Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung

quote:

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

Please, could there be two settings for AI in MWIF?

Historical and "everythings possible, based on rules as written"?

Sure, WIF rules may allow Italian liberation of the Baltics and German total Mediterran strategy. But most of it was historically not quite thinkable. Fact is, in Nazi-Germany ideology was structurally quite central. That's a main reason why they lost the war.

And its ideology was not about liberating any Eastern people, nor just let the Italians liberate them. Barbarossa was absolutely central for the regime, and it was about extermination and absolute power.

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

I'm quite sure, this is a minority position on this forum. But nevertheless.

Regards

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung

quote:

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

Please, could there be two settings for AI in MWIF?

Historical and "everythings possible, based on rules as written"?

Sure, WIF rules may allow Italian liberation of the Baltics and German total Mediterran strategy. But most of it was historically not quite thinkable. Fact is, in Nazi-Germany ideology was structurally quite central. That's a main reason why they lost the war.

And its ideology was not about liberating any Eastern people, nor just let the Italians liberate them. Barbarossa was absolutely central for the regime, and it was about extermination and absolute power.

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

I'm quite sure, this is a minority position on this forum. But nevertheless.

Regards

I am not sure where to draw that line. Hitler had a lot of ideas floating around about who to attack and with whom to ally. Sometimes he did both (USSR). Ruling out possible actions because they did not occur historically or seem too far fetched (weird/unlikely) could be difficult.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ptey

A '41 med, '42 barb strategy could probably have happened. However having italy liberate the baltic states seems alittle gamey. I doubt any significant amount of italiens would have kept fighting, even though one or more of the baltic states were "italien".
I would also like to atleast have the option for avoiding italien liberation of the baltics as standard procedure for the ai.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ptey

A '41 med, '42 barb strategy could probably have happened. However having italy liberate the baltic states seems alittle gamey. I doubt any significant amount of italiens would have kept fighting, even though one or more of the baltic states were "italien".
I would also like to atleast have the option for avoiding italien liberation of the baltics as standard procedure for the ai.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ptey
Well excuse me, but i like having atleast *some* historical foundation.

Anyway, some italiens fighting on from yugo or even greece doesnt seem THAT unlikely, if said countries are italien controlled during the war. However italy fighting on from estonia is imo ridiculous.


edit: I just checked the rules. A new home country must be an aligned minor. That means that greece and france are out of the question for italy. That leaves the possible new home contries for italy to be yugo, iraq, persia, spain and whatever countries they have liberated after a russian conquest. Ie the baltic states.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

quote:

ORIGINAL: ptey
Well excuse me, but i like having atleast *some* historical foundation.

Anyway, some italiens fighting on from yugo or even greece doesnt seem THAT unlikely, if said countries are italien controlled during the war. However italy fighting on from estonia is imo ridiculous.


edit: I just checked the rules. A new home country must be an aligned minor. That means that greece and france are out of the question for italy. That leaves the possible new home contries for italy to be yugo, iraq, persia, spain and whatever countries they have liberated after a russian conquest. Ie the baltic states.

Someone previously (probably in this thread) had discussed Yugoslavia as a second home country for Italy. His suggestion was for Italy to press Germany to make that happen.

My questions were not meant to be argumentative. I just wanted to know the level of "historical accuracy" you were comfortable with. For example, in some situations having Italy conquer France or Greece might be preferred to having Germany be the conquering country (purely hypothetical here). Historically, I do not see Hitler likely to grant that glory to Mussolini. According to the WIF rules it is clearly possible. Should the AIO be denied that choice?

Reversing roles, should the AIO have to defend against legal but non-historical actions by the human player? Yet still be limited to 'historically likely" choices for its own decisions?

I get the feeling we are drifting into "house rules" here rather than following the WIF FE rule set.

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I get the feeling we are drifting into "house rules" here rather than following the WIF FE rule set.

