AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Hi,

Do not know if this has already been tackled previously

Bu I have a concern about the AI as a purchaser: it is almost unable to build armies worth more than 25000 points while it could perfectly reach armies worth 35000 pts.

This is not disturbing for single battles, since you can always buy its army (except for the surprise), but this is really a drawback for long campaigns.

Indeed I have just begun a LC with germans and my army in 1941 has only few tanks but includes a full battalion of infantry with support troops such as a company of engineer and is already worth 5000 pts. I was planning to add a full battalion of panthers (about 60) and a few specialized tanks, to get roughly an element of a panzergrenadier division

This would lead me to a final army worth 12000-13000 pts, that is totally realist, with respects to the discussion here:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34658

But since the AI cannot spend more than 25000 pts, even with the ai tank heavy on option that I do not like, I can not do so.

Indeed germans will eventually have to defend only, and that means that the enemy would need an army of (13000pts of army +500 pts support troops) *2.5=33750 pts (or more than 28000 pts for a delay battle).

I am really annoyed by this problem,

Here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34658
People complain that when they begin to buy top equipment, battles begin to be very easy.
Perhaps the problem is that the ai cannot get a big enough army.

But if the designers have some time, I think an easy solution is available

First are some figures obtained by the random battle generators concerning the army pts that support the problem I defined above. Figures are obtained for the four main army (Americans, germans, Russians, and british), from January 1942 to January 1945 (because it takes a long time), with ai heavy tank on or off. Recall that armies are limited to 500 troops (did not try d-day like battles), and points were limited to 40000 (never even close to it)

(min pts, mean pts)
1942 OFF A (20942, 21543) G (19188, 20298) R(13199, 14239) B(17504, 20976)
1942 ON A(25405, 26109) G(22219, 22705), R(15835, 16041), B(17848, 23122)
1943 OFF A (19629, 21549) G (19066, 19440) R(17277, 18189) B(20321, 21703)
1943 ON A (24852, 25639) G(22071, 23174), R(21097, 22179), B(22123, 23546)
1944 OFF A (21460, 23157) G (21092, 22380) R(18336, 18930) B(22368, 23350)
1944 ON A (25362, 26850) G(25316, 25999) R(22763, 23271), B(23852, 25124)
1945 OFF A (23687, 25994) G (21810, 23043) R(22673, 23585) B(16679, 23201)
1945 ON A (30722, 32255) G(26318, 28074), R(26768, 28398), B(27258, 28793)


Interestingly, I noticed two huge variations for the same battle, for the british in January 1942 with heavy on: from 17848 to 26175 pts, and again with the british in January 1945 heavy off, from 16679 to 26226!!!

I do not like the heavy on option because armies consist of too many tanks. However I do like the variety of combinations in all armies. I feel a very small modification is required to obtain bigger armies (in points)

We can study the tanks allocation, because the solution lies at least partially in them. Indeed among all the unit classes, only tanks and artillery troops, have a very wide range of costs per unit

Usually with ai tank heavy off, tanks represent about 30% of the number of units (140-180 for 500 units), and with heavy on, about 50% (220-260 for 500 units).
four examples

January 1944 with germans, OFF, 22759 pts,
46 PzIVg, 68 PzIVh, 22 Panth D, 4 PzIIIn, 30 StGIIIg, 4 luchs, 6 stuh 42
(14218 pts and 180 units)
January 1944 with germans, ON, 25811 pts
56 PzIVg, 106 PzIVh, 30 PzIIIn, 14 PzIIIm, 10 StGIIIg, 4 luchs, 4 stuh 42, 14 tigers 1
(18470 pts and 238 units)

January 1944 with Russians, OFF (18084 pts)
126 T34-1943, 10 SU76M, 32 KV1C, 5 T70, 5 T60, 64 SU152, 10 KV 85, 5 SU 57
(16860 pts, 257 units)

January 1944 with Russians, ON (23454 pts)
62 T34-1943, 3 T34-1942n, 5 SU76M, 29 KV1C, 16 SU152, 32 SU 57
(9473 pts, 147 units)

It appears that the AI buy very cheap tanks in all cases. So when the maximum pts of an army is too high, the AI can never spend all the points. So simply make it buy the most expensive tanks!

With tanks being only tigers, the second army could reach more than 36000 pts…

In fact the AI is not forced to buy all the time the most expensive tanks.

Since the problem appears only for armies worth more than, say, 15000 pts, for 500 units left, simply buy the most expensive tank, when the AI decides to buy a tank, when the number of points left divided by the number of units left is higher than 15000/500=30.

So the Ai can be kept as is, with its wonderful variety and surprise, with the exception that if this ratio is higher than 30, when a tank platoon or company has to be purchased, then buy the most expensive one.

I guess the purchase step is a recursive one (buy one unit, then decide for the second and so on). In this case, if the pts to spend is for example 20000, the AI will start to buy expensive tanks, and as soon as the ration pts to spend/unit left will go below 30, it will buy cheap tanks. And if the ratio becomes higher than 30 again, it will buy again expensive tanks…

If the pts are very high, the ai will buy only expensive tank.

