AI "Death Spiral" problem

[ZOOMIE1980]

OK, I know this subject has been beaten to death on the general forum, and I am a bit hesitant to start it here, due to the fact that virtually anything to do with the AI seems to be a very touchy subject. I am also hesitant to even call this a "bug" or even a "flaw". It may fall into the realm of an "enhancement" request, I don't know. I'll leave that for the dev staff to define. But here it goes.

Just as in UV and the old PACWAR there appear to be some situations in WitP, no matter the difficulty setting, that the AI chooses to beat its head into the wall until so badly bloodied that it could make games somewhat unplayable, if followed through to it's conclusion.

Just as with those little bombardment TFs in UV, and the PACWAR Allied AI response to Japan taking Midway with a sizeable force, no matter how hopeless the situation, the AI will attempt to follow it's "script/sub-routine" to the point of extreme, until either it completely runs out of resources, or some other external event forces the human player out of the condition.

The first time I noticed the possibility of this deficiency was back in Frag's AAR on his Mandalay tactic. The AI just pointlessly bludgeoned itself against his massively fortified position. Expending hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops in a vain attempt to reach it's objective.

We recently saw this, on a smaller scale down in the Malacca Strait very early in the main campaign scenario. The AI, once it takes a base on the West coast of Malaysia, will attempt to resupply and reinforce this base with unescorted TF's usually consisting of 3 or 4 AK's. If you position a large enough surface force that can withstand several days of air attacks in the straight a couple of hexes NW of Singapore, you can systematically sink them. And the AI just keeps on sending them, configured the same way, each time, until you finally withdraw from air attack damage.

Now one player has reported that after two or three iterations the AI sends a carrier force to deal with the threat. I believe that player, however, was a few weeks further along in the scenario and that may have been the KB just showing up in that area as part of an unrelated operation. I don't know. I have run this setup three times now, each time 100% sinking as many FOUR of these TF's before I have to finally withdraw or have my force sunk by bombing attacks. In no case did the AI ever try to respond (air attacks don't count as those happen to enemy TF';s in the straits no matter what) by sending a counter force or adding some escorts to the TF.

There may be more of these types of "Death Spiral" situations elsewhere, but I have not yet encountered any. The answer in Frag's case was to increase the "aggressiveness" of the AI, but that is just a bandaid. The computer just sends more troops to beat on you harder. However the Malacca Strait, it doesn't even do that, unless you think sending more TF's more frequently is sending more "force".

Question is, if it is not already there, is there a provision in the AI system for the AI to have some sort of a stop-loss check within a specific operation sub-routine that will either stop the routine from running, or allow it to branch off into some "Plan B" routine by either rerouting, increasing escort power, or send some sort of additional force to alter the stuck suicidal "Death Spiral"?

For me, this was the single biggest flaw in UV. Playing Japan vs Allied AI, after taking Lunga I could either position a carrier TF a couple of hexes away and await the inevitable Allied AI to send those little bombardment TFs and sink them, or just ignore it and put up with it. The former resulted in the AI using up every last cruiser in the game, the latter just allowed them to bite at my heels forever.

I suppose it is a lot easier to play around a Death Spiral trap as the scope of this game is so huge, any one problem can be ignored without a serious impact on quality gameplay. In the example above, I just let the AK TF's do their thing with only putting a sub in that hex to maybe sink one or damange one, instead of wipe them all out.

Again, not sure if this is a bug, a design flaw, or just a request for an enhancement by providing some sort of stop-loss system on AI subroutines. But this "problem" for me, is about the only thing I see as keeping this AI from being a real advancement of the art. Otherwise, so far, it does a good job of providing a balanced, playable game.