Impressions of this game

[Chopain]

I've own this game for awhile now so lately I decided to figure out how to play it. I decided to start a game on easy as Spain. It took me awhile to get use to the transportation of units on ships but eventualy I owned Africa and Italy. I figured out that I knew what I was doing and it was time to try out France. I won the game with ease taking over basicly everything. Noticed that the game wasn't a challenge at all. That it was kind of strange thinking that since it was my first time that I shouldn't win the game. So I decided to go all out and play France against "hard" ai. I can't tell the difference.

Things I noticed. The ai does not DOW each other. The ai does not attack. IE. Turkey has been siting on the border inside Egypt for over a year now not moving an inch. Austria has been siting in Naples not doing anything. Russia sits one square into Sweeden and thats it! I have never seen the ai do anything vs any neutral contry unless it is a one province country just a forever stalemate war all over the place.

When my allies join a war they don't attack. Nor do they get attacked. The countries never come to peace terms. I was at war with Austria. Turkey was with me. Two thirds of the Austrian army sat on the Turkish border while as France I took over the rest of their country. The only offence I ever saw was sometimes England and or Russia will go after the Netherlands. Once Russia took Denmark from me.

So is this all normal? Is there no challenge unless I play ancient email swaping? Thanks and I look foward to any responces that follow.

[eske]

The AI is known for its passivity - especially after the first year.
 
But take a look at the threads around here, and you will get a clearer picture of, what to expect.
 
Oh, I make sure you are playing the last patch, 1.04. A lot of bugs and AI stupidity has been cleared out.
Still a some way to go along that road though...
 
/eske

[iamspamus]

Yep, the AI needs some help. I just played as France for the first time. I've done Russia, Spain and Turkey, my favorites.

France was really no problem at all. I built up as many ships as I could. By 1811, I took on the Brits and handily beat them. I don't know what they were building, but it wasn't ships...or troops...[>:]

Anyway, the AI definitely needs some direction after the first year. It just kinda sits. It doesn't go for depots. Wehn at peace, the Spanish sat in one space with 8 armies (they couldn't have been full strength, as I eviscerated them in the war) and ROLLED FOR ATTRITION, losing factors. No scattering to get good Mods, nothing. Austria did the same thing.

So, there still is some work needed to be done. Believe it or not, it's getting better.

Jason

[iamspamus]

One more thing. I have suggested that the AI has some type of checklist of options that it goes through when making decisions. I'm not a programmer at all, so I don't know the difficulty of it. However, I saw this model on the World in Flames Matrix game forum. Basically, there is a checklist of options that it goes through. In addition, there is a somewhat randomized set of "postures" that the country picks, ie. aggressive, passive, etc. In our case, for Russia it could be: aggressive towards Pru/Aus; agg vs. Fra; agg vs. Brit (ie. builds ships); agg vs. Caucasus, etc.

Just a thought.

Jason

[pzgndr]

Yep, the AI needs some help... Anyway, the AI definitely needs some direction after the first year.

Looking at the upcoming fixes, v1.05 resolves some of the known AI weaknesses, and v1.06 has some more fixes for the long game AI passivity. Other than being anxious to see more improvements implemented faster, like everyone, I'm content to wait for the bug fixes and game enhancements and ongoing AI improvements. I don't think anyone has promoted the idea that this is all normal, ie the known AI weaknesses. Once the game bugs are resolved and the focus eventually shifts to serious AI improvements, it should be possible to develop a more challenging computer opponent. [8D]

[iamspamus]

Oh, I'm all for continuing to play, while waiting for the AI to gain, well, AI and take over the world by controlling Skynet...

Reference?

Jason

[ndrose]

The AI certainly has room for improvement, but it is getting better. (Its current passivity seems to be an artifact of the fixes to keep it from the frenetic and suicidal hyper-aggression of earlier versions.) There are ways to mae the game interesting by making things difficult for yourself. Some of the "house rules" I adopt when playing againt the AI:

No allies. Go it alone, even if you're Prussia, in which case, DOW Austria.

If you're France, start by invading Spain, and get yourself into war with Austria and Prussia while most of your army is in Spain. Special Spanish campaign subrule: no attacks on Madrid until all provincial capitals are garrisoned.

