AI Cheating Or A Bug? (Full Version)

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Top Cat -> AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 9:58:30 AM)

Been playing campaign against Allied AI on normal difficulty and noticed that his air force seemed very resilient to say the least.

So I had a quick peek and noticed that by late Jan. 1942 he'd taken over 800 P40E replacements and 100's of B17 and other bomber replacements.

Is my game screwed up or is it working as designed?

Cheers
Top Cat



[image]local://upfiles/7480/8A0AF938FA1648628C9971B9A32A533D.jpg[/image]



Chris21wen -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 10:25:19 AM)

From my AI game against Japan yes, the figures are monsterous. I'm in early April and I've had 150 P-40E.



Crimguy -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 3:04:28 PM)

That's insane - I'm playing as allies and I'm running out of P40's everywhere.



herwin -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 3:12:04 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Crimguy

That's insane - I'm playing as allies and I'm running out of P40's everywhere.


The AI has the brains of an ant colony...



castor troy -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 3:31:48 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: herwin


quote:

ORIGINAL: Crimguy

That's insane - I'm playing as allies and I'm running out of P40's everywhere.


The AI has the brains of an ant colony...



and thatīs why it gets 800 P-40 in one month?

Sounds more than strange



beppi -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 3:34:46 PM)

It's an advantage of the AI, practically limitless Planes. I think it's only on hard/very hard or just very hard, but necessary cause without it beating the AI would be much to easy. It still has the weekly limits of plane replacement, so evenen with this adavantage you can attrit units quite easy. The AI won't rotate Airgroups, build strongpoints or conduct airfield bombardments on a level compared to a player so it's no really problem.



Admiral Scott -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 3:56:57 PM)

I HOPE THIS IS JUST A BUG!

If so, I hope its fixed fast!



Admiral Scott -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 3:59:17 PM)

He said he was playing on normal difficulty, not hard or very hard.



JocMeister -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 4:03:28 PM)

Iīm playing on normal vs the AI and it has run out of both nells and bettys!



Top Cat -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 4:36:26 PM)

Yep. Just playing on "default" or normal difficulty level.

The Allied AI has about 25 squadrons of P40E's all at full strength.

Will have to rethink my strategy if this is how it's supposed to be.

Don't mind the Japanese AI having a "boost" as the the Allies will grind them down eventually, but the Allied AI having so many planes so early is a different ball game.

The AVG in Burma might be a tough nut to crack as they've all upgraded to P40E's and won't run out of spares any time soon...

Anyway I'm gonna go down swinging.

Cheers
Top Cat



Knavey -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 5:55:01 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: herwin


quote:

ORIGINAL: Crimguy

That's insane - I'm playing as allies and I'm running out of P40's everywhere.


The AI has the brains of an ant colony...


LOL.

Herwin,

I don't know about in the UK, but the fire ants down here in Florida do NOT need brains. If they did, humans would be extinct. Those little buggers can lay a hurting on you with bites that rival a Tiger. I got bit one time by ONE ant...had 50 welts in an area about the size of a large coin. He had gotten under my clothes and just went to town.

Thank GOODNESS they don't have the intelligence of a higher organism.



Rexor -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 6:05:05 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: beppi

It's an advantage of the AI, practically limitless Planes. I think it's only on hard/very hard or just very hard, but necessary cause without it beating the AI would be much to easy. It still has the weekly limits of plane replacement, so evenen with this adavantage you can attrit units quite easy. The AI won't rotate Airgroups, build strongpoints or conduct airfield bombardments on a level compared to a player so it's no really problem.


Just out of curiosity, is this sort of behavior moddable in the editor?



Swayin -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 7:26:53 PM)

I wish I had those numbers coming into my squadrons ... the poor guys on Tabituea and Baker are holding their planes together with duct tape and chicken wire. :(



Halsey -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 8:32:40 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Top Cat

Been playing campaign against Allied AI on normal difficulty and noticed that his air force seemed very resilient to say the least.

So I had a quick peek and noticed that by late Jan. 1942 he'd taken over 800 P40E replacements and 100's of B17 and other bomber replacements.

Is my game screwed up or is it working as designed?

Cheers
Top Cat




It's WAD...

Either side you play against the AI receives a bootomless pit of air reinforcements.
The pilots that arrive later WILL reflect the losses.
Eventually you'll start slaughtering them, or they'll run away.



Halsey -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 8:34:20 PM)

BTW

I'm looking forward to some ingenious modders to start a fully HISTORICAL scripted campaign scenario.

