House rules playing the AI

[Uxbridge]

Even though I would love playing against another human, I haven't yet come to that. As my schedule looks, I can sometimes find many hours of intensive play, whereas, most of the time, I must stay off the game for days. It doesn't really do for the seesaw pattern of PBEM at the moment.

So I play against the AI. And I win. It's okay, I like winning, but it's rather easy, and I normally have Germany dead (I mostly play the Allies) around 1942-43. The biggest disappointment is when one starts to find holes in the German line. At that point one can easily surround German units or just rush inte Germany proper, disregarding supply. Some units will suffer consequences, but that doesn't matter; once the German cities fall into allied hands, it's goodbye uncle Adolph anyway. In reality, neither the Russians, nor the Western forces did anything like that.

I accept this condition. In a grand WWII game with a strong AI, human players battling each other must surely labor under very harsh restrictions in game mechanics. In a game as open and variable as Warplan, the AI must by neccesity be under hard pressure to make decisions easily taken by the human mind. It's the nature of the beast.

However, I did come up with some house rules that made the last game as the Allies slightly more interesting. The most influencial has to do with movement into enemy territory. To prevent the Race for Berlin effect in the earlier games, I decided that no Western Allied or USSR unit would be allowed to advance more than 2 hexes into unconquered territory from the last supplied hex. That is to say, if a unit starts on a hex with a supply figure in it (shown with S pressed), it may only move 2 unsupplied hexes away from the starting point.

I still took Germany out by late 1943, but the game felt much more realistic. Now I'm going to start a new game playing the Axis with the same type of house rule. There should be some extra bonuses for the krauts, though.

To sum it up (with some lesser suggestions).

1. Follow the 2-hex rule described above.
2. Make German armour and mech units exempt from #1 when playing Axis.
3. Disregard #1 altogether in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco (or not, player's choice).
4. Do not, as playing the Allies, interfere with Germany conquering any of the minors prior to the fall of France.
5. Do not, as playing the Allies, bomb Ploesti with Russian air units, this can deprive Germany of half it's oil stock and dramatically inhibit the German war effort.
6. Do not, as playing the Allies, fight it out with BEF in France. It will turn the game into WW1.

That's it, on top of my head.

[AlvaroSousa]

What levels of difficulty do you play the A.I. vs?

[Uxbridge]

Lastly experienced/excellent.

But as I understand it, difficulty doesn't effect AI performance in positioning?

[AlvaroSousa]

Add 2 levels in experience
Add 1 level in supply

That is what I have been told is a good effective challenge.

You can try Optimal-Ubermensch

There is only so much I can do with positioning. The A.I. tries and pulls weak units off the line to put in strong units starting with armor. It tries to exploit and push ahead.

[Uxbridge]

Do you mean add those figures to the levels I mentioned above, or to the normal set-up levels?

Nevertheless, I have now started a 1940/Axis game and will follow my HR restrictions to see where I end up.

[gwgardner]

An alternative to your two-hex rule might be a requirement that the human player always maintain a linked zone of control line, where possible.

[Uxbridge]

That is another idea. Maybe both?

The problem with linked ZoCs is that Russian armour and mech could still rush forward through the gaps; they're numerous enough for that. But if used in tandem, why not?