SPAA or SPAG ?

[BigJim]

LOL like ALL Grigsby games they are usally usless to play vs the AI (his cheats are the most despicable since the advent of wargaming) I could list dozen's but why bother, as a beer and pretzels game it's OK but bears NO resemblance to a real life situation.

[DRG]

BigJim said:
LOL like ALL Grigsby games they are usally usless to play vs the AI (his cheats are the most despicable since the advent of wargaming) I could list dozen's but why bother, as a beer and pretzels game it's OK but bears NO resemblance to a real life situation.

Go ahead and list what you think is still there becasue we've spent the last few years removing anything we consider a cheat and are quite curious to find out what you consider has been left in.



Don

[BigJim]

Hmmm well lets see how about borg spotting with arty?? AI arty will hit with at least 30% accuracy with no LOS at all, and the AI will have either air or arty on EVERY turn (unless you turn a BUNCH of stuff off). "to hit table" for the AI is uncanny, they can fire small arms from 400 meters and obtain kills on entrenched infantry not to mention that they are ALWAYS vet or better in rating vs the Human who will be regular at best (unless playing a third or fourth game of a campagne). AI enjoys unlimited "buy" points and buys units after you have chosen so as to offset any advantage you might have gotten with specialized troop/equipment. The biggest in my opinion is the AI's ability to fire round after round in front of NUMEROUS human troops and remain UNSPOTTED, not to mention the cute little LOS game of "I can see you but you can't see me" where the AI can fire on you but you cannot return fire EVEN with the targeted unit who IS NOT suppressed. The AI will assess "key" assets and they will be hit by planes/arty on the FIRST turn even tho they are "unspotted". How about units "popping up" unseen while crossing "open ground" in front of your massed scouts and infantry??? I am sure I can find others but there is a starter. Now mind you NONE of this occurs in a 2 player game so as a 2 player it is fine.

[Mobhack]

BigJim said:
Hmmm well lets see how about borg spotting with arty?? AI arty will hit with at least 30% accuracy with no LOS at all, and the AI will have either air or arty on EVERY turn (unless you turn a BUNCH of stuff off). "to hit table" for the AI is uncanny, they can fire small arms from 400 meters and obtain kills on entrenched infantry not to mention that they are ALWAYS vet or better in rating vs the Human who will be regular at best (unless playing a third or fourth game of a campagne). AI enjoys unlimited "buy" points and buys units after you have chosen so as to offset any advantage you might have gotten with specialized troop/equipment. The biggest in my opinion is the AI's ability to fire round after round in front of NUMEROUS human troops and remain UNSPOTTED, not to mention the cute little LOS game of "I can see you but you can't see me" where the AI can fire on you but you cannot return fire EVEN with the targeted unit who IS NOT suppressed. The AI will assess "key" assets and they will be hit by planes/arty on the FIRST turn even tho they are "unspotted". How about units "popping up" unseen while crossing "open ground" in front of your massed scouts and infantry??? I am sure I can find others but there is a starter. Now mind you NONE of this occurs in a 2 player game so as a 2 player it is fine.

Hmm - sounds like you are referring to the original SP2 or SP3 game of long ago.

Please provide some save game examples where this behaviour can be shown to happen. After all, if there is buit-in "AI cheating" then this will be regular and repeatable, hence easily captured evidence.

As Don says - we have spent time removing the few AI cheats thet were there in the original SSI game. The AI uses the same delay procedures as the human player, and gets no "free hints" as to where the human player is. That is all there was, and it WAS frustrating in SP2 (not our game) to take a hill and get "instant arty" on your troops.

The game uses the same code to spot and hit, there is no "AI bonus". It does not get any troop quality bonus - it uses the same troop quality as the human would if he bought that army at that date.

The AI uses my routines to plot arty now - there are no cheats or bonuses. It plans bombardments on likely areas, near roads and road junctions, and near objective hexes if it is plotting "blind". it uses the same delay code (but is intelligent enough to use an artillery observer if present, or the HQ, for shorter delays).

In this latest issue the AI has been given a "clue" about events that your opponent (if human) would have noted from the PBEM playback. each one of itself is not a 100% guarantee of arty being plotted thereabouts, but the more you do inthe same area, the more likely that AI will target that zone, just a s ahuman player would. previously, the AI would only target your units if they were still detected in its turn, otherwise it would use the random plot procedures.

Now - it will take an "interest" in the following events, reported onthe screen to a human opponent: rooster trail smoke generation, engineer mine clearance messages, Z-key area fire events, Direct fire events, missile launch (SAM or ATGM) events, mine trips, smoke X-key events and a few others I probably have forgotten.