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My questions were not meant to be argumentative. I just wanted to know the level of "historical accuracy" you were comfortable with. For example, in some situations having Italy conquer France or Greece might be preferred to having Germany be the conquering country (purely hypothetical here). Historically, I do not see Hitler likely to grant that glory to Mussolini. According to the WIF rules it is clearly possible. Should the AIO be denied that choice?

quote:

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ptey
Well excuse me, but i like having atleast *some* historical foundation.

Anyway, some italiens fighting on from yugo or even greece doesnt seem THAT unlikely, if said countries are italien controlled during the war. However italy fighting on from estonia is imo ridiculous.

edit: I just checked the rules. A new home country must be an aligned minor. That means that greece and france are out of the question for italy. That leaves the possible new home contries for italy to be yugo, iraq, persia, spain and whatever countries they have liberated after a russian conquest. Ie the baltic states.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

quote:

I get the feeling we are drifting into "house rules" here rather than following the WIF FE rule set.

Steve, I think that you are guessing right.

Steve said :

quote:

My questions were not meant to be argumentative. I just wanted to know the level of "historical accuracy" you were comfortable with. For example, in some situations having Italy conquer France or Greece might be preferred to having Germany be the conquering country (purely hypothetical here). Historically, I do not see Hitler likely to grant that glory to Mussolini. According to the WIF rules it is clearly possible. Should the AIO be denied that choice?

The WiF game is designed for everything to be possible, within the bounds of a 1939 historical start.

Wosung said :

quote:

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

Well, I'm sorry to say that real WiF games, played by highly competent players, especially at Cons, are more than one Mediterranean strategy every second game. Highly competitive players nearly all favor the Med strategy, the "41 close the Med", because it is far more efficient and easy to achieve a victory in a WiF FE game this way than the historical way.

I've talked a lot with Harry about this sore point (to me), but Harry likes his game to be highly open ended. He does not like his game to always oblige players to follow an historical path.

So, if MWiF should be a computer version of WiF, it should be as open ended as WiF, and should not have an AI that only choose historical paths.


This said, my own opinion is that there could be an easy way to deal with this in MWiF :

We know that the global "path" that the WiF game is following is 90% influenced by the global path that the German AI will take. It is Germany that decides what the game looks like, in other words. The other Axis Power that either coordinate to go the same way as Germany, or do not.

The global path that Germany chooses is the global orientation strategy that it must choose when the game starts. Example :

Path 1, historical :
Variation 1 : 1939 Poland + 1940 West + 1941 Russia (with Italian Med with German help) (real Historical path)
Variation 2 : 1939 Poland + 1940 West + 1941 Russia (with kitchen sink thrown at Russia -- i.e. no Med at all)

Path 2, historical start, then deviation :
Variation 1 : 1939 Poland + 1940 West + 1941 Spain & Gib & Close the Med + 1942 Russia (or Russia sitzkrieg)
Variation 2 : 1939 Poland + 1940 West + 1941 Spain & Gib & Close the Med + 1942 UK (sitzkrieg in Russia)
Variation 3 : 1939 Poland + 1940 West + 1941 UK + 1942 Russia (or Russia sitzkrieg)

Path 3, ahistorical path with emphasis on the west & Med :
Variation 1 : 1939 West + 1940-41 Spain & Gib & Close the Med + 1942 Russia (or Russia sitzkrieg)
Variation 2 : 1939 West + 1940-41 UK + 1942 Russia (or Russia sitzkrieg)
Variation 3 : 1939 West + 1940-41 Spain & Gib & Close the Med + 1942 UK (sitzkrieg in Russia)

Path 4, ahistorical path with emphasis on Russia :
Variation 1 : 1939 West + 1940 Poland & Russia (with Italian Med with German help)
Variation 2 : 1939 West + 1940 Poland & Russia (with kitchen sink thrown at Russia -- i.e. no Med at all)

So there could be an optional control in MWiF to tune up the AI, that you would check if you prefer a more historical oriented game, and when you check this control, the German AI would have a lot more chances of choosing a 41 Barbarossa as its global strategy (Path 1 variation 1).

quote:

BTW: In juxaposition your 2 cites feel quite strange:

1. "Highly competent players nearly all favor the Med strategy, the "41 close the Med", because it is far more efficient and easy to achieve a victory in a WiF FE game this way than the historical way."

and:

2. "Harry likes his game to be highly open ended. He does not like his game to always oblige players to follow an historical path."

