AI/Realism

[FAA]

I think about buying this game but I have two questions:

1. How’s the AI? Particularly, how well can it retreat to avoid excessive losses, can it pull something like Dunkirk in 1940, how good are naval landings? Most games really struggle with these.
2. How realistic/plausible is it? War in the East and War in the West for example are so detailed that they’re quite plausible and realistic. Classic wargames usually are not, and from what I can see WarPlan doesn’t have a detailed economy or resource management. Does it stand to reason that it doesn’t model the strategic aspect of war properly, particularly with critical shortages for the axis like fuel, rubber, metal etc.

[kennonlightfoot]

My opinion is:

1. The AI is like all other games of this type. Good for leaning the basic functions of the game but can't handle the complexities of a long war. It does alright if you play only scenarios where the major strategic decisions are already made for it. No one has the deep pockets to fund developing an AI for these type games like they did for Chess. If you plan to only play the AI, the game is going to be of limited use past the learning stage.

2. This depends on what you think is possible as alternatives. The game doesn't force you to follow historic choices although I suspect on the main choices like Sealion, France, and Russia the player deviates at considerable risk if playing an opponent. For the scale it uses I think it is one of the best I have come across for handling WW II. It has resources, trade, research, and production in it but presented in a simple enough way that it doesn't become tedious. The combat scale is such that having specialized units (infantry, mechanized, armor, cavalry, para, various air) works without seeming artificial. I would place the game mechanics wise between Strategic Command (very high level) and War in the West (very detailed at operational level).

[Cigar King]

1) the Ai is not bad. It does give ground, and generally does well on the defense. The one drawback is amphibious invasions. The current air rules, if they intercept an invading unit, will destroy it. I have never seen the Allies launch D-Day successfully. They do build up a good invasion force, but, they invade on too wide a front, and the air attacks destroy most of the invading troops before they can get to land.

It's nothing like WiE/WiW. That being said, the strategic model, while it has some quirks, actually works well. The Germans have to keep a close eye on their manpower and oil. Fortunately, the Russian winter effects are so devastating that it's a good time to build up reserves to make summer attacks.

I think it's perhaps the best WW2 game out there, and there is excellent support from the designer. Buy it.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot
The AI is like all other games of this type. Good for leaning the basic functions of the game but can't handle the complexities of a long war. It does alright if you play only scenarios where the major strategic decisions are already made for it. No one has the deep pockets to fund developing an AI for these type games like they did for Chess. If you plan to only play the AI, the game is going to be of limited use past the learning stage.

So, what would you say are the insurmountable complexities of a long war, specifically the entire WWII ETO campaign 1939-1945? I created the Advanced Third Reich mod for Strategic Command. IMHO, clever use of event scripting and AI scripting that allows for variable triggers and results is fully capable of providing a challenging computer opponent for both Axis and Allies for the entire campaign.

Examples:
- Variable national strategies for research and production (default, air, naval, or ground)
- Historical or early Axis attacks in the West in 1939-1940
- BEF to France or not
- Germany creation of Vichy France or not, and variable status for French colonies after surrender
- Sea Lion, or Spain, or Turkey options
- Variable Axis or Allied coups in Norway and Yugoslavia
- Axis and Allied support for North Africa operations, and transports for reinforcements
- Historical or early Barbarossa in Russia 1941
- Variable Axis and Allied offensive emphasis in Russia (North, Center, or South)
- Allied invasions/transports for North Africa/Sicily/Italy 1942-43, depending on French colony status
- Early D-Day in France 1943 or not
- German "Fuhrer Bunker" transition to defensive in 1944-1945
- etc.

I don't exactly have deep pockets for my efforts, but I had motivation to develop my A3R mod and plenty of patience over the past 10-15 YEARS as the Strategic Command series evolved and I was able to keep getting closer to what I wanted. And I will say that it does take a lot of time and effort for both the developer to keep improving capabilities (something Al will keep working on) and the modder to keep up and continually improve. Anyways, FWIW, my A3R mod has all of those things I listed above, which makes playing an entire campaign game challenging and different each time, for either side. My A3R mod v1.3 for SCWWII:WIE is in pretty good shape these days. I may tweak it some more for v1.4, when I get a chance.

Bottom Line: When I hear criticisms of "all other games of this type" blah blah blah, I politely disagree. For WarPlan, Al has a pretty good start on things based on his similar experiences with SC mods and I expect the WarPlan series will evolve nicely.

[Omnius]

The Artificial Ignorance is rather Pathetic. Look at how poorly it does on the historical level in the 1939 scenario taking down Poland, takes 4 turns to do a 2 turn job. On turn 1 I like to invade Norway since the British navy is in port. The British AI does absolutely nothing about that, just cedes Norway without a fight. As others have said it's only good for learning the ropes without playing both sides but better off learning both sides playing both sides hotseat.

