From 20+ to 60+ divisions in front of Moscow in 1 week?

[tumbi1]

Many thanks all, I'll put in a suggestion for a change, but will also try what has been put forward here.

In regards to the AI, I think it plays about the best I have seen AI in any comparable game. It doesn't let you get away with much, and that in itself is a big achievement.

[tumbi1]

Hello again,

I have been flat out with work, so only now checked my game. I feel like a goose, but when everyone was mentioning a morale of 110 I thought that was default, but no, I have been playing with everything set to 100, so maybe this is a bug after all as the AI shouldn't be able to do it?

[tumbi1]

Just bumping this, as I am looking at starting a new game and want to check, would this be a bug on normal setting (100)?

[Joel Billings]

This came up about 2 months ago in another tech support thread. At that time we reported that Gary does have some cheat moving going on at 100%. It's not as powerful as the cheat moves used at 110%, as there are some limits and sort of a delayed two step process to the cheat move. But we did find that even with the limits, that system was able to move units around in ways that humans couldn't come close to. We agreed that ideally the AI should not be able to warp as much as it was doing, even though it has to get some benefits as it doesn't know how to shuffle sideways or max rail movement like a human player would.

Gary started on reducing the 100% cheat move, and we even sent it out to a player that had complained about the cheat moves, but other more pressing bugs came up and our internal tests were not good. With the weakened cheat move, the AI was doing much worse. We didn't think players would be happy with that, so we kept things as they were with the idea to back to it once things calmed down on other fronts. We also wanted to see just how many users think this is a problem. While we all would prefer the AI not cheat, we also all want an AI that can challenge players. Various other issues have kept us busy so we have not gone back to look at this again.

Gary is now doing some work on AI for our upcoming expansion scenarios. Expansion scenarios usually provide Gary with a chance to look at various AI issues that come up in the scenarios and see if he can improve things. Right now he just started on AI for Drama on the Danube which includes the Romanian surrender and has more involvement of Bulgarian and Yugoslavian forces. He's actually working on trying to keep the AI from warping through Romania instantaneously when it flips sides. If he succeeds, he will retrofit this AI into the main campaign AI. So it is possible that during his AI work on the expansions he'll find things that may allow him to reduce the cheat movement at 100%.

[tumbi1]

Many thanks Joel, much appreciated. Balancing AI is a very interesting subject! I'll try dropping it just under 100 and see what happens, and will also keep an eye on announced updates etc. I agree, you don't want the AI to be too much of a pushover, and I like the challenge the current AI provides. The feeling I had in this instance, when I felt I was on the brink of surrounding Moscow after a tough battle, and then hey presto, the AI literally grabbed everything and put them right in front of Moscow so I had no hope of capturing it before the mud season hit, was rather deflating. 17 divisions in the south disappeared into 'thin air'.

Keep up the good work, and please pass on my compliments to Gary. I have enjoyed his games for many years.

[OberGeneral]

Thanks for the update.

[tumbi1]

Quick update; Playing at 98, I have seen the same problems with AI unit movements. I have an example below also where units miraculously escape from a pocket. Maybe I am missing something, but how the 218th Mechanized Division got out of the pocket and moved to where it was the next turn defies logic. I don't remember seeing this behavior in the original version of the game I played, so one of the patches I think has caused this type of thing to happen. This makes the game unplayable IMO, so I am going to remove the patches and go back to the original for the moment. In the following pictures the 218th is indicated by the white arrows.

[tumbi1]

The 218th has broken out of the pocket and is now near Rzhev! Note also the number of divisions that have appeared to the north, where at the end of the previous turn there were none.

[tumbi1]

Game saves.

[Joel Billings]

This bug appears to have been fixed. You are running 1.01.02, while I tested 1.01.09 and the units did not warp out of the pocket. You should never see warp like movement out of near pockets that require a zoc to zoc move. Those require a normal move. Whenever you see an escape like this, let us know, because we try to fix any cases that come up. Hopefully one of the many changes made since 1.01.02 fixed this kind of illegal movement and it wasn't just a case of my test with 1.01.09 randomly didn't duplicate what you saw. With 1.01.09, the cav division and anti-tank brigade that had the movement to escape did, the rifle divisions and the motorized division did not.

[tumbi1]

Thanks, I updated to that patch and saw the same result as yourself.