Any takers?[:D]



Crimguy -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (9/30/2009 10:39:59 PM)

Was this in the original WItP? I don't remember this being an issue.

I have been noting that my Allied pilots are getting a better than 1:1 kill ratio against the Japanese, something I wouldn't expect in December, 41. And not just AVG and P40's like it was in the old game. My Buffalo's are kicking butt around Singapore and Rangoon as well as on my CV's.



Valgua -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 11:59:08 AM)

This seems a serious issue to me. No response from the developers?



Chad Harrison -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 3:16:00 PM)

I can tell you what the response will be:

You wanted a harder AI, we gave you a harder AI.

We asked for a more challenging experience against the AI, and they delivered. Yes it comes by way of blatant AI cheating in many, many ways - but, thta makes up for all those unescorted TF's you sink with your surface ships. I have been making a mental list of all the 'cheats' that the AI is using, and the list is quite long by now. And by 'cheat', I mean having the ability to do something that a human player can not - such as the unlimited planes or the ability to have instant 100 planning points for anywhere on the map, or having no restrictions on restricted troops (was a hoot to see a division from Kwatung show up in Noumea! [X(]) and so on.

*BUT*, they do not get full experienced pilots for free. All the planes in the world mean nothing is they are being flown by someone with 35 skill.



John Lansford -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 3:27:55 PM)

Heh; I saw that same division land at Koumac.  When I mentioned its designation, someone else said later "hey, that's a Chinese Theater division, how did it get there?", and at that time one of the devs pointed out the AI wasn't restricted in LCU use.

Unlimited numbers of planes (but not unlimited pilots), unrestricted LCU's, what else?



Rexor -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 6:12:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Heh; I saw that same division land at Koumac.  When I mentioned its designation, someone else said later "hey, that's a Chinese Theater division, how did it get there?", and at that time one of the devs pointed out the AI wasn't restricted in LCU use.

Unlimited numbers of planes (but not unlimited pilots), unrestricted LCU's, what else?


Don't forget teleporting TFs and no support requirements at bases...



Chad Harrison -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 7:35:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

what else?



That I have been able to find out so far (and none of these have been confirmed by the devs):

1. Unlimited torpedo sorties from Carriers.
2. Unlimited aircraft production (for Allies also).
3. Instant 100 planning points for any target.
4. Absolutely no restriction on being able to move around troops (ie. any unit can be loaded and shipped across the Pacific regardless of its HQ).
5. Even on normal settings, the Japanese AI gets huge bonus's to production. For instance, my game is half way through February 1942 as the Allies. Japan has lost about two or three hundred AK's to surface raiders - mostly PT's and DD/CL combos. When I load up their game, they have almost no ships shipping resources to mainland Japan. However, they have three bases in mainland Japan with 999,999 resources, and all the others have well over about 500,000 resources. Again, this is on 'Historical' difficulty setting.
6. They can launch Betty/Nell torpedo sorties from just about any airfield (though this will be addressed in the next patch).
7. I dont know whether you want to call it a cheat, but the AI instantly knows when there is adequate CAP over a target. They will pound, say, Darwin relentlessly with their 2E bombers but the instant you move fighters there, it stops. And I mean the instant. They may start coming back, but usually it wont be until they have fighters or for some time.

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head.

But the question in the end is: Does it matter?

In my book, no. Make the AI tough and challenging. If the game was designed from the ground up by the AE team, this could have been accomplished without allowing the AI to blatantly cheat against fundamental game constraints. But since they had to made do with what they had, letting the AI cheat was necessary to make it more challenging.

So again, I dont have a problem with it - mostly because playing any AI in anygame puts me to sleep when compared to PBEM [:D]



Chickenboy -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 7:35:45 PM)

With all this AI cheatin' goin' on, it makes me feel considerably less guilty about inducing an AI death spiral.

In WiTP, this could be affected by torpedo-bearing aircraft in an allied Singapore. The AI would send transport TF after transport TF into the free-fire zone, resulting in hundreds upon hundreds of sunk IJN ships before the end of 1942.

The AI AE Achilles heel for me seems to be Java. The AI has been sending SCTF and transport TF time after time into my LBA and carrier air buzz saw. I've probably sunk 100 IJN ships around Java just in the last 10 days of game time. I must have drowned 3 divisions and support troops. I just finished off the IJA 41st Division and a supporting armored regimental unit that got dumped on Merak without supply. Easy pickings-I've never seen so many surrendered Japanese!