As a side note, it is also surprising that in a few examples with the Britain, there occurred a very high variation in the points, from 16000 to 26000 for the same allowance of 40000 pts…
Quite disturbing…

Well, I hope you have understood my thoughts, and you will agree this would be interesting.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

There are a lot of intertwinded bits of code here. There are formation restictions and unit restrictions and what you are asking for is a very very serious re-write of the purchase code but there are a couple issues rasied that I will investigate but keep in mind the points allotted were increased more to allow scenarios to be built. No matter what number we put in SOMEBODY will build a game so big it will break the code and the intent for allowing those points in the first place and restricting the unit and formation size

Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Isnt a Battalion enough for you francoisD?i think you wnat to put too many things in a battle :D

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

There are problems with the points structure when the formation and unit limit is factored in. The limit used to be 50,000 points and was increased to 65,000 because that will work just fine in a meeter but we know... and we thought everyone who played knew that they had to use some discression when building their force so now you know the limit DON'T go over it or , as you have already proven, problems will result.

The old joke re " Doctor.... it hurts when I do this" then don't do that. I suppose one "solution" would be to limit the max. points ..... I think a lot of people would scream if we did.

We are looking at aspects of all these factors though. I won't say what we are looking at but we are looking at some of these things.

Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

hi don

thx for the anxwers. at least i know you are aware of that problem.

i do not know how the game engine is, but i thought it was sufficient to just buy the most expensive tanks when the game engine decides to buy a tank compagny or platoon and the allocated points were higher than 15000 for 500 units left.

if the game engine decides to buy a AT gun or anything else, do not change anything...

anyway i do not have the code at hands, and besides i am not a good code writer...

well i have to constraint my army to fight only americans with heavy on, or to to reduce its size to 9000 pts vs russians.

this problem will occur only in several months.

and for the guy who said that one battalion is not sufficient, i will reply that if i could, i would play games at the divisional level with platoons :)

more seriously 2 battalions vs 2 battalions, i think the game can perfectly handle this type of battles, except for the ai when it purchases unit

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

We can tell it to buy different formations but not specific units beyond how the rarity codes are set up in the game and more importantly, what order the units are in the OOB ( yes, that is a factor )

We have been working on a couple of things that may solve all of these problems with high point games and surprise a lot of people in the process but I'm not ready to say what it is but only that it may delay the release of the next upgrade a bit

Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

The AI even with tank heavy set on will buy a balanced force - with infantry, scouts, snipers and other low value units.

When buying tanks it simply decides if it is a company buy or platoon buy based on remaining points, and then it buys the company based on radio code for rarity, out of any such tanks of that class currently available. There is no way to tell it "hey buy a medium tank company and make sure they are panthers" - it will buy P3 sometimes even if rare. Soviet heavy tank formations will buy KV instead of IS series, since they are available.

The western allies don't have expensive tanks anyway - they use Shermans and Cromwells, with maybe 1 in 4 a Firefly if Commonwealth. (One could always take the UK answer to Nazi armour and buy a divisional artillery allotment (3 bty field, + 1 bty mediums) every time through the AI purchase loop if it had 10,000+ points remaining ... :))

You really do not need Panthers, Tigers or such stuff fighting the USA and Commonwealth. The 75L48 does fine in the West. Maybe have a section of Tigers or Panthers, or the jpz4/ L70 to do long range sniping or deal with pesky Churchills or the 1 in 4 Firefly that Commonwealth Sherman platoons have. But I stop upgrading with a Nazi core when I have P4H (the version with sabot, the later ones with HEAT are a downgrade) if fighting in Italy/NW Europe.

Andy

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

thx for the tips andy,

but i spoke of the amercians because from my own expermients, they are really the only ones to be able to build armies worth 30000 pts with heavy on

but i do not like heavy on, and in fact i was hoping to play on the eastern front.
however russians seem to get the smallest army in points from the four main opponents...

have you ever dreamt of a battle involving 120 ISU 152 vs 80 tigers 1?

since the ai purchase code section is based on rarity as you explained, it will not adapt to the force of the humain player, be it realist, elitist, or not

i do not think a battalion of panthers is unrealist, be it on the eastern or the western front...

i understand now that the ai will always buy a standard force army

finally, i do not critize your answer, but a battalion of infantry, and supports troops is worth 5000 pts, plus a battalion of PzIVh, another 5000 pts, plus 500 support troops when you defend, 10500...
multiplied by 2.5 equals 26500...
very hard for the russians to reach an army of this value

and with my experiments the british in 1944 got one time an army worth 16000 pts...

so currently the only way to play a balanced game is to reduced the size of your core.
ok whith small battles, but this is sade because the game engine can handle much more

or stop to play with germans, since the other three sides finish the campaign as attackers, so they can have armies worth 30000 pts, and the german Ai would have to buy armies worth 15000 pts, no problem at all

i am unlucky to love germans...

anyway, i never said this to you and all the team that works on this game, but i have to tell that your game is fantastic and you do a good job

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

try the USA, they have a lot of expensive toys to play around with

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

......and if pigs had wings they could fly.

