AI for MWiF - Germany

[dale1066]

Oh I agree whole heartedly with you.

Its just some players are a little more rash than others, including me, especially if its late and the beer cans are piling up [:)]

re suicide attacks post paris I still like to keep enough french army to force Vichyification rather than have all of france conquoured usually a bad idea I think. Would it be useful to discuss tactics at this point in the ger-france battles or has that already been covered in the forums?

[Jimm]

Are the LOC Vichy rules (ie the ones in the 98 annual "in Search of Vichy) an available option? (I had a whizz through the options thread and couldnt see it- apologies if this has been discussed previously)

definitely affects French play vs Germany.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Jimm

Are the LOC Vichy rules (ie the ones in the 98 annual "in Search of Vichy) an available option? (I had a whizz through the options thread and couldnt see it- apologies if this has been discussed previously)

definitely affects French play vs Germany.

Not included. They are not part of RAW August 2004.

[Jimm]

Fair comment. One for the expansion version!

[cockney]

If the AXIS AI teamed together and If Germany went for a quick win in the east, taking out Poland and then going for the SU, with the help of Japan attacking the SU. Would Germany have any benifit in alligning the minors of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia? Would Turkey and the Finns allign and participate? Would the Italians ease pressure on the western front by attacking France from the south?

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: cockney

If the AXIS AI teamed together and If Germany went for a quick win in the east, taking out Poland and then going for the SU, with the help of Japan attacking the SU. Would Germany have any benifit in alligning the minors of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia? Would Turkey and the Finns allign and participate? Would the Italians ease pressure on the western front by attacking France from the south?

It's a very risky strategy. France can defend against Italy quite easily due to Italian weakness and mountainous terrain and Germany usually finds itself in a 2 front war with France and the CW growing stronger every turn. The USSR can afford to take a hit in the Far East to hang in there against Germany. If the USSR survives, Germany is doomed and Japan's gains will be eventually extinguished.

Cheers, Neilster

[cockney]

if the french keep to the mountains, the weak italians could try to do an amphib asst between spain and marselle and head in land, if french leave the mountains or the german border it opens up. I would like to try it.

[composer99]

If the Italians mass 2-3 divs with shore bombardment & ground support they should able to manage an invasion along the southern French coast without too much trouble, even without the benefit of surprise. Then they can ship in an HQ and another corps with their TRS (if these have survived to this point).
 
What cockney proposes is high risk indeed, but it has been discussed as a possibility for the Axis AIs and ought not to be totally discounted as an overall strategic plan. That said, it should have a low probability of occurence because of the risk vs. reward payoff.

[Incy]

A problem with an incasion to circumvent the french defence is that there are no ports in the area. To maintain supply inland, you need a HQ at the coast, and that only gives supply a few hexes inland. The french can just stay in the mountain line/the ports, screen a bit inland with 1-2 weak units, and any italians will be at severe risk of loosing supply (to manouvre, weather, og having the overseas supply dinked).

For instance, the allies can send out a fleet in west med, dink the supply, flip the HQ on the coast, land a few brits, and pretty much autokill the HQ, starnding any units inland. Rule of thumb, an invasion really can't push inland without a plan to capture a port.

Of course, an invasion isn't completely useless, and might tie up critical units. But the french might choose to ignore the invasion. If the italians try to advance north without proper supply, they are not that much of a threath. If italians go within range of the frenc line OOS, they're vulnerable to getting bombed, followed by france/BEF pulling 1-2 units ont of the line 1 impulse to kill the italians.

[composer99]

What I would use an invasion for is to support overland attacks across the border, myself.

To be honest, normally if the French are leaving more than three or four corps vs. the Italians in 39-40, they are at great risk of not having enough units up north.

However, if the Germans are gunning for a USSR-first, then the French can easily stuff 5-6 or more corps down there, and the Italians will make no headway whatsoever.

So if Ge does USSR first, I don't think Italy can do much more than play around in the E. Med.

Edit: Now that I think about it, and overriding (and contradicting) an earlier statement of mine on this point.

[brian brian]

with LoC Vichy in play I now always attack France directly in the Alps. If the Italians can take the border hex they can then begin the ooze offensive and it is hard for France to deal with. For this reason I put the French MTN unit in Nice. The Italians can still get about a +10 on the other hexes if they are smart about their airpower and lucky drawing the ART unit at set-up.

Without LoC Vichy I don't see enough rewards to an otherwise difficult campaign for Italy.

[npilgaard]

Found some interesting thoughts about successful German '41 attack on USSR on the wifdiscussion list.

Regards
Nikolaj

---------------

hfloystad #94832:

> Last time I saw an all out B. in our game it was stopped stone cold in
> S/O 41. Mind you I didn't quite agree with the building programmetwo
> extra O-Chits seemed excessive to me. And almost no naval builds meant
> that CW didn't lose many CPs so a ton of stuff was flowing into RU. And
> there was a landing in Denmark. But these are the downsides of all-out
> B..
> Reasonably all-out B.s are pretty much the usual way to go in many of
> our games. (Bessarabia Russian, GE builds a few CXs and subs, IT subs
> and Naval air, then FTR, GE pre-builds Manstein and the SS-Eng.). I
> think on the whole about 1 in 4 results in a GE blow-out with RU back on
> the Asia map. I agree that coordinated with a JP attack on Siberia it is
> quite strong but it is far from 'always a sure path to victory'.


