Why was the AI programmed to cheat?

[Zooey72]

I am playing a game against the comp where I am japan and the computer is Germany. I have been doing very well against Russia, attacking it on the first turn and I had over run China by 1942.

My first complaint is that Germany is doing nothing, and I believe it was programmed to do nothing in the event the Jap player is doing well. Its offensive never even took Smolensk once. It constantly gives ground and sets itself up to lose. The comp does not do this when I am playing the WA or Russia. It became worse and worse the closer I got to Moscow. Even worse than that the troops Germany was retreating were being stockpiled in Germany itself, leaving France/Russia wide open to invasion. Not 1 unit was left behind to defend the "Atlantic Wall". Which leads me into my second complaint.

The rules state that I have until the winter of 43 to go to war with the WA. In the winter of 42 the WA declared war on me (Germany did not attack the USA). Why was the AI programmed to literaly break the rules?

You need to come out with a patch to fix these problems, this is ridiculous.

PS. The WA invaded Gibralter in early 42 and attacked up and had france by winter of 43. When it moved up to from Gibralter to France not 1 German unit was put there to slow them down. Come on now

[Harrybanana]

I've never played against the AI as Japan while leaving Germany computer controlled so I can't comment on your concerns with the German AI. I have no doubt that the German AI is very weak, but I do doubt that the Developers purposely made it even stupider just because Japan is player controlled.

With repect to the WA declaring War I note you say that you attacked Russia on turn 1 and also overran China. The Rules state that the frozen WA territories become unfrozen if Japan "both occupies a non-coastal Chinese nationality region and is at war with the Soviet Union and the turn is Winter 1942 or later."

[a511]

while i seldom play the AI, in both games i played the allies against the AI axis, GER played very poorly in the RUS campaign (just dancing around the units in the movement phase but end up doing nothing[X(]). besides, GER made no reaction when the WA was going to take romania (while i understand the prime objective of GER after '43 was to protect berlin and the bulk of GER forces should be deployed for this purpose, its hard to understand why GER let a single WA milita to go unchallenged from Yugo to Romania, when all factories and resources in both regions are undamaged ...)

so i agree with harry that the GER AI is poor, and i dont believe AI is programmed to cheat. to have a better game exp, u can play the axis against the AI allies. but of course, the best game exp is to play pbem!

cheers,
Anthony

[JanSorensen]

While the AI is rather poor its certainly not deliberately so and not linked to how its allies are doing. So, your concern is incorrect. We all wish that the AI was better I can assure you.

Concerning the WA attack HarryBanana already pointed out the rule you had missed.

As for cheating. The AI cheats by ignoring Fog of War. Apart from that I believe it follows the same rules that a human player would - its just less clever and much more predictable.

To get a decent game against the AI you should let it play on Hard (or at the very least Challenging). If you are playing on Normal its just too easy once you have understood how the game works.

[Zooey72]

Ok, I understand the why the WA hit me in 42. Fair enough. But I have played the Japs while Germany was an AI and if I do not go off the coast, much less attack Russia the German war goes pretty much the same way it did during the actual war. An attack on Russia is supposed to put pressure on Russia from 2 different directions. Now if that pressure was coming in 44 or later I can understand it being too little too late. But the pressure was coming in 42 when the Germans should have been hitting Russia the hardest historicaly. Instead they were all the way backed up to Poland. AND the allies who normaly wait until 44 (as it historicaly happened) to go into Eurupe did it in 42, and had France by winter of 43 w/o a single German unit trying to stop them.

It really does come across that the skill of the German AI player is dependant on the advance of the Japs. But I could be wrong.

[JanSorensen]

The only explanation (apart from random luck) I can offer would be that you had unfrozen the US early without putting pressure on them with the Japanese thus giving the WA alot more power to spent in Europe. Thats might have made the German AI more defensive in nature.

I would suggest that you try another game where you attack Russia but do not attack inland in China. My guess is that the German AI would perform less defensively in that case but I do not know for certain.