What if the Allies were not forced to run?

[el cid again]

Our AI is really stupid - it is hard coded stupid - it is not even AI - it is pseudo (pretend) AI. It imitates AI - but it is just "go there, do that" in hard code - tied to slots.

In Luzon, ALL units MUST move to Bataan - period - and immediately - in spite of how you code them as a modder (assigning objectives). EVEN units with STATIC devices and too much weight to move go to Bataan - except for the Manila Bay forts - which are not coded to do that.

I was thinking of swaping slots with Manila for RHSBBO - so all units run for Manila instead of Bataan. It is not malarial. It is better off supply wise. It has better airfields. It has better forts too. And it is the thing that needs to be kept from enemy hands as long as possible. [In reality you don't have to do that with an army - Fort Drum alone should be up to it - but in history due to lack of food it could not do that. In the game the system doesn't make a fort strong enough to hold out a year.]

What if, instead, we DO NOT USE the Bataan slot at all? What if we force the AI to behave normally - and units on the beaches do not run even before the enemy is in sight? Is this better even in RHSCVO - or is forcing the Mac "retreat into the swamp - give everyone denge fever and malaria" the best way to go? [This is addressed to the crowd who believes "if it doesn't happen exactly the same way as history, it isn't historical" - a club of which I am not a member - but I want their view - since CVO is for them.]

Request for comment.

[JeffroK]

Are the Units hard coded or the Bases/Hexes??

Allocate different slots to the forces/bases in the PI.

Maybe their slots could be allocated to some immobile units such as the West Coast Forts so they will never migrate to Bataan or bases in Alaska or Outer Mongolia

[Platoonist]

I seem to recall reading on these boards once a quote by Gary Grigsby that the AI in WitP was the most difficult programming challenge he had ever faced. Given it's average performance I wonder if wasn't just the most difficult marketing challenge he ever faced. The game will sell more if it has an AI...any AI. Even at the best of times it acts like a disinterested party...more often like an ally as it seems as keenly interested in the destruction of it's forces as the human player is.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Our AI is really stupid - it is hard coded stupid - it is not even AI - it is pseudo (pretend) AI. It imitates AI - but it is just "go there, do that" in hard code - tied to slots.

In Luzon, ALL units MUST move to Bataan - period - and immediately - in spite of how you code them as a modder (assigning objectives). EVEN units with STATIC devices and too much weight to move go to Bataan - except for the Manila Bay forts - which are not coded to do that.

I was thinking of swaping slots with Manila for RHSBBO - so all units run for Manila instead of Bataan. It is not malarial. It is better off supply wise. It has better airfields. It has better forts too. And it is the thing that needs to be kept from enemy hands as long as possible. [In reality you don't have to do that with an army - Fort Drum alone should be up to it - but in history due to lack of food it could not do that. In the game the system doesn't make a fort strong enough to hold out a year.]

What if, instead, we DO NOT USE the Bataan slot at all? What if we force the AI to behave normally - and units on the beaches do not run even before the enemy is in sight? Is this better even in RHSCVO - or is forcing the Mac "retreat into the swamp - give everyone denge fever and malaria" the best way to go? [This is addressed to the crowd who believes "if it doesn't happen exactly the same way as history, it isn't historical" - a club of which I am not a member - but I want their view - since CVO is for them.]

Request for comment.

I imagine if it is similar to the Soviet August Storm code, then the code may be telling the unit to move to hex X,Y so regardless of what you place in the Bataan slot even if it is some west coast base , the forces will move to hex X,Y.

Of course testing would prove one way or another.

[el cid again]

Are the Units hard coded or the Bases/Hexes??

Allocate different slots to the forces/bases in the PI.

Maybe their slots could be allocated to some immobile units such as the West Coast Forts so they will never migrate to Bataan or bases in Alaska or Outer Mongolia

I regret to say the techincal answer is "both." And not just a few. Here is a quote "hundreds." The manual prohibition about changing slots is a serious one: you have to KNOW the code BEFORE you do so. [An empty slot in stock is not specially coded. We have lists of slots - some in the manual - some on the forum - with special code - e.g. the malaria free hexes in the tropical zone. But there are hundreds NOT listed ANYWHERE - and apparently no list anywhere even for Matrix people to use.]

