Some AI weak spots

[carnifex]

1) As the Axis player, I evacuate all supplies and all militia from North Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia on the first turn, leaving the Med empty except for troops in Italy. The WA AI will not invade North Africa or Sardinia until late 41, leaving me 6-8 turns to sponge off the resources, even though I have no unfrozen troops there.

2) The Japanese AI still has trouble taking Singapore. It will frequently commit inadequate forces in what is arguably the most important assault of the moment.

3) The Japanese AI does not use continuous air attacks to reduce the huge stack the Chinese invariably build and has trouble holding on to both coastal provinces it seizes early in the game.

4) The WA uses heavy fleets to escort transports. My subs, based out of France, had no problem reaching the sea zone west of England, where the AI several times placed 2 heavy fleets and a transport. Once it used two CV's and two transports - all sunk by my 8 subs.

5) The SU defend Moscow to the death with everything they have, leading to the total annihilation of the Soviet forces when Moscow is captured after an encirclement. Several times I did not attack Moscow and any adjecent territory; instead I formed a giant pincer that connected somewhere in the Urals. The AI did not resist my flank advances with any vigor because 80% of it's forces were stacked in Moscow.

[Joel Billings]

Gary has already been working on some of these issues. Some may be too hard to fix without "breaking" other things. Keep reporting AI issues as we do read these posts and take note. If you have saves of particularly bad behavior, you can send them to 2by3@2by3games.com. These saves should be "before" saves that we can load and run and watch the AI make the bad moves. Please detail in your email what moves you think are a problem and what alternative move should be made. We can't guarantee we can fix the problem, but we'll take a look at it.

One concern we have is that the AI can do things at the higher play levels that it just can't do at the lower play levels. It's like plugging holes in the dyke, you've only got so many hands and arms to cover everything. If you give the AI some supply help, suddenly it can cover things it just can't possibly do without the help. That's why we recommend players with more than a few games of experience move up as they win games, at least to the Hard Level.

[Rattlehead2005]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Gary has already been working on some of these issues. Some may be too hard to fix without "breaking" other things. Keep reporting AI issues as we do read these posts and take note. If you have saves of particularly bad behavior, you can send them to 2by3@2by3games.com. These saves should be "before" saves that we can load and run and watch the AI make the bad moves. Please detail in your email what moves you think are a problem and what alternative move should be made. We can't guarantee we can fix the problem, but we'll take a look at it.

One concern we have is that the AI can do things at the higher play levels that it just can't do at the lower play levels. It's like plugging holes in the dyke, you've only got so many hands and arms to cover everything. If you give the AI some supply help, suddenly it can cover things it just can't possibly do without the help. That's why we recommend players with more than a few games of experience move up as they win games, at least to the Hard Level.

Well that deff. a GOOD thing. That Gary is taking time to correct or tweak these AI issues[:)]

[Willy Liao]

Yeah, I've sent in a few saves with bugs and one pair of saves that showed particularly egregious behavior where the computer ignored the Caucasus while stuffing Moscow with troops. The Soviet AI is very afraid you'll take Moscow...so much so that it neglected to even garrison Western Kazakhstan with a single unit when I occupied Northern Persia, and it failed to reinforce the Caucasus. (this was in a 1940 scenario game)

Even playing the 1943 scenario, I hampered the Soviet war effort by thrusting forward in the South & actually held the Caucasus for 2 turns due to the AI's refusal to place adequate garrisons in the way of Army Group South. (Joel do you need more saves for this or have you got enough?) The AI did do a more than adequate job crushing Army Group North, but it costs 70 supplies to repair the Caucasus after the Germans pay a visit, in addition to the loss of 6 production points per turn, so the AI probably needs to be willing to divert forces there.

[Joel Billings]

Gary has made some changes to the AI in the Soviet southern area. What we need now more than saves on that issue are a few more testers that can sign up to give the AI a workout and provide some feedback. The problem with work on the AI is that changes can cause the AI to play better in one area and worse in others, so more testing is required. See the post about needing a few good men (we'd take good women too) posted at the top if you want to sign up as a tester. Of course, these testers will need to also help out with testing of various bug fixes as we make them. Testing on the AI changes won't really start until next week as we aren't releasing versions to test this week with Keith traveling.

[Traveler]

Playing GER I watched Japan (AI) seem to just quit in ~43. All it built was supplies. And it seemed to stop doing anything in China.