I'm glad Alvaro is fixing the Yugoslavia cheat, that was definitely an ahistorical cheat that too many players abused. Otherwise it's fair at depicting history, vastly superior to Paradox's garbage HOI 4 game.

[kennonlightfoot]

Scripted AI even with some random event is still very predictable and easily countered unless the game parameters are fudged to compensate. Something like giving the AI side 20% more supply, experience, etc.

What we are calling AI in these games isn't really AI. True AI analyzes millions of possible outcomes before acting. That can be done in Chess because the board is only 64 squares. Poland has more hexes in its western half than this. Some things can be scripted in a more predictable manner because enough things are fixed to do it. Like what to do to defend Poland. But as the game gets past these restricted situations like Poland and France, the possibilities become overwhelming for anything short of using Watson as your opponent.

Some games get around this by letting the computer control the units for both sides. The player is limited to high level decisions whose outcome is decided by the game. Examples are Sid Meir's Gettysburg, Total War, and Scourge of War games.

But board style games like WarPlan, War in the East/West/Pacific, etc. have to large of a map area for a PC to analyze. So they generally follow a script of some kind with a little tactical logic thrown in so they don't make stupid unit attacks.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot
Some things can be scripted in a more predictable manner because enough things are fixed to do it. Like what to do to defend Poland. But as the game gets past these restricted situations like Poland and France, the possibilities become overwhelming for anything short of using Watson as your opponent.

Like what, exactly? I'm serious, what are you really expecting when you sit down to play a WWII ETO campaign game, whether against a computer opponent or a human opponent? Certainly some human players will try to get away with bizarre strategies that may or may not work, like massive armor builds or massive tac air builds or whatever, and these ahistorical surprises may appeal to some players but not others.

Methinks your criticism of what is actually possible with the variability of event scripting and AI scripting, as Al and I are used to from the SC series and here in WarPlan, is based on you not fully understanding what I'm talking about. No matter, I've been arguing with guys like you for a very long time now. It was my motivation to work on my A3R mod to prove you guys wrong. And I believe I have. Even my "very predictable" scripting that I wrote has surprised me more than once, because I deliberately scripted many things to be as unpredictable as possible, within reason.

So again, what exactly are these insurmountable complexities of a long war of which you speak, that your trustworthy human opponents can master but the AI scripting cannot? Give us some ideas, so Al and I can consider improvements.

[baloo7777]

I play Ai and pbem a little. The AI I give 10% bonuses to in the start screen (10 and 12% I think). It makes the AI much tougher. I can beat the AI sometimes, and have yet to beat a pbem opponent (only on 4th game). Sometimes, often even, I need an AI game to play. I appreciate anyone who works to make a better AI game whether scripted or with bonuses. I think there are many more players that play this and other wargames vs the AI. Probably more than play PvP. The game is different played using the same rules against the AI as against a person (for all games). That said, a developer can only play-balance the best he can so that both types of players will like the gameplay, or they won't be selling as many games. We are a very vocal group of PvP players here, myself included. I think that Alvaro has been one of the best developers for listening on this site and making changes he feels makes the game better. I don't always agree with him, but that is just fine. If a modder is willing to try making the game better as they see it, I'm all for giving their mod a try... like PanzerMikes excellent Map and Unit mods!

[Edorf]

I just want to say that pzgndr have some very good points regarding helping the AI in games like this. Thumbs up.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: baloo7777
The AI I give 10% bonuses to in the start screen (10 and 12% I think). It makes the AI much tougher.

Yes. In fairness, you cannot play against the AI on default settings and expect a challenging game. Even for my A3R mod, I balanced it for human play but the AI still needs some handicaps. Better players may want tougher handicaps. It all depends on what you want out of a solitaire game.

The reason some bonus is necessary is because, frankly, the generic AI making moves and attacks to execute either AI scripting or generic routines is not as efficient as a human player. Sometimes it can be surprisingly efficient, but often over-extends itself and takes unnecessary losses. So some bonuses for extra production or extra strength points or increased spotting or whatever helps balance the game. Also, I've scripted additional units and other enhancements for both Axis and Allies, for throughout the campaign, to provide some help. So just to clarify, I'm not suggesting the AI is challenging all by itself on default settings; the computer opponent still needs help.