Now this is ONLY an issue for AI use - that is if you are going to manually handle the units - they will obey orders. But IF you want the pseudo AI to work like history - totally defeating it is not clever either. Then it WON'T behave like history - or even pretend to. For lots of technical reasons we cannot move the UNITs as a block - trust me - I run tests day and night - do that you run into undocumented code making them do strange things. But we CAN and sometimes DO move locations - when we have a reason - USING the AI hard code with understanding what the effects would be. [Thus I can make Palembang malarial and Baguio not malarial - which I have done - for cause - and it is approximately correct history/geography - approximate because of the size of the hexes.] This is the germane question: do we LIKE the hard code about Bataan?

[el cid again]

I imagine if it is similar to the Soviet August Storm code, then the code may be telling the unit to move to hex X,Y so regardless of what you place in the Bataan slot even if it is some west coast base , the forces will move to hex X,Y.

Of course testing would prove one way or another.

First - you should know I was a test technician from about 1976 - and an electronics technician before that. I spend about ten years in test as such, then migrated over to a related field for several more - and we have to shoot you if we tell you about it.

Second - I have been running AI vs AI tests for some time - at the same time making changes of various kinds - and I have become intimate with the map by making a revision of it (now completed). I don't think that people at Matrix have the time to run this sort of tests - and we have a lot of evidence testing is not their modus operendi - so in some ways I may have a better sense of what happens than anyone (bearing in mind I am wholly ignorant of the code, which I cannot see).

It is clear the game codes slots, not hex locations. If I change what is in a slot, IT behaves according to the code for the SLOT - even if I tell it to do something else! It was confusing me but a test made it clear (see below).

In this case, I assigned the Bataan slot to a location in the Visayas - a place MY land units can "walk" to because of my ferry system. The entire army in the Philippines (sans Fort Drum) promptly went there! So I stumbled into the fact that changing the slot moves the location where this code sends everything to. Then I looked up the stock slot for Bataan - and wa la I understood why - that is where most units really went - and in stock units in the Visayas won't run north - they cannot get there.

[m10bob]

The northern Japanese islands are coal-rich. What if the Japanese had developed oil reserves there, (preventing their need to furnish an oil supply line running the length of the Pacific to Java ?
If this is "too sci-fi", maybe the Japanese AI has developed a means to use coal (as the Germans did after they lost the Ploesti oil fields?).We already know the Germans traded technology with the Japanese..
Of course, either of these can be simulated by giving the Japanese larger bunkers, etc.
Nothing hinders the Japanese effort so much as the need for oil and his ability to transport it..
I do not feel it would be necessary to increase the "value" of the northern oilfields, just for the sake of forcing a larger Home Defense..If the Japanese leaves his Home undefended, this should be his option......

[el cid again]

The northern Japanese islands are coal-rich. What if the Japanese had developed oil reserves there, (preventing their need to furnish an oil supply line running the length of the Pacific to Java ?

THis is not the right thread for this - but to answer the question - coal is not a substitute for oil. In fact, Japan had the worlds most developed shale oil technology, and also a form of liquified coal (it is white) you can use like oil. Too expensive. Coal mines can take a long time to develop and in this case Japan had developed mines in Manchukuo and Korea providing cheaper and high grade coal in plenty. There is no meaningful impact of this change. In our system it would be just a few more resource points. Or possibly oil points.

[el cid again]

Nothing hinders the Japanese effort so much as the need for oil and his ability to transport it..

Essentially correct - oversimplified - but in a sense that is what the war was about. The US/UK/NEI cut off oil - and Japan went to war to get it. There was no technology fix. Japan had the best oil shale technology on the planet - but it might at best have provided a million tons per year. It only provided 1/3 to 2/3 that in fact.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Nothing hinders the Japanese effort so much as the need for oil and his ability to transport it..

Essentially correct - oversimplified - but in a sense that is what the war was about. The US/UK/NEI cut off oil - and Japan went to war to get it. There was no technology fix. Japan had the best oil shale technology on the planet - but it might at best have provided a million tons per year. It only provided 1/3 to 2/3 that in fact.

Yeah, and my statement was a "what if?"..I knew this was not the right thread, but I knew YOU would see it..[:D]