If you're Britain, build a land empire. I fought one very challenging using this rule when I conquered Naples after Austria had expanded in central Italy. I thought I was being clever by putting an Austrian buffer between me and France. Instead, Austria allied with France and declared war on me. The rest of the game, the tiny British army fought its way up the Italian peninsula against both Austria and France, marched on Vienna (ending up with several provinces including Bohemia), and finally wrung an unconditional from France. At that point I thought about DOWing Prussia and Russia with the aim of creating Poland as a British client, but ultimately abandoned the game, as it was too silly, and I'd already won.

Despite the silliness of the result, it was an interesting problem throughout to fight the dimwitted but enormous armies arrayed against the little British Expeditionary Force.

[Marshall Ellis]

Just an FYI that I have made some pretty decent breakthroughs in 1.06 code that should help the AI actually fight a war with a major to completion!
 

[Chopain]

Thanks for the input. Maybe one day my dreams will come true and I'll get invaded on more then one front. Better yet I'll be happy with the chance for just one defensive war. [:)]

[iamspamus]

Answer myself...Terminator...sigh.
[:D]

Jason

ORIGINAL: iamspamus

Oh, I'm all for continuing to play, while waiting for the AI to gain, well, AI and take over the world by controlling Skynet...

Reference?

Jason

[adamcs]

In the Napoleonic Wars there were coalitions fighting against Napoleon. I can't really make any coalition here although I have several allies. Whatever I do they just sit patiently. One of the amazing things about this era was that it needed the whole Europe to defeat Napoleon at Leipzig, and I think, that was the 5th coalition. In this game it seems absolutely impossible to fight battles like that. For some reason I can never make my allies join me and fight even if they are all in war with France.
Oce I wanted a unit from one of my allies and the message was that I could take it for something like 150. We were both allies and war with France. That's crazy.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: Chopain

Thanks for the input. Maybe one day my dreams will come true and I'll get invaded on more then one front. Better yet I'll be happy with the chance for just one defensive war. [:)]

Yea, I agree. I played 4-5 games real deep in over the holidays and was able to see the AI just simply not do much of anything after the initial DOWs that basically lined up the allies vs Fr and Tu. The political behavior was good but the military behavior was horrid. I hope this really changes in 1.06

[ndrose]

My impression is that while the AI has some of the basic mechanics down much better (no longer sending corps every which way without supply), it's making movement decisions based on a one-month horizon. So until you get close enough to poke it with a sharp stick, it just sleeps.

So the Russian AI, say, may think "Time to beat up the Turks," and declare war. Good. But then it looks around and says, "Hmm, that's strange, I don't see any Turks right here around Brest-Litovsk. Oh, well...zzzzzzzz...."

[mr.godo]

The AI is too soft at the moment. There should be a level that no one can win. Just tack on an extra level where you give the AI a lot of resources and make them aggressive. Then when people complain about that, you can dial it down a few notches.

However, I believe this whole AI effort should be abandoned in favour of tcp/ip and multiplayer enhancements. I've dropped all my mp games as they are just too painfully slow.

[Marshall Ellis]

Curious, what is an MP game? I'm assuming PBEM?
I think phase skipping (1.05) will really speed things up a bit! I'm seeing it!
 
 
 
 
 

[NeverMan]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

Curious, what is an MP game? I'm assuming PBEM?
I think phase skipping (1.05) will really speed things up a bit! I'm seeing it!

I don't think phase skipping is going to do THAT much simply because then I have to think about which phases I want skipped and make sure I want to skip them and 9 out of 10 times I'm not going to skip a phase "just in case".

Of course, that's just me.

Simul will go MUCH MUCH further in helping game speed.

[Dancing Bear]

I also think Simul dip will be a big break through in game speed.

However, I suspect that the skipping will work better than most people are anticipating, perhaps not in the first 9 months of the game, but certainly later in the game, when everyone is basically licking their wounds. It will depend on the group, and likely would work better with some house ettiquette rules around when it will used.

I'd still love to see more advances in the PBEM game speed, along the lines that have been discussed elsewhere.

[Marshall Ellis]

I agree that skipping will make some big gains. I am seeing this already in my tests.
 

[mr.godo]

sorry, mp=multi player. pbem.
it's not really multiplayer.

i played out france monday-wednesday. boring, except for the battles.

try waiting an hour after every player's diplo phase. see if that affects your time tests. seriously.

[Marshall Ellis]

ORIGINAL: mr.godo

sorry, mp=multi player. pbem.
it's not really multiplayer.

i played out france monday-wednesday. boring, except for the battles.

try waiting an hour after every player's diplo phase. see if that affects your time tests. seriously.

Why wait the hour?