That said, the solitaire game versus computer opponent can be as challenging and as unpredictable as playing against a person. I grew up playing 3R/A3R so I know the game's strengths and weaknesses. I also played SC many many years and started as a playtester early on, so I knew that game's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the AI's. When I started scripting for my A3R mod, it was always to implement my own various strategies so that I would be playing a challenging game. All of this is non-trivial, and takes a LOT of time and patience. It's no surprise that most games fail to reach this level. For WarPlan, I believe Al also has this passion to take his extensive gaming experience and make it happen. WarPlan is off to a good start and will improve with age.

[AlvaroSousa]

A game like Unity of Command it is fairly easy to do an A.I.
#1 Single Front
#2 Land only
#3 Abstract Air
#4 The operational strategy is predetermined. In the original all the USSR had to do is defend
#5 Which is genius on their part.. they programmed in ~10 moves the A.I. can do depending on the map situation vs the human.
The WarPlan A.I. would be almost as competent as the UoC A.I. and I could make it better.

But in a game of this scope it is simple impossible at default historic levels. I have 11 levels for a reason + 3 supply levels. I put in various strategies for the A.I. that it randomly picks. I also put in some special code to take advantage of situations and defending. One of the largest challenges was large encirclement of A.I. forces. That took a long time for me to formulate out a reasonable code.

I wrote Brute Force for SC2. It took forever to write an A.I. for that. I must have spend 6 months on it at least.

[malkarma]

One thing that can be improved Alvaro, is the garrisonign of ports by the Italian. At moment Rhodes and Misurata are always left undefended. Can we make something to fix this?
Another oddity that I managed to achieve is killing the whole invasion force of the US in 1942. If I´m not wrong, the US are scrtipted to invade Northern Africa as soons as the have enought landing ships to disembarkeits units. The main isssue was that I managed to capture Gibraltar, so as the US transports didn´t had a valid pat to enter the Mediterranean, they stayed iddle in the Atlantic (the script aims to a quick capture of the Algerian ports). In this situation, the AI should have aim for tyhe Morocco ports at least, but instead they let them die thenmselves in the waters of the Atlantic.

This said, this example shows how difficult/complex is to pregram an reliable AI able of interact and counter its human opponent actions.

[Omnius]

Adding a script to begin each scenario would help get an AI off to a better start. Scripting can't be done for the long haul but scripting a beginning turn or two would make the AI better. Like in the 1939 scenario make the German AI take down Poland in two turns. It's pathetic to watch the German AI move the armor unit in the south stupidly around the cavalry unit and never make a single turn 1 attack. Same with the other armored unit in the north. At least with a script Al could make the German AI smart enough to capture Warsaw and the other important Polish cities in two turns. Invade Luxemburg on the first turn since there's no penalty for doing so like in other games where any attack on any Benelux country would trigger all of them becoming active.

When considering AI's I like to think of the old George Carlin joke about television. "I turn the brightness knob up all the way but the tv doesn't get any smarter"! Sadly when we turn up the difficulty on AI's in war games all that does is give the same old crappy AI more stuff to throw at us in the same lame way, absolutely no improvement in smartness. Sure would love to see Microshaft do a Deep Blue project for a war game, that would really be awesome.

I just don't play against AI's, there's no challenge to it. I prefer to play hotseat solitaire even if that does ruin the element of surprise.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: malkarma
The main isssue was that I managed to capture Gibraltar, so as the US transports didn´t had a valid pat to enter the Mediterranean, they stayed iddle in the Atlantic (the script aims to a quick capture of the Algerian ports). In this situation, the AI should have aim for tyhe Morocco ports at least, but instead they let them die thenmselves in the waters of the Atlantic.

This said, this example shows how difficult/complex is to pregram an reliable AI able of interact and counter its human opponent actions.

Excellent example! And it is indeed very complex. But you know what your options are and act accordingly. I scripted my AI the same way, first to consider the situation:
- Status of Morocco and Algeria (Allied, Vichy, neutral?)
- Status of Gibraltar (Axis or Allied?)

Based on the status, US invasion force will ideally invade Morocco and Algeria, but maybe just Morocco if Axis controls Gibraltar. Instead of invasion, maybe send fast transports if Allies control Morocco and/or Algeria. Then the invasion needs to be reinforced, again either through Morocco or Algeria. How much and for how long, so US doesn't send its entire force pool to North Africa? Status checks for max units, and cancel scripts if not needed. Keep a stream of reinforcements coming to invade Sicily and then Italy, until Italy surrenders. Then some reinforcements can go directly from US to Naples.

