AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)

[RERomine]

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:

1945 ON A (30722, 32255) G(26318, 28074), R(26768, 28398), B(27258, 28793)

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.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by RERomine

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).



Once in a blue moon, the German go heavy on Panther Gs and that skews those numbers all to heck.

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

Originally Posted by RERomine

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 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

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by DRG

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

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.

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

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.

[Mobhack]

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.

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

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

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.

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

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.

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"