If everybody has to close the Med to be competitve, then WIFFE can't be as open-ended as Harry Rowland himself percieved it.

Rather, that would mean, Harry Rowland turns the players to follow another fixed path: a special ahistorical one.

quote:

And maybe it's no accident that WIF centres around a glorious Battle of the Med with Rommel and all, or a Sealion. These are the anglosaxon "dream" scenarios.(1)

quote:

ORIGINAL: amwild

As a programmer, I can guess that Steve will program the AIO to follow the rules, pursue victory conditions, and analyse and take advantage of its enemies' weaknesses. The real trick is making the AIO able to do these things well.

Basically an AI is a set of if-then statements, perhaps with a few random numbers thrown in to provide variation. Such an opponent, properly programmed, could execute some quite unexpected strategies that would make playing against it a challenge.

However, an AIO constrained to making "historical" decisions could be quite disappointing in that it would be more predictable and its choices may not be logical given the unpredictability of a human player, and it could have the additional disadvantage of being more difficult to code if we are given the option of it using either historically-based-only or any possible strategies.

I would prefer an AIO that will play as much like a human as possible, making decisions because they are the best it can make, not because someone made similar decisions around sixty years ago. If the AIO uses historical gambits, it should be doing so because it calculates that that is what gives it the best chances of success. Given that geography, politics, the composition of the various national armies, and military production imposes certain limits on what may be attempted with any reasonable chance of success, we should see the AIO attempt strategies that appear similar to historical strategies on a regular basis - because they were then and are still the best strategies available given these conditions.

Contrast this with a simple example: Historically, Germany invaded France through Belgium. Let's say the AIO is programmed to make the same choice - and the human player knows it... and places all sorts of "rocks" in Belgium and northern France for the German AIO's units to break on like a wave on the shore, even though "historically" Belgium was relatively lightly defended. The AIO's options being limited, it would have far less choice on how to avoid such an obvious trap than would otherwise be the case, and would appear to be playing stupidly. Does anyone think that disappointed players wouldn't then complain of the AIO's apparent stupidity in "historical" mode?

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung
I'm no programmer. But if MWIF's AIO decision-making is purely success driven, then Jap AIO probably shouldn't ever declare war on the US. Same for Germany. Sadly few decisions in WW2 in fact were success driven. And even definitions of "success" were highly different.

quote:

I would have fun to play against historical strategy.

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Personnally I do like the concept of giving the player options for AIO strategic opening, mid- and endgame. These options maybe could be formulated negatively so to make AIO even then less predictable. Like, for Germany, "No sealion". That would leave either Barb or Med strategy possibilities, the player has to deal with.

BTW: I know the if-then concept for AIO. But how will the big strategic choices for the AIO formulated? What exactly will be the trigger(s) for GER in 1941 to go for the Med instead for Russia?
Allied force allocation? Plus random numbers? When will AIO decide? It also has to plan it's production in advance.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I just want to enrich the thread with some WiF FE facts :

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung
I'm no programmer. But if MWIF's AIO decision-making is purely success driven, then Jap AIO probably shouldn't ever declare war on the US. Same for Germany. Sadly few decisions in WW2 in fact were success driven. And even definitions of "success" were highly different.

In WiF, Japan must DoW the US, otherwise it is the US that will DoW Japan. Same for Germany. The US Entry system cares for that.

quote:

I would have fun to play against historical strategy.

I agree

quote:

Personnally I do like the concept of giving the player options for AIO strategic opening, mid- and endgame. These options maybe could be formulated negatively so to make AIO even then less predictable. Like, for Germany, "No sealion". That would leave either Barb or Med strategy possibilities, the player has to deal with.

BTW: I know the if-then concept for AIO. But how will the big strategic choices for the AIO formulated? What exactly will be the trigger(s) for GER in 1941 to go for the Med instead for Russia?
Allied force allocation? Plus random numbers? When will AIO decide? It also has to plan it's production in advance.