First, go and count all the scenarios, then count all the scenarios contained in all the campaigns in the game, then, go to the various scenario depots and count all the third party scenarios built for the game. Add to that every save game anybody might have in their files that is still being played or might be played in the future

Now remember that number while I explain something

Yes, the game will handle more. Much more. We've seen battles on 200x160 maps with attackers getting 1500 units. It's quite a sight to see. The save game .dat file was 11 MB

Now consider that number I asked you to remember because that is the number of scenarios, campaigns and save games that will be totally and utterly unplayable because of the way the dat files for every one of those collected and then reads that information will be quite a bit different than the way an EXE with expanded units and formations collects and reads information

OK?

Now do you understand why this is not going to happen ?

We provided the maximum points the code will allow so accommodate people who might like to play a game with hordes of King Tigers and Stalin's. The realistic number of points based on what the OOB's can actually provide is much lower. The only practical solution to prevent people from bumping into these problems is to reduce the points allowed and we are not going to do that so now you know where the limits are, live within them. There is NO way to increase the number of units and formations without screwing up thousands of hours work with scenarios and campaigns and although it would be possible to write a programme that would do this it would still mean every third party scenario would be screwed but ( and we know this well from past experience ) EVERY scenario and campaign in the game would have to be completely checked and re-issued. Hundreds of hours of work for something only a very small percengate of players would ever try

That wouldn't happen even if I thought it was a great idea.

Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

I am just going to make a couple of points.
Firstly list 2 battles where 120 Tigers took part.
The battle frontage for a 200 deep map is 10Km & while the Germans would have loved that a realistic proposition would be 25-30 MkIII or MkIV against an entire Russian brigade of T/34s.
That would be an everyday Eastern Front battle the Germans never getting up to full strength as tanks constantly in R&R.
The Russians would generally get decimated disband & throw a whole new unit at.

If you really need an Ubber force of 120 Tigers you are not playing very well.
In real life a lone Tiger has held off 40 T34s more than once. Admitedly they chose good high ground to do it from but there biggest problem was running out of ammo. There is even an unconfirmed case of the tank commander standing on top directing while being passed rounds from an ammo truck behind the ridge line.

I would say the reason for the large varience in AI purchasing is its trying to add variety & does seem to buy according to terrain. If you ignore the wide range of vehicles rather than just a few types its buying is probably a lot more historically correct than yours.

Try letting the AI buy for you.
It does tend to buy in a messy order but everything tends to be there & have won PBEM games with what it gave me.
More obvious in MBT but tailors to map type so
City map I got virtually no MBT but lots of troops AT weapons & light tanks who could quickly move to ambush positions.
River Crossing 3 companies of paras in helos more in air transport cant remember rest but think had only 1 company soldiers on the ground & a platoon or 2 of tanks.
I would never have risked so many units in the air. Result by about turn 5 my tanks were crossing & mopping up.

Dont play AI much anymore but if do always let it have the best gear or give it double your points. It is not capable of moving for flank shots organising combined assualts etc. but buying is generally OK. If used all the time I would like it to buy a slightly higher ratio of top tank but hey variety makes for a challenge.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Sorry drifted off topic there.
I would say no need to restrict points, I like big games but AI does tend to "favour" cheaper tank slightly. A random factor that makes it choose normally or go for top stuff would be nice. But do not make it buy at the expense of variety which it does well.
The only time I tend to dislike what it buys me is if it has access to TI & pre TI tanks buys to many pre TI for my liking.
The good thing is that does make you a good player he said blowing own trumpet.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

To take Don's point further.

I tried a test rig version of the game with 5000 total units, ie 2500 each player maximum.

Mostly the game played out fine, though the artillery menu system for humans was completely borked. As were all scenarios that had preplotted arty, mines - basically all save games to include scenarios.

All of that would need a lot of work to recover, and it is not worth the effort.

But as for the engine working with 2500 units per side.

On my machine, the AI would take a minute to pick forces and a couple to merely deploy.

I gave a test of 2500 manually bought Chinese infantry an assault as a test, and Don did that on his lesser capability machine. The purchasing took me abut 2 minutes clicking on its own!. On my machine, it took the AI about 7 minutes to simply do the first turn which was merely a step-off and advance 2 hexes first-turn job. No combat, plotting or firing arty or anything like that. Just shuffle 2500 infantry teams forwards 2 hexes. It took Dons machine about 35 minutes just to do that simple task.

I tried letting an AI force of 65K do an assault all by itself against another AI force, and the arty fires took the first turn to about 15 minutes, with fast arty on. The defenders retreats phase took 4 minutes or so.

