Closest AI setting to average MP standard?

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Strategic Command Series >> Strategic Command: World War I >> Closest AI setting to average MP standard?

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Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/10/2021 12:18:28 PM

stockwellpete

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I was thinking of playing my next game at Expert level with Spotting at +2, Experience at 0, and MPP's at minus 20%.

Is there a better setting for approximating MP?

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/10/2021 3:30:25 PM

Taxman66

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Not really possible.

AI is not as intuitive and doesn't have much thinking ahead ability, no matter what bonuses you give it.
Additionally the AI is afforded so many extra units, things you can try/do in Multiplayer are bound to be blocked.

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/10/2021 7:54:55 PM

Bavre

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Yes, definitely not possible. Once you have a solid grip on the basic game mechanics games vs the AI will not get you much further because of their predictability. I could defeat maxed AI effortlessly before I started MP and my first matches against experienced opponents were total disasters.

You have two options here:
Get totally obliterated by strong opponents. Kind of depressing but the fastest way to get better, it will really show you completely new possibilities.

Play other new players in more balanced games albeit with considerably less learning effect.

Btw if you want to do a training match, just pm me. I'm not really that strong a player (the thing vs OldCrow was just an exploit I discovered), but I will gladly pass on what I was able to figure out so far.

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/10/2021 7:56:23 PM

stockwellpete

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My thinking is as follows . . .

Spotting +2 at expert level, which is the toughest you can make the AI so that it will take advantage of more of your mistakes.

Experience at 0, which simulates the strength of many units in MP.

MPP's at minus 20% to reduce as much as possible the free units the AI gets.

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/11/2021 1:47:44 PM

Hubert Cater

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Hi Stockwellpete,

Reducing the MPPs for the AI will simply give the AI less money to spend which I suspect is not what you would be after if you are hoping to simulate something closer to a human player experience.

If you wish for the AI to receive less free units, I would suggest instead to navigate to the OPTIONS->ADVANCED->SCRIPTS screen and then turn off any of the applicable AI bonus UNIT events. These are listed at the end of the unit event lists, e.g. on the last few pages of events.

But even this will hinder the AI more and likely take it further away from what it would feel like to play against a human. For example, these free unit events, a good proportion of them, are not on average designed to make the AI stronger in the field, e.g. let's give the AI 10 extra corps so it can overwhelm a human player on the offensive, but rather to make up for some of the shortcomings the AI will have where a human player is more efficient. An example would be where we give the AI some bonus units so that it can assign them to GUARD key positions freeing up stronger units for combat etc. Human players just do this kind of thing better than the AI which is why we help the AI out a bit like this.

Other examples would be when a human player pushes forward we sometimes give the AI some free units to defend key positions so as to slow down a collapse, and again this is only because the AI is not always as good at making decisions on when it should withdraw and which units should be made available for defense. Human players can anticipate better, and move units to rail positions in advance better than the AI and so on.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/11/2021 1:49:59 PM

Hubert Cater

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I should add that a good chunk of the UNIT events are triggered depending upon the in game situation, so not every event listed will actually fire in game.

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/11/2021 2:01:19 PM

stockwellpete

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hubert Cater

Hi Stockwellpete,

Reducing the MPPs for the AI will simply give the AI less money to spend which I suspect is not what you would be after if you are hoping to simulate something closer to a human player experience.

Thanks for the reply Hubert. I was thinking more about the issue of late game MPP "bloat" that certainly affects the AI Entente in SP for the MPP setting. I have had Stalemate results where there is barely enough room for the USA AI to land its units in France. I have also started to trim the Build Limits as well in my Mod to see what that does.

I realise that I am probably coming to the end of the road in terms of what matches against the AI can give me. The difficulty I face is that I started the playing the game almost a year after it came out and so I am way behind a lot of the MP commentators on this forum. I am not aware of many of the exploits or variations that are regularly discussed here, so I will be "easy meat" in MP.

That is not really a big problem in itself as the thing that really fascinates me about this game is how something as complex as WW1 can be modelled into a computer game. So since I have started playing regularly and posting on here (late last year) I have had books arriving from all directions enabling me to understand more about the war (and particularly my own paternal grandfathers role in it).

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/12/2021 4:38:40 PM

Bavre

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quote:

ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

I realise that I am probably coming to the end of the road in terms of what matches against the AI can give me. The difficulty I face is that I started the playing the game almost a year after it came out and so I am way behind a lot of the MP commentators on this forum. I am not aware of many of the exploits or variations that are regularly discussed here, so I will be "easy meat" in MP.

Everyone is easy meat in MP initially. It's like getting into cold water: there's the fast and shocking and the slow and agonizing way

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/19/2021 3:03:36 PM

Benedict151

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Thanks 'Pete and Hubert
A helpful thread for those of us wedded to SP games.
With regard to the extra units the AI gets there are a number of descriptions that are not immediately clear to me such as -

"Reinforcements" - E.G 'Reinforcements Mainz 1914'
"Front Line Offensive" E.g 'Front Line Offensive Ypres 1915'

Some are noted as "corps" so I assume these are corps sized units? And the location specified is where they appear? Or maybe they only appear if there isn't a unit there or already? Or if enemy are in 'x' hexes?
Likewise others are noted as "detachments"

IIRC some AI reinforcements in WW2 Europe are noted as "Guard" but these don't seem present in WW1? (I could well be mistaken here)

Any small amount of illumination would be appreciated (provided it is not too distracting from whatever new project you are working on!)

Ben

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/22/2021 1:57:34 PM

Hubert Cater

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Hey Ben,

A lot of these could almost be categorized as notes to myself to better remember why I added them. For example, Front Line Offensive 1915 is likely added to just give the AI a bit of an extra push via a few extra units for a planned offensive at that time.

Most are just as they say, e.g. drop a Corps at that location for that date and so on.

Quite a few are also conditional, but this is not in the description and you'd have to take a look at the script itself.

For example, some might have this in the event which just means it will only fire if the CP has 1 unit, within 2 hex range of 155,84 and so on.

; Central Powers units in range in 155,84
#CONDITION_POSITION= 155,84 [2,2] [1,1] [1] [0]

The idea was to not just put a bunch of extra AI units in there and call it a better AI, it is very fine tuned to the various levels and threats or challenges the AI will receive during the course of the war.

For example, a lot of those conditional events will never fire if the AI is doing well (e.g. the defensive bonuses) or if it is doing poorly (e.g. the offensive bonuses) and so on.

The UNIT event itself can be found in the campaign subfolder (in the root installation folder) for the particular campaign under the 'Events' folder.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

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RE: Closest AI setting to average MP standard? - 3/22/2021 4:35:35 PM

Benedict151

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Thanks Hubert, that helps and I will have a rummage in the scripts at some point

Ben

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