Hopefully, the IJ AI won't get infinite xAPs, xAKs and LCUs. I'm going to see how long this algorithm goes on before it gets boring.



Chad Harrison -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 7:42:45 PM)

I just took this shot my my game against the AI. Historical difficulty mind you. The top shows what you start the war with as Japan in Scenario 1. The bottom is what they have as of February 16th, 1942.

Now, for anyone playing as Japan, look at how much resources and oil Japan has after only 2 1/2 months of the war! [X(]

I went through their TF's, I have found a single TF with over 10k of resources working to get resources back to Japan. Dont even begin to wonder where all that oil came from!

Again, just want to point out that I have no problem with this. The AE team made the best out of vanilla WitP without starting from scratch. Is this was WitP Mk II, then I would have a problem - there are better ways at making an AI difficult without letting it blatantly cheat - just dont ask me to do it! [:D]



[image]local://upfiles/8898/D9E28F7FC97F41CA917CC32741F20B21.jpg[/image]



pmelheck1 -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/1/2009 8:04:02 PM)

Something to keep in mind is AE is a game set in the pacific using period units.  The game is balanced to allow Japan to win.  The AI cheats on both sides to make a more challenging game.  History had the U.S. out producing Japan by a more than massive margin, you will not find that in this game.  Keep in mind this is a historical based rather than a historical game.  The A.I. does no more than  and no less than many other historically based games set in this and other time periods.



TSCofield -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/2/2009 4:09:08 PM)

I hate to say it but that is no better an excuse than the devs of flight simulations saying that the AI can look through clouds or can perform maneuvers that an airframe is incabable of doing simply because the AI can't win on its own. The game cheats to overcome some poor gameplay items like poorly escorted ships and tunnel rat actions by the AI? Sorry but that is a cop out. Can I accept that? Maybe but then again I have to resort to tactics that wouldn't normally be used. Choking off the home islands doesn't do any good. Short of destroying every single cargo ship to prevent enemy transport of goods and troops I am unable to historically blockade the islands of Japan.




Chad Harrison -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/2/2009 5:03:20 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SimHq Tom Cofield

I hate to say it but that is no better an excuse than the devs of flight simulations saying that the AI can look through clouds or can perform maneuvers that an airframe is incabable of doing simply because the AI can't win on its own. The game cheats to overcome some poor gameplay items like poorly escorted ships and tunnel rat actions by the AI? Sorry but that is a cop out. Can I accept that? Maybe but then again I have to resort to tactics that wouldn't normally be used. Choking off the home islands doesn't do any good. Short of destroying every single cargo ship to prevent enemy transport of goods and troops I am unable to historically blockade the islands of Japan.




I am just thinking out loud, but I wonder how much of this is a temporary thing? In other words, their industry gets a huge bonus in 1942, smaller in 1943 and so on until no bonus is received and they can be chocked off.

For WitP Mk II (whenever it comes around), I think that they will have a chance to make a challenging AI that does not have to rely on fundamental cheats to be challenging.



Crimguy -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/3/2009 12:26:38 AM)

I really don't know, but was this implemented to make up for the Zero bonus being removed in AE?



bklooste -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/3/2009 3:29:07 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Crimguy

I really don't know, but was this implemented to make up for the Zero bonus being removed in AE?



No . It was implemented because the engine is WITP and it cant handle shipping resources /oil back to Japan. Especially with the new AE full logistics model for Japan.



Admiral Scott -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/3/2009 4:07:27 AM)

Does the AI actually try to ship resources and supply to and from bases?

Because if the AI doesnt, or does just a little, that would make for very few targets for allied subs to encounter and attack.



Time Traveller -> RE: AI Cheating Or A Bug? (10/3/2009 5:22:18 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SimHq Tom Cofield

I hate to say it but that is no better an excuse than the devs of flight simulations saying that the AI can look through clouds or can perform maneuvers that an airframe is incabable of doing simply because the AI can't win on its own. The game cheats to overcome some poor gameplay items like poorly escorted ships and tunnel rat actions by the AI? Sorry but that is a cop out. Can I accept that? Maybe but then again I have to resort to tactics that wouldn't normally be used. Choking off the home islands doesn't do any good. Short of destroying every single cargo ship to prevent enemy transport of goods and troops I am unable to historically blockade the islands of Japan.


I have to agree with the above statement. It is a cop-out to have such a high degree of AI cheating to make up for a poor game engine and AI. Historical game play was completely tossed out the window with this AE version, in favor of giving hardcore players more of a 'challenge' against an uber-cheating AI. I'm passing this one up.



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