AI vs AI

[ganderson1]

There is an AI vs AI switch in the settings file, which I appreciate as I sometimes like to watch an alternate history play out without the need of running one of the two sides myself. Problem is, it doesn't seem to be pausable -- meaning you can't zoom in/out, nor pause it occasionally to study the map, etc. Hotkeys don't work when the game is running in this AI-vs-AI mode. Anybody else encountered and/or solved this?

[Dave Ferguson]

Just tried this with the 39 scenario and let it run to July 41. Poland, holland, France and Denmark fell in that order. Amusing that the Italians captured Copenhagen! A large battle of britain but no sea invasions plus Yugoslavia is left alone.
The axis AI did redeploy to the east and has started an offensive .
 
No way of pausing it or ending it. I had to ctrl-alt-delete to try and shut it down and ended up deleting the commander.exe process.

[ganderson1]

Yeah, I've seen Italians deep in Russia, too. [:)] And yes, ctl-alt-del is the only way to stop it apparently.

I posted this same question on the Slitherine forum, and got a definitive reply from Iain McNeil. After he spanked me a bit for tinkering with a debug feature ("you shouldn't be playing with it!"), he said it was "updated recently" (in a forthcoming patch...?) and that it "will not work properly." I then asked about the possibility of switching sides during gameplay, so we could watch the AI battle itself. I will quote his reply: "Its not a simple thing to do as the AI needs to know what it was doing. E.g. you switch over with some troops on board ship in the Atlantic - the AI doesn't know why they are there or what it was doing with them. This is an extreme example but it would end up with very odd behaviour and may completely break so I can't see this happening."

So it looks like this won't be happening...

[ganderson1]

Correction to the above: McNeil said it has NOT been updated recently (so a forthcoming patch was not implied). Apologies for my hasty read.

[Dave Ferguson]

I can see his point about the AI knowing why units are where they are. It is still fun to watch though.
 
Warning, If you try this don't forget to turn the switch off again. I have just played 2 seperate PBEM turns with the switch on [&:]
 
Hope it hasn't screwed the turns up