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I'm playing the Western Allies, Stone10 is playing the USSR, Axis is AI.

Most of my action early on was in North Africa. For five months my desert force was fighting with half-rations and low ammo, because the Italian navy succeeded more often than not in destroying my convoys. However, I was doing the same against the weak Italian force, and the lonely AfrikaKorps. I succeeded in taking Tobruk, then Tripoli, by Dec '41. I was thinking that was the end of the North African campaign, and I could concentrate on getting a foothold somewhere in Europe.

As the screenshot shows, the Axis AI had other ideas:

I didn't get an email notification for turn 37, so it's a little bit late. Did you get any email notification for my turn?

turn 38.

Tallin will fall soon

Finland

Lithuania

Belorussia

Gomel

And you are only in 1941 ??[X(]

Yes.  Well. '42 now.  We're finding some balance problems, but hopefully it will serve to help with improving the German AI.  Example, AI reinforcement rules, which may be causing a serious delay in the AI establishing a good front, or keeping up with its armor.  

I'm closer to Berlin than he is, that's why he think there are some balance problems

















(joke )

2 humans against 1 AI. Shame on you guys

Should be a little bit harder after first patch.

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

2 humans against 1 AI. Shame on you guys

Should be a little bit harder after first patch.

That was my sentiment as well...........(the shame on you part)...........[:D]

ORIGINAL: stone10


I'm closer to Berlin than he is, that's why he think there are some balance problems

Yeah, we'll see who thinks balance problems when I get there afore ya.

Seriously though, as it becomes apparent that one of us will get to Berlin probably in late '42 or '43, it's an opportunity to tweak the AI. For instance, why did the AI send those powerful forces into N. Africa, through Tunisia, at the very moment that I was invading in France? It's just some part of the AI's priorities table, that needs to be adjusted. And can the AI be taught better to support its armored spearheads with its infantry? And whatever can be done to improve the German AI, make sure it doesn't give a German human player even more of an advantage.

It appears to me that the real balance issue is between AI and human player. This may not be a good test of overall play balance as the AI will not likely be able to balance its effort between the two threats (Allies and USSR). BTW is difficulty set to normal for Axis? (I would suggest at least setting to easy for a game with human opponents controlling both Allies USSR particularly with this scenario.

Programing the AI is the toughest part of the design, perhaps a control to boost effectiveness rather than simply the economics to control 'difficulty' would help. Clearly the main chalange is to get the AI to react approprately with assets in different theatres and to determine approprate defensive / and counter attack movements. For that matter do determine if it is in an offensive or defensive posture based on the situation.

I have noted significant improvement in AI between this game and Time of Wrath but AI remains the weak link. This is to be expected as IMO the AI programing for this type of game is much more chalenging than for example programing a computer to play chess. Due to FoW moves and counter moves cannot be evaluated, and it is very difficult to evaluate the 'sucess of a possible move without looking a few turns ahead.

Please continue keep us posted, I for one enjoy the AAR's and am sure they will help the designers improve the game.

It appears to me that the real balance issue is between AI and human player. This may not be a good test of overall play balance as the AI will not likely be able to balance its effort between the two threats (Allies and USSR). BTW is difficulty set to normal for Axis? (I would suggest at least setting to easy for a game with human opponents controlling both Allies USSR particularly with this scenario.

Hmm there may have been a glitch in that last posting (or perhaps operator error 0 [:D]

Yeah, we should have set the AI to easy.

Probably no one agrees with me, but I think the AI should not be bound by the Fog of War rules. I say let the AI see everything.

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

Yeah, we should have set the AI to easy.

Probably no one agrees with me, but I think the AI should not be bound by the Fog of War rules. I say let the AI see everything.

I think you have a good point there. Ideally (we are not going to get anywhere near there anytime soon) the AI should act just like a pretty competent human with the same restrictions and 'knowlege' Practically speaking the AI is pretty dumb and needs some way to simulate 'insight' so with FoW turned off for example it could be programed to play out a few moves and evaluate the results (playing both sides) while this is pretty processing intensive, it would be pretty powerful to play a few turns and select the outcome it scores the highest. This is how chess programs work and they pretty closely emulate human capabilities in fact they can beat any human using brute force computation if enough processing power is applied.

Removing FoW from the AI really wouldn't affect it much. It is really not smart enough to reqire the things you would do vrs a human like deceptive deployments with units held beyond the 'spotting range.

I have yet to read one AAR where the Human player was set to hard and the AI was set to easy......and I have yet to win a game on the hard setting.[:@]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

Yeah, we should have set the AI to easy.