Bad move by the AI

[Rubblestone]

In my last game as the WA, the germans made a critical mistake, on the W42 turn they left N Italy undefended!! all they had was a single fighter unit, so it was a simple matter of making an ampib assualt (i controled the med) then reinforced it... in the following turns i took s italy, then the ai continued to make some strange moves, mostly the kept abandoning yugoslavia, so i kept taking it, sacrificeing a single militia to wipe out some of germanys resource points they would then recapture, spend supplies rebuilding then abandoning it again (this happened at least 2 or 3 times)... it should be noted that germany still went ahead with its invasion of russia on its normal scheduale

[Joel Billings]

Putting up a better garrison in Italy is something we've worked on in the current patch in testing. Not sure yet how much better it is at keeping Italy protected, but it should be better.

[WanderingHead]

A few weird things I noticed with the AI. I was Germany, AI everyone else.

First, rear garrisons. I had a game where I intended to ignore Africa and even pretty much the Atlantic and go after Russia starting Fall 1940. But then lo and behold, Winter 1941 I find that Gibraltar has only 1 militia, while Egypt was stacked with militia and a couple of infantry. It really wasn't on my agenda in this game, but I took Gibraltar.

Similarly, by the end of 1942 the WA were in Morrocco in force, but left Britain practically empty. I had time to build a big transport fleet and in Spring 1943 I took both England (nothing there but planes) and Scotland (nothing but a bomber and a flak).

In both cases, asserting in North Africa seemed inappropriately emphasized over defense, especially of Britain.

In Russia, the AI did not seem to recognize that my long supply lines to the Caucasus were fragile. The AI was very passive, only occasionally sending militia forward to reclaim territories I abandoned, which basically just let me whittle down the Russians by taking a few militia every turn while my tanks moved further into the Russian rear destroying production capacity. Moscow fell Spring 1942.

Finally, the use of transports was bizarre. After taking Britain and reclaiming Morrocco, the WA kept randomly sending transports out into the Atlantic for no apparent reason other than for me to shoot them.

By the end game, after I turned off auto-victory and the end date, the AI seemed suicidal (actually, this is much like a human would have been at this point). Washington was abandoned, with the huge stack of US troops in SE USA. A few raids put an end to US production.

I point these out just in case it is helpful in evaluating some of the AI weaknesses.

[Joel Billings]

Thanks. Some of these issues have been improved already in the version in test. Of course there's always more that can be done and we'll try to react to feedback on the AI improvements in the next patch. We're hoping to get the next patch out within a few weeks.

[Rubblestone]

in one of my other posts about how to get russia and japan at war with each other i noticed that by bombing manchuria and killing a single infantry (assuming the ai has left the min 3 inf) you could get russia at war with japan, is this a bug or not? according to the manual "If at the end of a Japanese Player turn, Manchuria contains less than three Japanese infantry units, the Soviet Eastern Zone is immediatlt Unfrozen" The way I read it is the th Eastern zone becomes unfrozen only at the end of the japanese turn, thus they should get a chance to reenfore the area if above strategy is used. but in my games as soon as the WA turn ended the zones became unfrozen, so am i just missunderstanding the rules or is it a bug?

[Uncle_Joe]

I think the Readme states that it had been changed to 'at the end of any player's turn'.

[Tac2i]

Yikes! A "couple of weeks" has turned into a "few weeks." I'm sure I read in a post last week that a patch would be forthcoming in a week or two.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Thanks. Some of these issues have been improved already in the version in test. Of course there's always more that can be done and we'll try to react to feedback on the AI improvements in the next patch. We're hoping to get the next patch out within a few weeks.

[Barthheart]

Umm... be happy it's coming at all. Some companies don't give you anywhere near the level of support 2By3 is giving. MOO3 annyone...[:-] A "few" weeks is pretty good, considering that every change has to be tested for what it does to stuff that was working and how it affects balancing. 2By3 is doing a great job of listening to the fans.[&o]

[Tac2i]

Don't take my "Yikes!" as a criticism. Just stating that I saw a post last week by someone I thought was in the know that a patch would be out in a week or two. Note that the first patch was released less than two weeks after the game hit the store shelves.

ORIGINAL: Barthheart

Umm... be happy it's coming at all. Some companies don't give you anywhere near the level of support 2By3 is giving. MOO3 annyone...[:-] A "few" weeks is pretty good, considering that every change has to be tested for what it does to stuff that was working and how it affects balancing. 2By3 is doing a great job of listening to the fans.[&o]

[Joel Billings]

No problem. I think I said that I was shooting for a patch in 2-4 weeks (which I think put it at the middle of May at the outside, which is where were headed at the moment). We've got 90+% of the items for this patch in testing, and the others will be in testing by early next week. We really hope to be done next week sometime, but you never know what will come up in the meantime or if test will find a problem with the changes. That is the big caveat. Then there is some extra time (usually a few days at most) to allow for Matrix to build and test the final patch files.

[5cats]

I've never seen the WA AI abandon Washington, in fact quite the opposite!
I regularly invade Mexico, park 2 tanks, 4 infantry and 2 arty there (plus supplies) the AI has PILES of troops in NE USA but does nothing!
Next turn both SW USA and SC USA are still undefended except for 2 militia which pop up. My two attacks capture both with ease. The following turn NW USA and NC USA are also still undefended! They fall without a whimper! Meanwhile there's like 2 tanks, 12 Inf 4 Arty 2 Flak, assorted airpower & piles of Fleets just sitting there in NE USA (Washington) with about 80 supplies.