything. You can already set AI units in the editor to "hold position", but it is not an optimal solution either. What we need here is the right compromise, and I'm not sure yet how to achieve it, but I'll give it more thought.

[Hanal]

I like the idea that AI will come out for the challenge as we do not want a repeat of the old PG let the AI ring around the objective and bunker down mentality...

[SeaMonkey]

Definitely in JP's camp, but we need an AI to protect areas of approach as well as beneficial terrain and retain its aggressive nature.
 
We want it all and .....we want it NOW![:D]

[SeaMonkey]

We need an AI that has an infiltration potential so that if a player leaves his rear areas unprotected the AI could seize the opportunity.
 
Perhaps the AI needs a slight intelligence / FoW advantage, nothing too drastic, a setting where spotting is enhanced.

[Hanal]

Perhaps there can be a garrison unit in each city with 0 mps...let the other units be aggressive but have the objective hexes have a well entrenched defending unit...

[jaldaen]

Rudankort,

Is a unit's expected "entrenchment" included in the AI's decision making in regard to whether to leave its position and attack? If not, then each level of expected entrenchment might count against the AI's decision to leave its position. So a unti that has just moved into a city would weigh the "3" entrenchment it would have if it held position against the attack, while a unit that's been holding a position longer might have 4, 5 or more entrenchment count against the attack. You'd have to test out the numbers to see what makes for the best compromise. Of course if entrenchment is already counted, then perhaps the numbers need to be tweaked a little, especially if the unit will be ending up on a river hex.

Best Wishes,
Joseph

[luluxiu]

Doing a tank actually makes more sense, because it is a mobile unit, more likely to be damaged, although the artillery support units, and the traditional tank better move to the attack, instead of sitting in a defensive position.

[greykemp@gmail.com]

In other words we want a human opponent. [:@] Design your secenarios then play humans PBM.