In the past - you could play the "hill dance" of popping up from behind a hill, firing, and ensuring you ended behind the hill to avoid enemy fire in his turn ANd any plotting of AI arty as the trops would be hidden in its turn, so not plotted on. Now - the more shots you fire from a particular area, the more chance of some incoming your way.

Oh - forgot the tripping of an objective hex, that one is a relatively high AI interest item now. A human opponent would note the flag change, and now the AI does as well.

Please demonstrate with hard evidence anything that backs up your assertions, and I'll gladly look into it.

Cheers
Andy

[BigJim]

Ok will try and capture some video for ya, I just played a generated campagne where in the last game I was the defender, I had "earned" enough points to have about 15 M1A1's, the enemy assaulted with no less than 150 vehicles most of which were tanks over 50 were main battle tanks, along with "hords" of infantry and arty and aerial attacks on EVERY turn, which by the way targeted my stinger assets on the first turn BEFORE they had fired. The AI's "buy" points had to be HUGE to afford all the assets thrown my way

I also note that you didnot address my main complaint about LOS advantage???

[Marek_Tucan]

I have to say that the AI artillery kinda bothered me in my SPWW2 3.01 campaing, as well as air strikes, but I also have to say it was always my fault - too long resting on one point, forgetting to move support infantry from shell impact zones etc.
Yes, the numerical advantage can be sometimes a pain, but if you had 15 Abrams and he got 50 MBT's, I doubt they were on a good level. AI once attacked my company of M-60's with a fleet of about 90 Shermans (M4A3) and six M-48's and he nearly got me rolled over my forward platoon (he had more tanks than my M-60's got ammo)), but Sherman vs. M-60 is something I cannot call fair fight.
LOS oddities - I haven't noticed them. Again - dug in ATG can be a pain to spot if you don't have some scouts riding along with your tanks, even worse are ATGM's (as I've noticed recently in one PBEM))

Now if you wish for games where AI cheats, go for say Battle Isle 1 and 2 and then you'll see that even SP1 and 2 were only beginners in cheating)

[DRG]

BigJim said:
Ok will try and capture some video for ya, I just played a generated campagne where in the last game I was the defender, I had "earned" enough points to have about 15 M1A1's, the enemy assaulted with no less than 150 vehicles most of which were tanks over 50 were main battle tanks, along with "hords" of infantry and arty and aerial attacks on EVERY turn, which by the way targeted my stinger assets on the first turn BEFORE they had fired. The AI's "buy" points had to be HUGE to afford all the assets thrown my way

You didn't tell us WHO "the enemy" was or how many points you are using. That is important information. All we need is a simple save game to see what it is YOU are seeing to make this conversation more relevant
The game DOES NOT specifically target things like Stingers unless they have fired. There is NO code in the game that does this. If you got whacked it's because you were in places likely to be hit by a human player who's thinking because Andy programmed it to target likely areas of concentration

BigJim said:
I also note that you did not address my main complaint about LOS advantage???

Yes, he did...
"The game uses the same code to spot and hit, there is no "AI bonus"."
That applies to arty as well as units seeing other units. The is NO special AI bonus

Send a save game of your campaign. We cannot comment further on this without seeing what you are seeing

Don

[Karnaaj]

Depends on the battle, as well; remember the points-ratios if it's an assault. Just did a meeting-engagement (USMC v. N. Korea, '97) with 1 Coy M1A1HMC, 1 Pl LAV-25 (ITOW, a couple choppers, a couple AOP Hummers, 5 Dragon teams and some 155s. NKs swarmed with at least 3-4 to 1 odds *numerically*, tank-heavy mix. (Think I was running 12.5k points.) Lots of cheap versus a few pricey things.

I'll note that AI arty was (apparently) map fire, and mostly targeted: 1) high ground, 2) v-hex locations, and 3) roads along route of march, and apparently expecting much slower rate-of-march. Unless I killed another observer team, the only one I saw had been pinned down under 155s and wasn't directing fire for most of the game. Enemy arty also got conterbatteried pretty hard. <G> What air attacks there were managed to accidentally kill a Seahawk (same hex as the targetted tank at the time) and a Dragon team (next hex past the target). Oh, and they scratched up my tanks something *awful*...

A horde isn't that dangerous unless they 1) can run you out of shots/ammo, 2) can close to effective range and 3) have effective weaponry. In 3.01, I was running a Sov invasion of Iran in '79/'80, and the huge numbers of M4s the computer bought were more of a strain to my ammo supply than a danger to my T-80s. (Don't think I even had an immobilisation from M4 fire on a tank before the campaign crashed. They did hit some of my BMPs and BRDMs, tho, but the BMPs killed more than got killed.)