As Don said - when a turn had stuff happening, then the save game became about 11Mb.

The replay buffer size was not increased in the test - but if it were, to accommodate 5 times the units, then the save game buffer would likely (WAG) go to the 20Mb plus mark.

If you are playing the AI, then you could simply watch the AI turn for 35+ minutes. But the replay buffer would be needed for PEM. How many players are really going to sit and watch a 20+ minute replay?. How many PBEM players are actually daft enough to want to push 2500 units about anyway?.

(2500 Chinese rifle sections deployed even on a max size map looked like a barbarian horde of Ghengis Khan days!:D.)

Cheers
Andy

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Bottom line

When we increased the unit and formaton count years ago we considered what the vast majority of players would be comfortable pushing around and 500 units per side was considered to be way more than most would want to play with but it did allow for players to build really big games. It's inevitable that wherever limits are set someone will want to exceed that. Had we allowed 600 units somebody would want 700.:)

The problem with the AI bumping into the unit's ceiling wasn't an issue becasue the points limit was lower. We increased the points in WW2 to match MBT where the max points really is needed becasue of the higher tank costs.

So the best advise for the few players who are running into this problem is to keep your games within reasonable limits.

As interesting as 1000 unit assaults might be for a tiny % of the people who play it's simply not practical to tear the game apart to do it

Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Whoa that totaly redifines my idea of a big game.
200 - 300 probably tops is a big game in my view, & yes the time to play one turn can take a while. Never even occured to me people would try & go larger & most people seem to think this is massive. 300 units seems to be able to reccreate any formation even the likes of modern Soviet US Tank Reg with 90 or 100 tanks a pop

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

he guys,

i think you totally misunderstood my messages. i never ever asked to increase the total number of units per side in the game (500). i already think that 750 units (250 for me and 500 for the AI) is large enough and sometimes even become borrowing when i have to move several dozens of units in a turn...

i simply ask to make the Ai buy more expensive units if with its usual pattern of purchase, it will not come close to its total allowance of points (let say 40k pts) for the big battles...

i think that this is a sensible proposition that does not question all the previous hard works worth hundreds of thousands of hours ...

you can critize my request to be able to play with a german core worth 12000 pts and say its unreasonable, but focus on your critics.

i still wonder why it is possible to play with americans, british russians with armies worth 30000 pts with no problem, because they will finish as attackers, but not with the germans, because they will finish as defenders.

i do think this is a (minor) problem with the game.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

But I did try simply buying the 30 tank Russian heavy tank battalion every pass through the AI buy loop. It made little difference to the total buy points expended. About 32K points went up to about 35K points. The limit was the 500 units, as our experiments proved. With 1500 units a side, and a 650 formation limit then the WW2 Russians could actually buy 65K points.

IS-2 cost about 97 points. Even if you manually bought 499 of them, that would only be 48K points. Shermans cost about 80, fireflies about 100. The only other tank the allies have that can cost that much is Centurion and Pershing and very few arrived of those. A Panther costs nearly 130 points for 70 experience. A king Tiger costs 214. The German can run out of points fleet buying those!.

Most WW2 armies will only buy about 30-32K points with the normal AI mix of units (infantry, arty, and tanks).
(Easily checked - assign 65K max points, set player 1 as russian (or whoever you are interested in) and computer buy for an assault. In the deployment screen go to the HQ menu where the No. of formations, units and the points spent is displayed).

The problem is that the Germans have the ability to buy hugely expensive toys. The Allies have no access to 130 and 200 point tanks. So it is easy for a German player to unbalance things if he fleet buys expensive "cats". As Don said - just try to avoid building a very expensive core if you want the enemy to have a chance to meet it. The game is meant to be played with a historical battalion sized force, say a tank company and 2 of infantry with a few support troops.

Or simply play allied campaigns with the Nazis as the enemy - they will be in defence at the end in the main. Which is the best route for interesting games IMHO as then the AI has the force that is able to counter everything you can buy (provided you do not go T34/KV crazy in 1941 if playing Russian).

Cheers
Andy

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

andy,

do you really think a 12000 pts core is a 'very expensive core'?

i do not.

i am not a crazy man asking to be able to play with 200 tigers 2
just a battalion of panthers and a battalion of infantry plus support...

i do think there is a problem with the game, because you can build much more expensive core (25000-30000) with the americans,russians and britain, with no problem at all, because the ai would buy armies worth 10000-15000 pts with the germans as defenders

perhaps a second button similar to the ai tank heavy on should be added, with off, nothing changes, with on, the ai avoids the cheapest tanks...

used and usefull only for the guys who want to play with germans and a size core of 12000 pts :angel

well, i hope you will not consider me as a geek :doh:

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Maybe someone else can explain this so you can understand this but from where I sit both Andy and I have already done that.

The "allies" can build bigger cores becasue the Germans have more expensive "toys" that build up points faster without running into the units limit. The units limit is the "problem" in this case which is why we ran experiments with huge unit and formation limits to see where the boundaries actually are.