Speaking for Germany (which strategic choices give the strategic orientation of the whole game), in WiF, this has to be decided from the start of the game, and you have very few chances of being able to change in the middle of the game. The reason is that you make your production from turn 1 with the global strategic path in mind.
The production must match the Strategic path, and failure to do so will result in 100% failure of the strategic plan.

quote:

But on what exactly will the all important GER AIO grand strategy/production be be modelled, when there are still not many triggers by players' input? Pure randomness with, say, 50% chance for Med, 30% Barb 41, 20% Sealion? And if it's that way, how are the percentages been chosen?

quote:

So there could be an optional control in MWiF to tune up the AI, that you would check if you prefer a more historical oriented game, and when you check this control, the German AI would have a lot more chances of choosing a 41 Barbarossa as its global strategy (Path 1 variation 1).

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung

Do you think in single player modus everybody wants to play Germany??

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Not me. First choice would be GB, then Russia. Same with Napoleonic games. Fun is to get GER/Nap out of the driver's seat.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung

quote:

ORIGINAL: Froonp
I just want to enrich the thread with some WiF FE facts :

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung
I'm no programmer. But if MWIF's AIO decision-making is purely success driven, then Jap AIO probably shouldn't ever declare war on the US. Same for Germany. Sadly few decisions in WW2 in fact were success driven. And even definitions of "success" were highly different.

In WiF, Japan must DoW the US, otherwise it is the US that will DoW Japan. Same for Germany. The US Entry system cares for that.

quote:

I would have fun to play against historical strategy.

I agree

quote:

Personnally I do like the concept of giving the player options for AIO strategic opening, mid- and endgame. These options maybe could be formulated negatively so to make AIO even then less predictable. Like, for Germany, "No sealion". That would leave either Barb or Med strategy possibilities, the player has to deal with.

BTW: I know the if-then concept for AIO. But how will the big strategic choices for the AIO formulated? What exactly will be the trigger(s) for GER in 1941 to go for the Med instead for Russia?
Allied force allocation? Plus random numbers? When will AIO decide? It also has to plan it's production in advance.

Speaking for Germany (which strategic choices give the strategic orientation of the whole game), in WiF, this has to be decided from the start of the game, and you have very few chances of being able to change in the middle of the game. The reason is that you make your production from turn 1 with the global strategic path in mind.
The production must match the Strategic path, and failure to do so will result in 100% failure of the strategic plan.

Thanx for enriching

About German AIO I also thought it would be this way: Grand strategic options would have to be, at least partially, chosen on turn 1 to get the appropriate production.

But on what exactly will the all important GER AIO grand strategy/production be be modelled, when there are still not many triggers by players' input? Pure randomness with, say, 50% chance for Med, 30% Barb 41, 20% Sealion? And if it's that way, how are the percentages been chosen?

Admittetly, I'm not deep into WIF rules nor into programming AI. Just curious.

Regards

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

As for the strategic choices of players at WIF tournaments, I believe the analogy to chess openings is appropriate. Over the years different chess openings have been popular. At different times one will be considered to provide the best opportunity to win. Eventually, someone comes up with counter moves that reduce the opening to a more equitable outcome, and the opening's popularity wans.

Clearly, chess, with its rigid rules set for the past 150 - 200 years, is not 'forcing' the players to play a certain opening. Rather the players are the variable and they are choosing an opening that they think gives them the best chance of winning. Over time, I suspect that WIF will evolve different responses to German/Axis strategic plans that will cause the choice of which strategic plan to employ to mutate too.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Getting back to a Baltic state as a new home country for the Italians, ...

Yes, it seems strange. But in 1939, wouldn't having the Free French government set up in Gabon have seemed strange too? And all those other countries who had elements of their fighting forces operate out of England (e.g., Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland)? The capacity of armed forces to continue fighting for their country after the war is clearly lost is really quite astonishing. So, if the Italians had been given the opportunity by Hitler to occupy Estonia and later set up a home-away-from-home there, the likelihood of remaining Italian units being willing to continue fighting doesn't strike me as completely far-fetched.