My thesis, is that the Barbarossa described is not focused enough, which is why it doesnt really work every time.

Try this:
- Don't build any O-chits pre-barb. Try to conserve 1 in France, that is enough. Germany NEEDs to be able to out-flank the USSR, which is hard with 5 less infantry (or 3 less mech). You will probably want to build an O-chit or three for the summer of 1942, though.
- Make sure to be able to attack from Bessarbia. It's worth about a full impulse, which is huge. So, attack Yugo in 1939, at first possibility. The extra production pre-41 from the yugo resources (if
you play with oil), is also important.
- Denmark is not so important. It's easy to contain, and not that hard to dislodge later (1942). In fact, an invasion in France is a bigger threat. Denmark can just be screened for a while. Be happy if England lands in Denmark, since that means less preassure on Italy.
- Don't build ANY CX/SU units. They are not worth it. Even a couple of extra inf can make the difference in the USSR. The 1939 production (all of it) is needed to minimize losses vs France in
1940, which can be used by building units that stay useful vs the USSR. Putting hurt on the UK doesn't really have an effect until 1942, by which time you should already have won the game in the east.
- Italy should build nothing but pilots + aircraft pre 1941, and then start building navs and subs from mar/apr 1941, no earlier. Pull out of Africa asap, even at the risk of loosing your transports
by an english DOW. There is nothing to gain for Italy in the med in an all-out barb, but lots to loose. You will not need those transports at all in this strat, and hardly your surface fleet.
England doesnt have much invasion capability early on, so can more or less be ignored. From 1942 on, you may want to be able to fight for the italian coast/western med, primarily from the air. You may
even win back Sardinia in 1942 (if lost), if the allies don't focus enough in the med. If you are really lucky, England will be satisfied spending 1941 port striking your fleet. If they actually
make an effort to invade Italy proper, you need some more GERMAN forces in italy to stop that (dont stop building all italian air until mid 1941 at the earliest).

With the play listed above, I have still not seen the USSR survive a 1941 barb. And I have seen England take Denmark, Sardinia, Libya, invade France, send huge lend lease to the USSR, etc to try to stop it - it's simply not sufficiently effective early enough. The only
thing that could potentially have a real effect would be to really threaten a conquest of Italy. That is hard, of course, since Italy will either have the time to evaquate the forces in Africa, or the UK must DOW in 1931, costing about 2 US entry chits, net. (And 1939 ones, at that). Even if the UK can disrupt the Italian fleet badly, it will be hard to really threaten conquest until 1941 at the earliest, by which time it's pretty trivial to guard all ports and coastal cities, with 2 units where needed. Also, by building land units and amphs this early, either the UK fleet or air force will be pretty weak, which should make it possible for the axis to put any invading force (in Italy) out of supply fairly frequently, since the UK must trace supply through both the western med AND italian coast.

Cheers,
Hakon

[gregtherobot]

sorry for asking the stupid: what about the stuffing topic? Russia can prevent an '41 barb when going for max garrison. You do funny things like Italy DOWing russia then?

cheers

greg

[hakon]

For Russia to maximize garrison is indeed very powerful this has been discussed at wifdiscussion mailiing list. There is no counter to that strategy, really, except not even trying to attack Russia in 1941. Usually that means that Germany takes Gibraltar in 1941 instead.

[Jimm]

Strikes me that one of the tricky things with the AIs is going to be how much to co-ordinate allies. The suggested Barbarossa strategy doesnt seem a particularly advantageous strategy for the independent Italian player- I certainly wouldnt play Italy that way unless the German had a gun to my head!

For me its always a necessary evil in the board game to have allies shared by the same player- its always better to have as indepedent allies as possible- even if that means they don't co-ordinate as well becuase they are out for their own ends!

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Jimm

Strikes me that one of the tricky things with the AIs is going to be how much to co-ordinate allies. The suggested Barbarossa strategy doesnt seem a particularly advantageous strategy for the independent Italian player- I certainly wouldnt play Italy that way unless the German had a gun to my head!

For me its always a necessary evil in the board game to have allies shared by the same player- its always better to have as indepedent allies as possible- even if that means they don't co-ordinate as well becuase they are out for their own ends!

I am EXACTLY of the same point of view.
Italy gains nothing doing that, it only fulfills Germany own agenda.
An I'm a firm believer that the game can be won by the Axis side by each of the Axis Major Powers fulfilling their own agendas.

And I'd also add that WiF is designed to be played with different players as the German and Italian. When you look at the suggested "who plays what" (see RAW 24.1.2), Italy is only played by the same player as Germany when there is only one Axis player.

[hakon]

We've already discussed this at length (last year, I think?).