And NO we cannot code the game so "the ai avoids the cheapest tanks..." and as Andy already explained loading up the AI will allied heavy tank coys etc does not make much of a dent in the "problem" becasue the tanks themselves don't cost as much as the German ones do so don't run the points count up as quicky as it would for the Germans AND that would throw the balance of forces off with so many heavy tanks

Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Don

You have been the most severe with me,:o

Speaking of pigs with wings…is quite insulting. You say I do not understand anything, so that I am a feeble man…:cold:

I have always been polite in all my posts.:re:

And contrarily to what you say, I understand well how the game works on this particular point, thanks to the numerous trials I have done.

I have identified a problem, at least for me, and asked for a solution. You could reply that you have many things to do before than solving this minor issue, and I would perfectly understand

But do not say that I understand nothing, or that it is impossible or too complex to do what I request

Because I think you are wrong and I am right.

Indeed, when you say that quote

becasue the tanks themselves don't cost as much as the German ones do so don't run the points count up as quicky as it would for the Germans

how can you explain that the germans, although they have the biggest tanks, are only the second or third armies in pts, behind Americans and british armies?

When you claim that you cannot control the points of an army, how can you explain that an army in exactly the same setting, can go from a 16000 pts army to a 26000 pts army?

If an army can go from 16000 pts to 26000 pts, that is exactly what I am saying: you can control the size of the army in points, but not with the game engine currently. Something has to be added.

This is the issue I raised.

Now I will explain what I have deduced from my experiments, and you will easily tell me if I am right or not

Point1

According to the date, type of battles, and so on… you determine what classes the AI has to buy
For example, the Ai has to buy 30% or so of tanks, roughly 45% of infantry, 15% of artillery, 10% of supports...

Then point 2, according to a rarity code ratio table you designed, the ai buys troops according to point 1. it does so until it exhausts all the points it could spend or until it reaches a size of 500 units.

This rarity code ratio table is simply acting like a probability distribution, and you use a random wheel like in a lottery to determine what troops are actually used…

That’s it.

So effectively, with this type of code, you absolutely cannot control the value in pts of the final army, and this explain the huge variance of the army points. And this also explains that to raise the pts of the army, you have only one degree of freedom: the maximum number of unit, 500...

Now I simply says that it is possible to raise the quality of the troops so that the Ai will build armies bigger in size.

Although in depth testing is required, you can simply define several rarity code ratio tables! Possibilities are endless: you have currently the rarity table for standard forces. You could create a table for elite forces, with expensive units (not only tanks, but artillery and so on). Probability degrees are simply the ones of the standard force, shifted to expensive units

But you could also design a rarity table for cheap support troops, with probabilities shifted to cheap units…

So that now with a 5000 pts battle, the game engine would have the choice to build a standard force, an elite force, and an army build of tips and bits of cheap and broken units

You simply now add a new probability distribution on top to choose what forces you can have, that depends on total number of points to spend. If the points to spend are higher than 10000, then choosing an elite force is compulsory.

This is so simple tha I wonder if this is not already the case

Now I will provide a small academical example with the cheapest army, the Russians, that proves clearly that within the absolute limit of 500 units per side you can build a very expensive army with the above proposition, at least 50% bigger than the typical current Russians army in January 1944 (average pts equal 19000).

70 kv 85, 70 t34 1943 equals 11875 pts for the tanks

32 hvy howitzer 152mm, 7500 pts

300 standard infantry worth each 16 pts, 4800 pts (infantry costs always the same in all armies, you do not need to rewrite the rarity table)

20 heavy at gun 61 pts each= 1200 pts

80 units worth each 40 pts, easy, means 3200 pts

That equals with a (standard) elite force of 500 unit, 29000 pts…

Now with this I can build a german core of 12000 pts

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

:)


Well, what this all boils down to is this

1/ Both Andy and I have tried to explain this without success and seeing how this has been going I do not personally hold out any hope that doing it again will change the outcome

2/ We've been developing this game for 10 years so take it as a given we have a clue how it's all put together . Very rarely are we surprise by something.

but..

3/ You think we're wrong and have the solution

Despite what you may think both Andy and I have already invested quite a number of man hours building test EXE's and investigating this. Tearing the entire code that picks forces apart is not, and never will be, an option.


I can see what you..... "have deduced from my experiments" and what you have deduced about the way the AI picks appears to me to be misleading at best . The AI picklist in winSPWW2 for the Russians alone is a very long and very complex set of commands that runs 1,159 lines of code and is not simply "30% or so of tanks, roughly 45% of infantry, 15% of artillery, 10% of supports... ". though that is a simplified explanation of the end result. The entire set of picklists is a massive amount of code designed to produce a balanced force. What you propose unbalances that and undos hundreds of hours of work simply to get a high points count on the map


Then we get into language difficulties. I'm not quite sure what to make of......"according to a rarity code ratio table you designed". See..... I have no idea if you think we have designed and use a rarity table or that we should. The rarity part of the radio code is there mainly to ensure rare, low production vehicles are not bought too often and common ones are and has NOTHING to do with how much they cost.



Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

If I may, there seem to be two conflicting points being brought up:

1. The Germans have more expensive equipment.
2. The Germans spend less on an AI selected force than the Americans, Russians and British.

The majority of the tanks they buy are medium tanks and the most common one purchase is the PzKw IVj(+), an 89 point unit at 70 experience for a 4/1945 battle. They also seem to like the PzKw IVh (88pts). The Russians lean heavily on the T-34/85 M1944 model (92pts), the Americans on the M4A1(76) (101pts) or the M4A3(76) (102pts) and the British, well there are a host of them including the Sherman III (72pts), Sherman V (81pts) or the Comet (89pts). When the British have Shermans, each platoon seems to have a Firefly as a gun tank and this pushes the average per medium tank purchased. That explains stuff like below:

Since the Americans have the most expensive common medium tank, it explains why their typical AI selected core force is higher. Once in a blue moon, the German go heavy on Panther Gs and that skews those numbers all to heck.

As far as heavy units, they tend to buy no more than 12 and they seem to be nine Tigers and three PzKw VIbs. This type of heavy tank purchasing seems to be typical of all countries. What I haven't been able to get the Germans to do is to buy out of the JagdPanther Group, meaning no JagdPanthers or JagdTigers, two of those expensive toys. They don't get Hetzers, Marders or JPz IV/70s, either. I do see Stug IIIgs, but those are coming out of the StuG Group, because they are defined as "Assault Guns" and not "Tank Destroyers". The Americans, Russians and British all purchase tank destroyer type units. One would think the Germans should by some tank destroyers as they were cheaper to produce than tanks. I've tried a dozen times and haven't been able to get them to purchase any allotting the AI 50000 points to use.

I don't know how the force selection code loop works, but if the JagdPanther Group is being skipped or is not included, it would likely cause other units to fill out the 500 unit limit. The vast proportion of those units are much cheaper and it would consequently push down the value of the total core. Out of all this, I'm trying to provide something you can sink your teeth into. Without seeing the code, all I can do is look at output and speculate, but if I am correct it would be a bug.

As far as purchasing large numbers of heavy tanks, I'm not going to step into that one because it seems to be more a factor of personal taste. Seems to me if someone wants lots of heavy tanks, they could go into the OOB (after saving the vanilla version) and start chopping out units they don't want used. If you limit the choices the selection loop has, it will have no other option but to select heavier stuff.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

don,

first thx for answering, because that proves that, at least, you read my messages.

quote:

according to a rarity code ratio table you designed". See..... I have no idea if you think we have designed and use a rarity table or that we should. The rarity part of the radio code is there mainly to ensure rare, low production vehicles are not bought too often and common ones are and has NOTHING to do with how much they cost.


this is exactly what I proposed: use a second rarity table to shift probabilities to expensive units if the points to spend are higher than 10000 or 15000. similar to the ai heavy tank button,

but i do not like numerous tanks on the battlefield, and i prefer to use the button off.

however i do like to play with big battles, and everything is already present in the game, except on one very minor point, because the ai never build big armies.

i know you have worked much more time than me on this game. in fact i am simply a player and YOU are the developper. I respect you.

However you should consider that I have also tested the game during many hours, on this particular point. Why have I done this? it is useless for a player that simply wants to win at all costs and that will buy 200 tigers 1 anyway... (with respects to the realism discussion mentionned in my first message)

i want to play a balanced game, but funny as well, since this is a game.
It seems to me that the game engine could perfectly hand battles with 25000 guaranteed pts per side within the limit of 500 units,

well, you know my position, but you are the guy who works and decides. I will respect your decision whatever it may be.

if you do not improve this game as i proposed, well, i have two solutions: 1) forget the germans,
2) play with a single compagny of panthers. but i fear that even in this game, with a 9000 pts core, the game could very well be unbalanced. indeed with the huge variance I have noticed, it could happen very well that the russians buy armies worth less than 22000 pts (sure with heavy off, possible with heavy on).

in fact i am already facing this problem now in afrika, 1941, with a 5500 core in delays battles. I am not sure if the ai has an army worth 12500 pts. in the last two battles, delays, i checked at the end of the battle the number of units the ai had to be sure it was less than 500, a proof that it exhausted all the points it had. and in fact in one battle i have reached 500 units (i count the number of pages, because there are 25 units per pages, if there are 20 full pages, the number of units is 500). what i did? i reloaed the save at the end of my last battle because this one was unbalanced.

so i am asking to you and andy a very very small improvement of the game.

since the ai might build armies strong enough, could you add to the deploy screen of the human player an information about the pts of the ai army and how much it should have?
so if human players see that the ai does not have a correct army, he restarts a new battle from the last save, instead of playing a full battle just to see at the end that the battle was unbalanced...

