Bulge to the Rhine

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

Bulge to the Rhine

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the West >> Bulge to the Rhine

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

Bulge to the Rhine - 8/28/2017 5:41:23 PM

tyronec

Posts: 4940
Joined: 8/7/2015
From: Portaferry, N. Ireland
Status: offline

I am playing as Allies vs AI. On T1 the Axis player made several land attacks at the following odds:
48:512
262:350
172:145
14:49
68:395
7:90
27:152
54:129
18:25
107:194
So it should have lost all of these battles but by some good fortune managed to win every single one. Reminds me of a PBEM game I had once...
Is there some sort of fix built into this scenario for the Axis AI ?

Post #: 1

RE: Bulge to the Rhine - 8/28/2017 6:31:07 PM

RedLancer

Posts: 4314
Joined: 11/16/2005
From: UK
Status: offline

Not that I know about. The AI normally plays strictly by numbers but we script and balance T1 to ensure historical results so I'm not surprised. What difficulty level did you use?

_____________________________

John
WitE2 Asst Producer
WitE & WitW Dev

(in reply to tyronec)

Post #: 2

RE: Bulge to the Rhine - 8/28/2017 9:04:36 PM

tyronec

Posts: 4940
Joined: 8/7/2015
From: Portaferry, N. Ireland
Status: offline

Vanilla settings. I note that playing Axis I cannot make any progress towards Aachen whereas the AI just stormed it.
Is not a complaint - would make sense to give Axis a bonus for the Battle of the Bulge but was not sure if that was the reason or perhaps something else at play.

(in reply to RedLancer)

Post #: 3

RE: Bulge to the Rhine - 8/28/2017 10:28:40 PM

Joel Billings

Posts: 32265
Joined: 9/20/2000
From: Santa Rosa, CA
Status: offline

We script turn 1 for every scenario. In order to counter randomness and provide a good opening move, when the script is executed in a game, every attack automatically wins (odds should be set to 2 to 1 at the end). The key is for the scenario designer/scripter not to take advantage of this capability. We try to create a script where the attacks being made should win, and with any AI help are even more likely to win (because they will win when they execute). We can't predict the exact retreats and routs that will take place, so it's possible that AI units will accidentally bump into retreating units that they didn't encounter during the making of the script. These unintended hasty attacks will also win automatically, although they aren't likely to do much more than push back the defending units.

I just ran the script with no help and I can see lots of German units in the area of the Bulge never move. I'm not sure if the script is failing for some reason, or if one of the scenario designers made an intentional or unintentional change to the script. Although it's pushing some units back too easily, it clearly has more units available to launch attacks that aren't moving at all. I'll contact the scenario designer and try to figure out if we need a new script or if something else is going on. Thanks for letting us know what's happening in the scenario.

BTW, if you see an attack end in 2.0 to 1 odds on turn 1, odds are it was an attack that failed but was automatically set to 2 to 1 in order to win the attack. There are many cases however, where the initial odds may look bad, but the battle ends up flipping things with the attacker correctly winning. Initial odds are just an indication of how the battle may go, and sometimes odds are very misleading because the losses/disruption caused in the combat can change the odds dramatically for the final calculation of winner/loser in the battle.

< Message edited by Joel Billings -- 8/28/2017 10:34:21 PM >

_____________________________

All understanding comes after the fact.
-- Soren Kierkegaard

(in reply to tyronec)

Post #: 4