Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Arinvald

The TE based close to 500,00 soldiers at Salonika at peak. The Germans joked that it was their largest military prison.

Yes, the idea for the Entente was to jump in on the Balkans fighting or alternatively threaten Turkey. Of course, as Greece didn't quite commit itself they were just sitting there, diseases being their chief adversary.

ORIGINAL: Arinvald

I like the sounds of this.

Me too!

Gallipoli was not a mistake - it was almost the most brilliant strategic stroke of the war - it came within the proverbial gnat's private parts of succeeding on 18 March and would have forced Turkey from the war if it did so.

 
I managed to succeed in a Beta game. It did force Turkey from the war. What a different game that became!
 
 

ORIGINAL: Berkut
I cannot comment on the AI, but what are the technical problems mentioned?
I have not heard of, or experienced, any...

I meant technical in a very broad sense, i.e., interface issues, no tutorial/manual lacking in info, etc. It was just too much of a mouthful to spell this all out.

ORIGINAL: FrankHunter

Question for Mr. Hunter...does the AI cheat at all?

Bite your tongue my good man, I'll never write an AI that cheats because a big part of what makes it interesting is writing an AI that works under a "fog of war" situation.  The AI makes guesses.
The AI is best on defence and at its worst as Germany when fighting on multiple fronts.  I would have liked another 6 months or so to work on how the German AI prioritizes but I couldn't really justify that to myself being as I didn't know for sure if I could improve it.

Other game developers (POCUS of AGEOD) expressed similar concerns over justifying/ taking the extra time needed for full AI development. Yet AI always seems to be one the major complaints of most single player gamers.

Well so far the AI is doing a number on me mainly because I need to rid myself of a "Blitzkrieg" mentality....If you do not distribute and spend your HQ offensive points properly you can end up having something develop as seen below. Notice I have no activation points to spend on my Northern front HQ's and the AI has taken full advantage. I can only hope that the French HQ's are spent too so that I can consolidate my front. But if they can still launch offensives then I'm probably doomed.

Oh yeah, I should have left Holland alone for the time being!

I am kind of ambivalent as to AI "cheating". I don't really mind if it cheats a little bit, as long as it is something like having a little extra information in its algorithms, as opposed to something like a secret DRM in the combat tables, which is really annoying.

At the end of the day, no AI will last long against a smart human in a game like this. At some point the smart human will understand the AI routine, either explicitly or inplicitly, and figure out how to bait it.

Besides, there is nothing that satisfying about beating a computer after you do it the first time. A person however....why they are fun to beat almost forever!

Joe, yes, I have already spent over 50% of the time I put into this game on the AI.  So I could have justified another 6 months but I wasn't sure it would mean any actual improvement.  I just wanted to experiment more but then I like to tinker endlessly and the game was already years late and sometimes you just have to say enough.

Berkut, I see what you mean.  In the first version of ACW I used a couple of cheats for a few things.  I think it was stuff like knowing how much supply the other side had left.  The thing is what I like best about doing games is writing AI so over time I work on how best to provide the AI with information without cheating.  Things like copying the human experience, which is remembering past games.

But you're right, a human will learn much faster than any AI can hope to so eventually the AI will be beaten pretty regularly.  It should provide a decent opponent for awhile though.

I think the place for "cheating" would be in something like what you mentioned.

I mean, a human can kind of get a feel for how much supply is used, and use that intuition to make decisions. (I could see a direct analogy with HQ acivation points here - presumably your AI has some way of noting their use?).

You could try to come up with some algorithm to mimic that, I guess. But chances are it would be hard, and not work very well anyway, since the humans would figure out a way to "fake it". A lot easier to just look and see.

I can certainly see how you could spend, well, forever, on the AI. There would always be something you could make a little more sophisticated...

I guess it depends upon what source you consult. Either way, the result was the same--scratch one Frenchie. I do know that several attempts were made to sweep the straights with old s-l-o-w minelayers manned by reservists and merchant marine sailors. They moved so slowly against the current that they made easy targets. If the R.N. learned anything from this experience, it was that naval guns were not very effective without good spotting, and preferrably, a combined marine operation. What's important is that with a bit more imagination and determination, the whole outcome of WW1 would have been radically changed.

ORIGINAL: Berkut

A person however....why they are fun to beat almost forever!

Yeah, generally the novelty and satisfaction just never really seems to wear off, huh?

ORIGINAL: J P Falcon

Well so far the AI is doing a number on me mainly because I need to rid myself of a "Blitzkrieg" mentality....If you do not distribute and spend your HQ offensive points properly you can end up having something develop as seen below. Notice I have no activation points to spend on my Northern front HQ's and the AI has taken full advantage. I can only hope that the French HQ's are spent too so that I can consolidate my front. But if they can still launch offensives then I'm probably doomed.

Oh yeah, I should have left Holland alone for the time being!

That screen shot is almost a mirror image of my first 2 games. Originally I was going to try and stick to a "historical" plan of action but I just couldn't control myself so I DOW's Holland right off the bat. You figure you can just "blitz" your away around the congestion in Belgium, Luxemburg and Sedan but the AI stopped me cold twice. Nevertheless, I figured the center was weak now because the French had to stretch their lines to cover the northern flank, so I drove hard in the center. I had a whiff at Paris there but because its 1914, not 1940, you can't unleash the armor and its all foot speed with interior lines really playing a roll. The AI recovered and threw a wall up quicker than I would have expected. Maybe with a bit of planning I'll get through next time. Great stuff!

Like Falcon says, if you go into this thinking blitz, the AI will stop you cold and even cut you off completely. Refreshing!

*edit* How do you get a screen shot like that off the game and on to this forum?

*Edit da edit* I figured it out. [:)]

Press control+print screen

Now what I do is open WORD and select paste and the copied image appears. I then open FILE and select SAVE AS WEB PAGE and put the .jpg image on my desktop...

Use POST REPLY (not FAST REPLY) and compose your usual forum message. You will notice a CLICK HERE TO UPLOAD command just below the message screen and a box with a EMBED PICTURE IN POST prompt next to it. Tic off the box first then click on the UPLOAD command. A new box will pop up with a browse prompt which you use to locate the .jpg image on your desktop. Select it then press OK and the image will upload to the forum....

Some people use PAINT to create the .jpg image or a special program but I simply use WORD....there are probably easier ways to do it as I tend to take a circuitous route when a straight one would suffice...[;)]

Hope this helps


ahhh nevermind...that's what I get for typing slow.................

ORIGINAL: J P Falcon

ahhh nevermind...that's what I get for typing slow.................

Appreciate the help bro. [8D]

Appreciated, J P!