Suicidal AI

[Owl]

I rarely have time to play via email, instead do battle with the AI. As the Japanese I find that the AI goes bonkers with stupidity when I have Lunga. Like clockwork they send ships up to bombard, no matter what I have there (level 9 airfield full of Betty bombers and a thick minefield). UP they come, often mauled by betties on the way, blasted by mines off the beach then bombed again on their way home. In one game (again as Japan) I even grabbed Efete, the Allied AI still insisted on bombarding Lunga. I am not certain but I think the Allied side has not a single CL or larger left, all are either in repair or rusting on the bottom.

Second suicideal problem is my Betty bombers. Off they go to bomb enemy taskforces that are well covered by fighters. Even when they have other places they could bomb that are either unprotected or closer where they could have escorts at least. I would understand it better if my air commander didn't know what forces were at the enemy base, but I have run recon forces there and they should "know" the enemy base has 100 fighters or whatever. Most annoying.

It's little things like this that really make me hesitate to get the new Pacific war game. With UV virtually throwing ships on the sacrificial alter of Lunga I can only imagine what idiotic things Pacific war would do if Midway were captured!

[2ndACR]

We call it the "Death Spiral". We still see it in WITP, not much can be done about it IMO. PBEM is not so bad, and it is alot more fun to take on a evil human with a brain than the AI.

After the 1st week of game play in WITP, you can crank a turn out in about 30min or less.

[Gladius]

had the same problem, my bomers (japanese) were starting from luganville and attacking undefended (without CAP) ships and another group (Betty's and Nell's) attack a TF in Noumea Hexfield.
The problem was that only the first flight had escort and the second (to Noumea) didn't! Could it be that the AI doesn't check if there is an airbase in the hex, when it attacks a TF?

There can be done something about it a BUGFIX!

maybe a round-log at the end of the combat report would clear out things, where "squadron x did mission y because of z" (example: sq 3 didn't flew a naval attack because it's morale was to low)
this would help especially about the so called "lazy pilot" bug(? if it is one). This wouldn't cause to much work (just printing out the AI decision) and wouldn't disturb any players if it was at the end of the combat report, after all I could also be used for bugfixing.

[marky]

y so many bugs?

just about all other game companies put their games thru heavy testing and shake out the bugs


y not matrix?

cuz, it seems ALOT of bugs r escaping attention

[Owl]

Email is more fun, I do admit. I disagree though that not much can be done. I think it's a matter of the programmers not wanting to do anything about it. I can't see how it should be that hard to get the AI to asess risks of doing certain things and NOT doing them if the risks are too great. We have recon already, the AI should know what's at a particular base (maybe not minefields, but if it's run over them before it aught to know now). If they're coming in and search and recon say I have 120 long range bombers as well as a taskforce of 4 battleships and 8 cruisers waiting why can't the AI just turn around?

I never do expect the AI to match a human opponent as far as inventiveness and guile. I do however have some expectation that the AI won't continue to do really dumb things over and over.

[siRkid]

ORIGINAL: marky

y so many bugs?

just about all other game companies put their games thru heavy testing and shake out the bugs


y not matrix?

cuz, it seems ALOT of bugs r escaping attention

We made several patches to the game and if you look at the patch notes you will see that there were a lot of things fixed and improved. Despite what some may think, programming the AI is the harest and most expensive. We had to stop working on UV at some point so WitP could be developed. I've been playing computer games for over 20 years and I have never fought an AI that was the equal of a human player.