Wishlist: AI Tank delay

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Brian61

Actually its much worse than that. There is no AI. In games of this generation, there are just some simple hardwired behaviors. That said, one surprising outcome of simple behaviors is when you add enough of them together they start seeming to be 'smarter'.

I wasn't going to bring this up except, after finding out I could edit the files for a long campaign, I did an experiment. I simply made every armor unit on the computer side a 10 turn 50% reinforcement. Wow! What a difference!

Some very unexpected things did occur, for one, artillery all of a sudden got a lot more accurate and dangerous. Your scout cars start getting half blinded by ATR fire and then finished off by early arriving tanks. By the time the tanks arrive you're already up to your eyeballs in enemy infantry.

If I knew the layout of the dat files, I'd simply write a script to apply a reinforcement delay and chance to all vehicles on the computer side.

What - to add to the armour that the AI already holds back in reserve when assaulting, attacking or in the meeting engagement (when it has lots of armoured formations)?

Oh - and the attack helos it reserves in MBT, and the heliborne infantry that is also held back in reserve?

In other words - nice idea, but already thought of, back in the DOS days when reinforcements were added.

And if the AI routinely held its tanks back, then the player would probably exploit this by advancing his own armour to stomp the grunts approaching his front, most likely (since the tanks would be back in the deployment area, or off the map if reinforcements).

Nor would holding back armour be a great idea in the meeting engagement either - the human would snaffle the available V-hexes and turn it into an impromptu 'delay' mission.

Cheers
Andy