AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)

[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

[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

[Imp]

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.

[Imp]

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.

[Mobhack]

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!.)

Cheers
Andy