Advice for a better game by AI as German?

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa >> Advice for a better game by AI as German?

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Advice for a better game by AI as German? - 8/4/2016 11:56:48 PM

aaminoff

Posts: 13
Joined: 12/11/2006
Status: offline

I played through the game as the German side, it was interesting and fun and I took all 3 objectives by late September. I noticed the AI doing some slightly dumb things but in the end it was OK.

I started a new game as the Soviet, and the AI on the German side seems terrible. In the first 2 turns it did not surround and kill so much as a single Soviet division, instead just pushing them back in a series of frontal attacks. That can't be right. I set it to slow AI and "normal" balance adjustment. Are others seeing this? Should I just set the balance much higher and assume that in this alternate universe the Germans developed steamroller tactics instead of blitzkrieg finesse? I wish it wasn't so.

Post #: 1

RE: Advice for a better game by AI as German? - 1/14/2017 7:51:33 AM

ChuckBerger

Posts: 278
Joined: 8/10/2006
Status: offline

The game against AI works better when the AI is Soviet. I think it's just too hard to program an AI that can pull off the kind of sophisticated encirclements needed to get ahead as the Germans. I continue to enjoy the game playing as Germans against Soviet AI (playing with challenging or harder), but against German AI it's not much fun, the German AI blunts its panzers quickly, fails to encircle Russian troops, and ultimately is too easy to surround and eliminate through counterattacks.

Compounding the AI programming challenge is the fact that in real life the Soviets made repeated and massive operational blunders, which a competent human opponent is unlikely to repeat. So it's hard to design a game which has both historical fidelity to the combat attributes of individual units, while still offering a balanced contest. Most East front games either have to seriously lower the real combat values for Soviet units to allow for what were mostly operational and strategic failings, or have to introduce mechanics to simulate operational and strategic failure (this is the DC3 option), or simply are heavily skewed towards the Soviets. The DC3 penalties for the Soviets don't go quite far enough, in my opinion, in simulating the dislocation and paralysis of Soviet command at this stage in the war.

(in reply to aaminoff)

Post #: 2

RE: Advice for a better game by AI as German? - 1/14/2017 12:59:27 PM

Franciscus

Posts: 809
Joined: 12/22/2010
From: Portugal
Status: offline

I am also for the first time playing as the soviets as German AI, and I agree with Chuck

With hindsight we tend to do very differently to what the russians did historically, at least in the first few turns. I mean, we probably tend to retreat all possible units, change ASAP the posture from offensive to neutral or even defensive, sack incompetent generals and use Zhukov's abilities ASAP.

I am playing versus a Challenging and slow AI and she is behaving well. I think I will lose Leningrad and maybe Rostov, but I am pretty sure Moscow will be safe before I am able to counterattack.

I think that by giving AI AP bonus and refraining from playing unhistorically (i.e., house rules), it's possible the German AI will be even more satisfying.

(PS: and Stalins's paranoid episodes are another one of the great and fun design ideas of this game, BTW

)

< Message edited by Franciscus -- 1/14/2017 1:00:40 PM >

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(in reply to ChuckBerger)

Post #: 3

RE: Advice for a better game by AI as German? - 1/14/2017 2:27:46 PM

Philippeatbay

Posts: 855
Joined: 12/3/2014
Status: offline

It would probably be a programmer's nightmare to implement, but one way to simulate real-life operational blunders might be to always give the AI control over all of a human player's units, only allowing direct control of particular armies on an exception basis. But I can only see something like this working on the Soviet side: it's a way to simulate a less competant army.

But it still wouldn't get around the problem that AI tends to be better at defending than attacking.

As an aside, I've always wanted to see the AI taking control of units outside of command range (and in some games that would include having some of your own units vanish under the fog of war when they lost contact with headquarters). But something that extreme makes more sense in the 19th century and earlier.

(in reply to Franciscus)

Post #: 4