AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)

[francoisD]

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.

[DRG]

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

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

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

[DRG]

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

[francoisD]

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

[DRG]

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

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by francoisD

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

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

[francoisD]

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

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

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

[DRG]

Originally Posted by francoisD

thx for the tips andy,


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

......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