Odd AI Behavior

[Caltone]

Is there anyway to stop the AI from making numerous small (4 ships or less, often only 1 ship) TF's? I would assume taking full control of all HQ's might prevent this, but I prefer to play with one main HQ under full control and most of the others under operational control. I just find it annoying to discover all these 1-4 ship SC Tf's about.

[cyberwop]

Not that i know of, that is why i run all the hq's. But I am not the most experenced player. I find that if you leave friendly hq's on op control their planning will screw up your planning.

Run them all so everones on the same page, YOURS.

[BigE]

About odd AI behaviour: can anyone take a guess at the AI's target finding routines?
Here's the deal: I was busily getting up the Solomons in late 1942 (say October) after having been forced to commit myself in March 1942 to a rather hasty re-invasion of Santa Cruz and Guadalcanal. Went into SigInt, checked targets. Rabaul's target was Efate, which was covered by size-4 airfields at Santa Cruz, Fiji, Noumea, and a size-6 airfield at Espiritu Santo. Had my six carriers and six battleships at E-Santo. Down came the entire Combined Fleet, struck at Espiritu's airfields once, then was positively blown to smithereens by 200 land-based and 350 sea-based aircraft, plus a surface engagement with my surface fleet. All that for Efate -- Airfield 1, Port 1...
Not that I mind, I sank 4CVs, 4CVLs, and 5BBs in that battle, for slight damage to two battleships and two carriers on my side. But please! Who's selecting targets in the IJN, and why??

[CynicAl]

Don't know, but I've seen the same thing. I suspect the AI has a script it follows (or a selection of several possible scripts it can follow) - take this base, then that base, then that other base over yonder. Sometimes this works very heavily against it - in one game as the Allies, I watched the AI squander its entire transport fleet in repeated, unsupported efforts to take Timor (I never saw another Japanese AP for the rest of the game). The AI just kept trying to take the next base in line according to the script, until it didn't have anything with which to make the attempt.

Truthfully, the landing attempts on Timor weren't unsupported at first - they just didn't stop when their support got smashed. When SIGINT told me Combined Fleet was looking thataway, the USPF moved to Darwin... in 3 engagements over 7 weeks, the IJN lost 5 CV, 7 CVL, a couple of dozen CA and CL, and lots of DD sunk, plus 1 CV and a handful of CA that limped back to port and didn't emerge for nearly a year; the USN lost a CL or two and a handful of DD sunk, and 3 CV out of action for 2-4 months variously. (A couple of surprise attacks and lots of LBA combined to spare me a lot of grief.) But the AI kept right on trying to run that gauntlet with Transport TFs for 2 or 3 months after the destruction of the Kido Butai - it never did manage to land any troops on the island, just got chewed up for nothing.

[ October 05, 2001: Message edited by: CynicAl ]</p>

[ADavidB]

What you did is essentially the "strategy of choice" for defeating the AI in Pacwar - there are certain targets that the AI will throw tremendous resources at until it loses enough carriers to go into "defend" mode. Guadalcanal is one of those targets, for example. That's always the most interesting part of a game against the AI. Once it loses its carriers, you then have to spend months whacking at land targets.

Now, in a few of the later versions of the game the AI will do some really odd attacks, but that just serves to use up fuel for the most part. I was playing a v2.2 game a couple of weeks ago when the AI sent the CF into the Indian Ocean - it putzed around for a couple of weeks and threw air strikes against land targets to no particular effect. I just moved my ships out of the area temporarily and happily attacked, unmolested, in the Central Pacific.

Tony Baranyi

[ October 06, 2001: Message edited by: Tony Baranyi ]</p>

[Caltone]

When the AI is handling the Allies, it also seems to key on certain bases.

I'm playing as Japanese in 42 campaign with historical move. In that historical move, the battle of Coral Sea, the US lost both its fleet carriers that were deployed to only a CVL for the Japanese. Since that time, I have basically had free reign to capture and fortify the Solomons with little or no naval interference from the US. At the climax of the New Guinea campaign however, I seem to have woke a sleeping dragon. Once Moresby fell, it has been subjected to huge air strikes and naval attacks almost daily.

As Australia looks armed to the teeth and the US Navy seems to be very concerned with Moresby and protecting Australia, I am pondering a shift in objectives to Noumea/Fiji.

Hopefully that might lure the US Fleet out from its umbrella of LBA where it can be destroyed.

...hmmm where have I heard that strategy before??? <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

[ADavidB]

Caltone -

Yes, the AI keys on certain bases and waits around to jump your fleets. The best Japanese strategy against the AI in the South Pacific is to grab as many islands as you can and build up air bases as much as possible. This way in late 42 when the Allies have carriers again and attack, you can have hundreds of fighters and bombers available to swarm the defenses of the carriers.

One thing to remember about the AI that has been true since the very first edition of Pacwar almost 10 years ago - the AI cheats, so anything you can do to beat it is fair. ( The same thing doesn't hold against human opponents - that's where "house rules" come into play. )

The other thing to remember is that if the AI gets "tired" of attacking one area and it has any carriers left, it will attack a totally different theater. The AI will also always attack your weakest locations - even as the Japanese player, the AI always has better Sigint than you do. ( Another cheat. )

But the AI will also push convoys all over the place for no good reason, so station land-based air power at all of your perimeters, you will be rewarded with lots of merchant and troop ships.

Dave Baranyi