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macroeconomics -> RE: Grand Campaign V1.00 (12/14/2011 7:53:10 AM)
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On the Italian player turn immediately proceeding the German turn when the Kriegsmarine sailed to protect a supply convoy to England, the Italians note intel coming from Spain regarding a large assembly of British ships near Gibraltar. The Italians note that in the past that has meant the British intend to smash the Italian supply convoy to Africa. So they simply delete it. The Italian offensive in Egypt won't have legs now, but what would have been the point of continuing the convoy? It would have been destroyed and still no supply would have gotten through to Alexandria. And sure enough on the AI's player turn the British sail through the Western Med, park next to Sicily and on the end of turn results phase, find no Italian shipping. Ah, the benefits of having Italian spies in neutral Spain!
On the following player turn, the German supply lines are indeed refreshed. I was wondering if one needed to run the supply convoy up to a destination port in northern England, but no. The game's supply system is smart enough to connect cities with land links to southern England. German land units immediately begin their sprint north. No telling how long the wiener schnitzel will continue being sent across the Channel.
So this then is, I think, my verdict on the game's naval AI for Great Britain - best AI I've seen so far in this type of large scale WW2 strat game, but if you coordinate the movements of the Italian and German navies, you can try to get the RN coming and going between the Med and the Atlantic. That strategy isn't costless for the Axis. You'll need to spend a lot of PPs on completing the naval builds from all the naval ship events. Otherwise the RN should be big enough to squash both fronts simultaneously. But if you do complete all your naval builds you have rough parity with the RN. Rather than split its fleet into two parts and try to take on the Germans and Italians both at once, the AI seems like it will concentrate into one mega fleet and then the Axis player can try to make that fleet bounce between the two theatres. Nor is that Axis strategy fool proof. If the British can catch either of your fleets in port resting, you will get thrashed by the carrier air. And by thrashed, I don't mean losing 2 or 3 ships. I mean seeing your German (or Italian) mega fleet reduced to 33% of its original size. Such is the danger of a concentrated fleet strategy.
For some people, this may be an "Aha! You see the AI is not that good" moment. To me, it's a measure of how far of a leap this game's British naval AI is over that seen in competing titles where defeating the RN is trivial. To wit, you need to devote a large chunk of your builds to naval units, risk the occasional total destruction of your fleet and then you get a couple of turns of supply alternated with a couple of turns out of supply, etc. If the ToF British naval AI is randomized somewhat (a debugging nightmare but a powerful tactic to foil meta gaming humans) and the chance to spot Allied fleets off a neutral Spanish coast is reduced, then you'd have a guessing game at best for the Axis using this tactic. A very interesting result indeed.
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