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

thx to reromine too for his experiments that confirm that the rarity table could be modified.

i am not sure if i will modify the oob files, i have never done this before. anyway thx for the tip

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

i have just found out another soution to the problem of big battles:

the ai purchase loop should be redone until the total number of units of the ai is below 500. indeed 500 is a proof that the ai has not enough points.

this is a very very very small modification of the code, however, it raises strongly the duration of the purchase step, because you rely solely on probabilities...

and it might never stop...

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

It's interesting you would mention this. We had noticed that the AI as the Germans picked Panthers, as you noted, only "once in a blue moon" which is far less than it should have and the V3.5 OOB's have been changed so Panthers will be picked more often from April 1944 onwards. There won't be a flood of them but it will be more likely in V3.5 than previously and all of that was a direct result of how the code reads through an OOB and sorts the rarity part of the radio code. The problem is, and this is fundamental to the way the code works and we've adapted the picklists and OOB's themselves to accommodate this, is it reads units from the last number and works it's way UP. In smaller OOB's with fewer units to pick from this isn't usually a problem but the German OOB is somewhat more complex than the rest and what was happening by the time you got to the summer of 1944 was there were a large number of tanks for the AI to choose from before it got to the first Panther that was available. You cannot simply take a vehicle from one slot and put it in another or substitute units because save games and scenarios record slot number when they save. Switch a Panther for a PzIII and you have real problems so we added a new Panther near the end of the list and the AI is happy to pick it more often


The AI will buy formation 44 (Jagdpanzer Grp) or 16 (JagdPz Zug/4) if a random number greater than 60 is generated with 99 being the max so call that a 40 % chance you might see them from July 1943 onwards IF the AI goes down that thread of the picklist looking for things to buy ( and theres another random chance that might happen ). A Jagdpanther has a normal chance of being picked but is unit 53 of 999 and refer to what I told you above as to why they are rarely seen ( in the game AND in reality ) but there is a chance that maybe, someday, it might pick one but ONLY in a delay OR defend. They are not set up to be bought in any other battle type because delaying and defending is their purpose --not advancing so yes, Jagdpanzers ARE part of the picklist but they're not going to pop up very often ( and that doesn't make it a "bug" )


Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Yes, I read your messages and as I have already explained both Andy and I have expended a number of man hours looking into this issue. However. It's increasingly clear that we are going around in circles and you do not want to hear what we have to say so, on this thread the time for reading what you think is rapidly drawing to a close because François all this " You think we are wrong no matter what we tell you " stuff is turning into an enormous waste of my time


OK, lets stop right here and get this straight once and for all. Perhaps this is a language issue

You say.......... "use a second rarity table "

Where exactly do you think the FIRST " rarity table" is ???. Explain this without typing an essay and we'll go from there.

As I have explained the rarity of a vehicle is its commonality as part of the radio code x0 would be normal, x1 would be rare, x2 would be more common. The code reads that when it's picking units from an OOB. You seem to think it would be "easy" to add a bit of code that reads cost that would build a force then, if the unit limit was reached would build another force looking for higher cost units and if that still bumped into the unit limit would run through the picklist AGAIN looking for even more expensive units to buy eventually selecting a very "elite" force when it needs one to deal with the unit limit issue.

And I tell you, if this is indeed what you propose, that despite what you may think there is NOTHING "easy" about any of that.



Sure you can, I could build an under 400 unit , 25,000 point Russian force quite easily by loading up with an unreasonable amounts of artillery and Heavy tanks . But you tell me you play with Tank Heavy preference OFF

I'll tell you what........ YOU set up a game , use whatever points you think it will take to try and make your point then save it BEFORE "quite deploy" so we can see the formation, unit and points details, then post it here and we'll all see what you would want the AI to buy to build a "balanced force" that....


1] isn't tank heavy
2]is as complex as what the AI buys now with the same unit variety
3]does not buy wildly non historic types of vehicles ( so no fleets of JadgTigers or ISIII's or nothing but dozens of 88 AT guns )


......that uses all the points you think it should. I will be most interested in what you show us all


Don

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Hypothetically, to play a campaign with lots of heavy tanks, you could copy the original OOB and modify it for that purpose as long as you restored the the original before you try to load old saved games and scenarios, correct? Basically, one OOB is used for a specialized campaign and the original OOB for all of the out of the box scenarios.

