Matrix Games Forums

I am playing the Allies vs computer Axis. I gave the axis a bonus.

I was able to delay slightly german conquest of Poland, then delay their conquest of France by a fair amount and was feeling sorta bad for the AI, (thinking, they are going to have a hard time swinging over to Russia quickly when suddenly the computer surprised me by invading Spain and send a 8 units to Africa. (unknown units)

My question is...did I just get lucky with the spanish invasion by germans, and this was a nice surprise for me? Does the AI have a set of variable that it can follow that produce different courses of action based upon situations?

I am not sure it was wise of the AI Axis to invade Spain but am thrilled to see it happen.

thanks,


**actually I see that some of this is being discussed in another thread. I do look at Russia and wonder how Germany will deal with it..it is going to be a german invasion of Russia Summer of 42 it looks like. With that sais, Germany has conqured Spain, Portugal, pushed the allies back in Africa and is almost finished conquering Yugoslavia. Not the plan I would have gone with for myself, but I do find it interesting and exciting.

While not impossible, historically, it would have been far more difficult than it appears on the face of it.

If you want to supply an army invading Spain you need rail supply - historically Spanish railways were a heterogenous mish-mash of meter (~3'3"), narrow (3'6") and Iberian (5' 5 13⁄16" in Spain and 5' 5 1⁄2" in Portugal) ... and some lines in Portugal were Standard (4'8.5") gauge - and they were generally poorly supplied with locomotives and other rolling stock.

Worse, mostly they were single track lines of limited capacity, didn't even interconnect all the time (even between the different gauges, heck, even between the same gauges), overwhelmingly ran from Ports inland, and there was not a single coherent rail line running from, say, the French border, to, say, Gibraltar.

The road net was not any better.

The Germans estimated they could, at best, support a single Corps of Assault Infantry and Heavy Artillery (say 3-4 divisions) around Gibraltar for a 'siege' or assault ... and they were most definitely not allowing for Spanish Partisans ... there were plenty of ex-Republicans around who, if supplied, would have happily slit Falangist and German throats, blown rail and road bridges and the like. It would have made Yugoslavia look like a quiet backwater!

So, unless the AI invaded with a single Corps or equivalent ... not realistic.

Phil

A.I. has a logic tree of scripted plans based on timing and a random plan chance included. The Allied A.I. is more reactionary.