AI movement cheats?

[Forrest37]

Playing as Allied against AI Japanese I find that the AI moves units through jungle at rail speed around my units in Malasia, Burma and China. Is this a play balance tactic, a bug, or do I need to download a better map file. Anyone have an opion on the best map file?.....Thanks in advance...Bill

[patrickl]

Hi,

Check the following :

http://www.bur.st/~akbrown/witp.html


http://mathubert.free.fr/main_content.htm

[;)]

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Forrest37

Playing as Allied against AI Japanese I find that the AI moves units through jungle at rail speed around my units in Malasia, Burma and China. Is this a play balance tactic, a bug, or do I need to download a better map file. Anyone have an opion on the best map file?.....Thanks in advance...Bill

Even with the corrections to the standard map introduced in the last patches, LCUs can move at warp speed. Typically this occurs on N-S railroad as a "slingshot" effect, but i've also had an (unfortunate for me) incidence where it happened on an e-w rail hex...

[tsimmonds]

Here's a thread discussing this problem.

Read the first one before you read this one.

Andrew Brown's map data file mod fixes everything. Better yet, just restart and use his map.

[afspret]

I too am playing against the Jap AI and just had this happen.

In preperation for re-taking Myitkyina I moved the 254th & 255th Indian Armored Bdes, 18th UK Inf Div, 2 UK Arty Rgts and 1 UK Mtn Arty Rgt to Ledo. I individually gave the 254th, 18th, the Mtn Arty and 1 Arty unit orders to move to Myitkyina. After 3 turns all moved except the 254th and when I checked the unit it had no destination set, so I clicked on 'Set Destination' and clicked on Myitkyina but got a message basically saying I could not move through any enemy occupied hexes. There are no enemy LCUs markers showing in any hexes between Ledo and Myitkyina. After trying three times I clicked on the non-base hex two hexes down the trail from Ledo and the order took. During the LCU movement phase of the turn, the 254th moved one hex, and then a second, as if were on a rail line instead of a trail. Now that unit is between Myitkyina and the other units, which will not move into the same hex as the 254th for several more turns.

I've gotten used to the Japanese LCUs zooming through Burma, but this was the first time I've seen an allied LCU do it.

[bradfordkay]

I've just started a new game on Andrew's v4 map, scenario 116 vs Jap AI. On Dec 18, a small force of Japanese is landed at Butuan and captures it. The next day, those troops marched into Cagayan and captured it (I did have time to load the base force onto two transports and get their butts out of Dodge). Two days later those troops have marched into Cotobato and captured it (again, the unsupported base force is loaded onto two transports and evacuated).

In one respect, it is a problem with the way the game handles map data: while the road from Butuan through Cagayan to the hex west (game directions, not real ones) of Cagayan is shown as a trail, the data shows the portions in Butuan and that western hex as roads. However, if the game does, indeed, consider only the terrain in the hex from which the unit is moving the unit should not have been able to move out of Cagayan into that western hex in one day. It was not pursuing retreating units, since they had embarked aboard ship to sail away and thus there were no retreating units. Thus, it does look to me like (Japanese?) AI units do, occaisionally, get some sort of movement ("infiltration?") bonus.

[Twotribes]

Are you sure the unit marched there? A nearby empty base can be captured by someone without entering it.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

I've just started a new game on Andrew's v4 map, scenario 116 vs Jap AI. On Dec 18, a small force of Japanese is landed at Butuan and captures it. The next day, those troops marched into Cagayan and captured it (I did have time to load the base force onto two transports and get their butts out of Dodge). Two days later those troops have marched into Cotobato and captured it (again, the unsupported base force is loaded onto two transports and evacuated).

In one respect, it is a problem with the way the game handles map data: while the road from Butuan through Cagayan to the hex west (game directions, not real ones) of Cagayan is shown as a trail, the data shows the portions in Butuan and that western hex as roads. However, if the game does, indeed, consider only the terrain in the hex from which the unit is moving the unit should not have been able to move out of Cagayan into that western hex in one day. It was not pursuing retreating units, since they had embarked aboard ship to sail away and thus there were no retreating units. Thus, it does look to me like (Japanese?) AI units do, occaisionally, get some sort of movement ("infiltration?") bonus.

This does seem a bit odd, unless the unit was an armoured unit. Only an armoured unit should have enough movement points (60) to travel one hex by road in a day, and one clear hex (Cagayan to Cotobato) in 2 days (30 per day). Was it an armoured unit?

Regarding the fact that the road from Butuan to Cagayan is shown as a trail. I realised a while ago that this could be deceptive. A more accurate depiction is to show it as road to the hex boundary, then trail after that. I decided not to change all of the rail/road/trail artowrk to this format because it is a lot of work, and in many cases it doesn't look very good. In some cases it does look OK and I have used the proper depiction in some hexes (Bombay and Pangim, for example).

Andrew

[Bradley7735]

The AI gets lots of cheats, depending on what level you play at. If you play on Hard, Malaria does not affect the AI's ground units. That means they will have a lot less fatigue and disruption as your units. That means they will march at 2 to 3 times the speed that you can march at.

Yes, it sucks. Play on Historical if you can't deal with super fast AI LCU's.

I wish the game let you pick what cheats you wanted for the AI. I find it's almost impossible to fight in Burma on Hard. But, if you play on Historical, the AI will send it's carriers to the middle of the ocean and promptly run out of fuel and slowly creep back to civilization over the next two months.

You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[bradfordkay]

Andrew, yeah the road is road to the hex border, and then trail from there. The unit was not an armoured unit, it was an SNLF unit (do they have movement bonuses?).

The unit definitely travelled that distance, since it was troops showing up in Cotabato that surprised me. The only place that the AI landed in this area was at Butuan, via a FT TF (a ML was included in this FT TF, whose mines surprised my PTS and got one!).

An SC TF consisting of POW, Repulse, Houston, Boise and 4 DDs met with the Kongo, 6 CAs and a few DDs in Davao harbor. I lost a DD, had the Houston badly damaged and had to withdraw the TF (a transport TF consisting of two 4500 AKs was also attacked and sunk by the Kongo group that night). I sent in a couple of Dutch CLs with three DDS and two nights later they met the Kongo group, losing a couple of DDs. I have since picked up the last US BF troops out of Draguigan (sp?), so the Filipino troops are on their own now...

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Andrew, yeah the road is road to the hex border, and then trail from there. The unit was not an armoured unit, it was an SNLF unit (do they have movement bonuses?).

Maybe they do. Or maybe it is a generic AI movement bonus. Sounds like an interesting test subject for anyone that has more free time than I do. [:'(]

Andrew