I partly agree (maybe more than I did last year), but I think the problem lies in the victory conditions. Now assuming Russia doesn't stuff the border (which is another discussion, altogether, imo), I would argue that a 1941 with RAW victory condtions is possibly one of the most effective ways for Italy AND Germany to score a maxiumum number of victory points AND survive to the end of the game, assuming it is as effective as it can be in my experience.

Now, assume that Super Balbo has a >50% chance of knocking Russia out of the game, and maybe a 80% chance of aligning Turkey.

Germany can let Italy take the following victory cities:
- Kiev, Paris OR Moscow
- Teheran (aligned, and used as new home country)
- Germany reverts Milan to Italy, if Italy is conquered.
- Sverdlovsk (IF the axis can get there)

And STILL Germany will probably achive indivudual victory (possibly together with Italy) if Russia really falls. And if Russia falls early, all the forces being freed up can be enough to keep Rome from falling.

Of course, if the strategy goes badly, Russia may survive in strenght, take the middle east and push back into europe. In this case, Italy may get 0 victory cities, but that is quite common, anyway, if the allies win the game.

Certainly, without massive help from Germany, Italy can never do as good as this (or even close) on her own by trying to take the med alone. If Italy does not cooperate closely with Germany, Italy will in fact be conquered quite early, even if Germany should do OK indivudually.

And even if Mussoliini can convince Hitler that Franco is a bastard and should be attacked, Hitler would probably not have an incentive to let Italy keep Madrid, Gibraltar, Athens, Suez or Belgrade. (Especiially if Germany wanted to do another strategy, but was forced into a med strategy by the Italian player.)

I don't really see a solution to this inside RAW (except for stuffing the border, which isn't Italy's choice, anyway)

What I would like to see (in a patch, or product 2, or whatever), is a new set of victory condititions, where Victory points were given according to each country's leadership's agenda, instead of just plain victory cities. That way, more friction between contries on the same side could be created. This could lead to smaller lend lease to Russia, a more unpredictable Mussolini, maybe negative victory points for the US if they take losses, leading to more careful play, negative victory points to Germany/Italy for declaring war on Spain, declaring the Ukraine, etc.

Cheers
Hakon

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I am EXACTLY of the same point of view.
Italy gains nothing doing that, it only fulfills Germany own agenda.
An I'm a firm believer that the game can be won by the Axis side by each of the Axis Major Powers fulfilling their own agendas.

And I'd also add that WiF is designed to be played with different players as the German and Italian. When you look at the suggested "who plays what" (see RAW 24.1.2), Italy is only played by the same player as Germany when there is only one Axis player.

[Jimm]

ORIGINAL: hakon

What I would like to see (in a patch, or product 2, or whatever), is a new set of victory condititions, where Victory points were given according to each country's leadership's agenda, instead of just plain victory cities. That way, more friction between contries on the same side could be created. This could lead to smaller lend lease to Russia, a more unpredictable Mussolini, maybe negative victory points for the US if they take losses, leading to more careful play, negative victory points to Germany/Italy for declaring war on Spain, declaring the Ukraine, etc.

Cheers
Hakon

I do quite like your idea, as it does give the opportunity for a counterfactual agenda rather than too slavishly following the limited historical possibilities

However I would say a "realistic" leadership agenda for budding Il Duces would be Africa/Med/Southern Europe rather than the list of "by your leave, Adolf" victory cities you suggest- only the most pushover of Mussolinis would choose to start out with a plan to abandon Africa, not contest the Med and rely on German charity for their Empire, plus with the knowledge that the Allies will be in the Italian homeland, probably in strength by 1942.

But thats just my humble opinion as a player who loves playing Italy.

[hakon]

ORIGINAL: Jimm


I do quite like your idea, as it does give the opportunity for a counterfactual agenda rather than too slavishly following the limited historical possibilities

However I would say a "realistic" leadership agenda for budding Il Duces would be Africa/Med/Southern Europe rather than the list of "by your leave, Adolf" victory cities you suggest- only the most pushover of Mussolinis would choose to start out with a plan to abandon Africa, not contest the Med and rely on German charity for their Empire, plus with the knowledge that the Allies will be in the Italian homeland, probably in strength by 1942.

But thats just my humble opinion as a player who loves playing Italy.

I agree fully, and this is exactly why I want different conditions to provide victory points for Italy than for Germany. ITALY should get victory points mostly in the med, while GERMANY should get them mostly in Russia, or alternatively in the UK, and very few in the med.

The super Balbo approach to dividing Russia and making Persia Italy's new home country is what you get with RAW, and should be less common with individual victory conditions for each country.

As I've mentioned before, I think the victory point system of the boardgame Britannia, would apply well to wif.

Of couse, this is way out of scope for this first version, and would have to be syncronized with Harry/RAW.

Cheers
Hakon

[Jimm]

Fair enough.

I share your view on VPs, indeed (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong) but they are a system evolved from conventions rather than RAW so in theory so long as everyone agrees the system is there anything stopping you running whatever victory conditions for powers that you wanted in MWIF albeit outside the parameters of the code of the game?