The point is that with enough patience and some cleverness, you can indeed script/program the AI to do what you yourself would do. If this, then do that; else do something else. Difficult yes; impossible no. I've done it. It can be done. Others can do it too. If they want to.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: malkarma

One thing that can be improved Alvaro, is the garrisonign of ports by the Italian. At moment Rhodes and Misurata are always left undefended. Can we make something to fix this?
Another oddity that I managed to achieve is killing the whole invasion force of the US in 1942. If I´m not wrong, the US are scrtipted to invade Northern Africa as soons as the have enought landing ships to disembarkeits units. The main isssue was that I managed to capture Gibraltar, so as the US transports didn´t had a valid pat to enter the Mediterranean, they stayed iddle in the Atlantic (the script aims to a quick capture of the Algerian ports). In this situation, the AI should have aim for tyhe Morocco ports at least, but instead they let them die thenmselves in the waters of the Atlantic.

This said, this example shows how difficult/complex is to pregram an reliable AI able of interact and counter its human opponent actions.

I'll take a look.

[AlvaroSousa]

As for Poland a human maximizes what he can do. The A.I. can't. There is no script I can write that will overcome this. I would have to change the Pole's setup.

[kennonlightfoot]

Just to remind myself of how the AI is doing I played it using Historic settings and using version 8U6.

First I don't really expect the AI to be all that great. These games with thousands of hexes and hundreds of units moving in the same turn with supporting actions is far more complex than say Chess which only one piece moves per turn on a maximum of 64 squares.

Second, I play to test strategies and tactics against the AI so would prefer that it react to those moves in a reasonable way. I use the historic setting because I will learn nothing from an overpowered opponent using bad tactics.

So I started a the 1939 Scenario with me Allies and AI Germans.

The AI immediately ran amuck in Poland. It spent all of 1939 trying to take Warsaw. Finally did on on the last Dec turn.

It then (probably following script) declared war on Denmark. It took it four turns to take it. Mostly because of bad weather. And, I didn't bother to contest it.

Next item probably on the script is to take Norway. It at least didn't declare war but worse moved the German fleet over in preparation but couldn't land because of weather. The first attempt was on 3/1. The last attempt was on 4/26. This initiated about about 4 or 5 turns of fleet warfare where I hit anything that came out with French when possible and UK to finish them off. Eventually something triggered the German AI to stop trying.

3/15/40 - German AI declares war on the Netherlands. And fails to take it until 8/2/40.

5/24/40 - The AI declares war on Belgium and attacks it along with the unconquered Netherlands and parts of France. By then I figured it couldn't take France so moved all by UK combat units into France.

The spring and summer is spent driving the Germans back into Germany. I was one turn sort of saving the Netherlands. With winter in October the two sides stalemated on a line with the Allies holding part of the Rhine river. Don't think there is going to be any Barbarossa in Spring of 41. I doubt the UK can generate a large enough force to break the Rhine border. The final positions are shown below.

Would giving the AI bonuses on Experience and Morale change things? Yes, but not the tactics used.
As I said earlier, the AI is good for learning the mechanics of the game but not the tactics. Throwing all my forces into France like I did would get me destroyed by a player opponent. It's fun in the old "beer and pretzels" game type that Avalon Hill and SPI use to turn out. But if you plan to play an opponent it will be very misleading.

[baloo7777]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot

Would giving the AI bonuses on Experience and Morale change things? Yes, but not the tactics used.

Giving the AI a hefty bonus will lead to it blasting through Poland and Denmark, and later the Netherlands and Holland. Norway is another matter. Belgium and France, even with Brits and armor, will fall by September even by being bludgeoned with lots of German Infantry. I don't think the AI uses supply trucks, instead regaining its fighting ability much more quickly. The tactics the AI uses are preprogrammed by the developer.
My real question is the economics...that is, on Steam, or on Matrix, are the largest amount of people buying games to play solitaire vs AI, or to play PvP. The server in this game has been rumored to have no more than 200 games at a time on it (worldwide I think). Hopefully, WarPlan has sold substantially more than 400 units, which means that purchasers are mostly AI players. That said, my point is, yes you can say the AI is not as good as a person (obviously), but if you state that it is only good for learning the game, it relegates it to an uninterested vast majority of purchasers. So the real question is, do developers plan on selling to only PVP/pbem people?

[baloo7777]

On the AI scripting, I wonder if it is feasible to have an on/off type button that would allow a player to switch between AI or Hotseat as the game is played? It would have to be a choice in the options that is set before a game is started. That way a player could turn it off (much like Diplomacy) before creating an online/pbem game. This would allow an AI player to prevent the US from invading Algeria if Gibraltar was Axis, etc. You turn on the hotseat button, play the turn and end it, then as the Axis turn you turn it back off. Ai players would gain some FOW info on the computer forces, but could solve problems with the AI scripting and still play a reasonable solitaire game.

[AlvaroSousa]

To put things in perspective I can stop the SC3 Axis A.I. in 1940 as the Allies. I am not a very good player at SC as I have not played another person in a decade almost.

I will look at the Norway scripts.