That makes sense as they JagdPanther and JagdTiger were too slow for any real offensive actions. When I was poking around, it was set up as a "Meeting Engagement" and sounds like it would exclude those. What about smaller tank destroyers? I didn't see Hetzers, Marders, JPz IV/70s or other turretless tank destroyers either. As I mentioned, the StuG IIIg was selected, but off of the assault gun list. Does the selection code considers German assault guns to be interchangable with tank destroyers? The Russians and British seem to have their turretless tank destroyers show up frequently. I don't think the Americans had any if you don't count those half-track mounted guns.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

hi don

indeed there was a problem of understanding what you said. this is clear now, thanks to roremine, who told me to look at the oob files

i now understand what is the radio code, i looked before your answer to the mobhack help file.

i will tell you now what i believed first:
there was an internal table that gave each unit a probability to be chosen, within each unit classes (so that each probability added to one withing the same class), while there is another probability on top for the classes themselves. i also believed there was a pre selection of troops because whithin the same classes, not all the troops are chosen within the same battle.

so I said to shift the probabilities within classes to expensive units

but this is not the case

now there is only 3 cases for each unit, normal, rare, and common, and from this, you compute probabilities by another mechanism
so we cannot directly handle the probabilities.

i was looking at the oob files for the first time of my life when i read your message. apparently, i could create a new oob set that says that all expensive units are common, and all others are rare. do not know what will this give.

now for the example your request, it was already given in one previous message.

i think it is similar to heavy off, because there is only 30% of tanks (with heavy on, its 50% or so)
janurary 1944, russians, meeting engagment, 29000 pts

300 standard infantry worth each 16 pts, 4800 pts (60% of infantry)

70 kv 85, 70 t34 1943 equals 11875 pts for the tanks (28% of tanks)

32 hvy howitzer 152mm, 7500 pts (6% of heavy artillery)

20 heavy at gun 61 pts each= 1200 pts (4% of heavy AT gun)

78 units worth each 40 pts (flak, FOO, ...), easy, means 3100 pts

i do not think this army is so unrealist. it is an elite force...

so it is clear that, with heavy off, you only have 200 units to adjust the pts for the big battles, because infantry always cost more or less the same thing

anyway, you can critize this army

but do not you think that the huge variance in pts encoutered with your algorithm is a drawback?
you set up a 20000 pts battle and you end up with the ai having a 16000 pts army?

i do not think the variety in troops should reflect a variance in pts, especially when considering the points can never overshoot the total pts.
if it could, you could say that the game engine is purposely having a huge variance so that battles can be randomly easy, difficult, and so on..., independantly of anything else

and what about the idea of giving on the deploy screen the total pts of the ai army and the total pts it should use?

for me the problem would be almost solved in this case, i just would have to reload and restart battles, until it gives me a correct ai army.
thanks to the huge variance, since your game can provide sometimes, 28000 pts armies
a bit repetitive...

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Examine the German formations.

Some are Assault guns - those get bought to support in any battle. The units available in those units will be bought randomly according to radio code.

Some are tank destroyers, and those will be bought usually in the defence only. Units bought will be a rnadom pick as determined by radio code from those available to those formations. (I have just destroyed some JPz 1 in a meeting engagement in the western desert with my valentines, so it will buy SP-AT formations in meeters as well)

There is a formation that uses 2 or 3 marders exclusively as far as I recollect - I think that one gets bought on low points remaining.

Stugs in the German army can appear as tanks, assault guns, and even as tank destroyers at various times.

The German AI pick is a very complex piece of code, and date, battle type, points remaining, snow, city, batloc, who the actual opponent is and several other factors in the 2-3K lines of code determine what gets bought. So simply running a single purchase trial is only a guide. Try 50-100 or so of each battle type at a specific batloc and points value, then analyse the trends.

(e.g if the USA want to see more tigers than the average - try the Bulge time frame USA as opfor to AI purchase Ger. AI skijaegers - try a snow map. More ger AI paras at cassino maps)

Cheers
Andy

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Of course - we have all missed the obvious other variables.

1) In preferences, turn training to OFF.
2) Set the OPFOR up to a higher than default setting like say 120
3) leave yours at the default for the year (70 or whatever for Nazis)

Buying a 44 Soviet army for the assault, that moved the force value from the 32K (65) to the 48K region (120) immediately.

It will make your enemy more experienced (elites in this case) - and thus balance your core's experience gain, too.

4) set AIAdjustpercent to say 150, even 200. That wont help the assaulting Russians in that case (they are banging off the unit limit already), but may let it have more to defend with, or in the meeter.

5) before you set up your campaign - set difficulty to hardest, and you will have had less repair points (20%) overall to build such an expensive core with, in the first place.

Cheers
Andy

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

That fills in a lot of blanks on what is considered during the selection.

Andy, I'll take your word for it. I really don't want to got through all that trouble just so I can say, "Yep, you were right" :D

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

andy, you are genious!

indeed with elite troops, russians have with heavy off armies worth more than 31k pts in 1944 (min was 29000)

so now i can have a german core of 12k pts!

i will have to face elite troops in training instead of elite troops in weapons... wonder what this will give...

well, anyway, many thanks!

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

Well this game never ceases to amaze me. Much respect on picklists realised bought diffrently just not to what extent.

Re: AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)
 

yes indeed

but i hope andy and don will consider my proposition to inform the player of the pts the ai has versus the pts it should have.
because problems may appear even for smaller battles (13000 pts), at the beginning of the war. because weapons tanks and so on, cost less (except the infantry)

again thanks for the wonderful solution.