AI unable to build big army (>25000 pts)

[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

[DRG]

Bottom line

When we increased the unit and formaton count years ago we considered what the vast majority of players would be comfortable pushing around and 500 units per side was considered to be way more than most would want to play with but it did allow for players to build really big games. It's inevitable that wherever limits are set someone will want to exceed that. Had we allowed 600 units somebody would want 700.

The problem with the AI bumping into the unit's ceiling wasn't an issue becasue the points limit was lower. We increased the points in WW2 to match MBT where the max points really is needed becasue of the higher tank costs.

So the best advise for the few players who are running into this problem is to keep your games within reasonable limits.

As interesting as 1000 unit assaults might be for a tiny % of the people who play it's simply not practical to tear the game apart to do it

Don

[Imp]

Whoa that totaly redifines my idea of a big game.
200 - 300 probably tops is a big game in my view, & yes the time to play one turn can take a while. Never even occured to me people would try & go larger & most people seem to think this is massive. 300 units seems to be able to reccreate any formation even the likes of modern Soviet US Tank Reg with 90 or 100 tanks a pop

[francoisD]

he guys,

i think you totally misunderstood my messages. i never ever asked to increase the total number of units per side in the game (500). i already think that 750 units (250 for me and 500 for the AI) is large enough and sometimes even become borrowing when i have to move several dozens of units in a turn...

i simply ask to make the Ai buy more expensive units if with its usual pattern of purchase, it will not come close to its total allowance of points (let say 40k pts) for the big battles...

i think that this is a sensible proposition that does not question all the previous hard works worth hundreds of thousands of hours ...

you can critize my request to be able to play with a german core worth 12000 pts and say its unreasonable, but focus on your critics.

i still wonder why it is possible to play with americans, british russians with armies worth 30000 pts with no problem, because they will finish as attackers, but not with the germans, because they will finish as defenders.

i do think this is a (minor) problem with the game.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by francoisD

he guys,

i think you totally misunderstood my messages. i never ever asked to increase the total number of units per side in the game (500). i already think that 750 units (250 for me and 500 for the AI) is large enough and sometimes even become borrowing when i have to move several dozens of units in a turn...

i simply ask to make the Ai buy more expensive units if with its usual pattern of purchase, it will not come close to its total allowance of points (let say 40k pts) for the big battles...

i think that this is a sensible proposition that does not question all the previous hard works worth hundreds of thousands of hours ...

you can critize my request to be able to play with a german core worth 12000 pts and say its unreasonable, but focus on your critics.

i still wonder why it is possible to play with americans, british russians with armies worth 30000 pts with no problem, because they will finish as attackers, but not with the germans, because they will finish as defenders.

i do think this is a (minor) problem with the game.

But I did try simply buying the 30 tank Russian heavy tank battalion every pass through the AI buy loop. It made little difference to the total buy points expended. About 32K points went up to about 35K points. The limit was the 500 units, as our experiments proved. With 1500 units a side, and a 650 formation limit then the WW2 Russians could actually buy 65K points.

IS-2 cost about 97 points. Even if you manually bought 499 of them, that would only be 48K points. Shermans cost about 80, fireflies about 100. The only other tank the allies have that can cost that much is Centurion and Pershing and very few arrived of those. A Panther costs nearly 130 points for 70 experience. A king Tiger costs 214. The German can run out of points fleet buying those!.

Most WW2 armies will only buy about 30-32K points with the normal AI mix of units (infantry, arty, and tanks).
(Easily checked - assign 65K max points, set player 1 as russian (or whoever you are interested in) and computer buy for an assault. In the deployment screen go to the HQ menu where the No. of formations, units and the points spent is displayed).

The problem is that the Germans have the ability to buy hugely expensive toys. The Allies have no access to 130 and 200 point tanks. So it is easy for a German player to unbalance things if he fleet buys expensive "cats". As Don said - just try to avoid building a very expensive core if you want the enemy to have a chance to meet it. The game is meant to be played with a historical battalion sized force, say a tank company and 2 of infantry with a few support troops.

Or simply play allied campaigns with the Nazis as the enemy - they will be in defence at the end in the main. Which is the best route for interesting games IMHO as then the AI has the force that is able to counter everything you can buy (provided you do not go T34/KV crazy in 1941 if playing Russian).

Cheers
Andy

[francoisD]

andy,

do you really think a 12000 pts core is a 'very expensive core'?

i do not.

i am not a crazy man asking to be able to play with 200 tigers 2
just a battalion of panthers and a battalion of infantry plus support...

i do think there is a problem with the game, because you can build much more expensive core (25000-30000) with the americans,russians and britain, with no problem at all, because the ai would buy armies worth 10000-15000 pts with the germans as defenders

perhaps a second button similar to the ai tank heavy on should be added, with off, nothing changes, with on, the ai avoids the cheapest tanks...

used and usefull only for the guys who want to play with germans and a size core of 12000 pts

well, i hope you will not consider me as a geek

[DRG]

Originally Posted by francoisD

andy,

do you really think a 12000 pts core is a 'very expensive core'?

i do not.

i am not a crazy man asking to be able to play with 200 tigers 2
just a battalion of panthers and a battalion of infantry plus support...

i do think there is a problem with the game, because you can build much more expensive core (25000-30000) with the americans,russians and britain, with no problem at all, because the ai would buy armies worth 10000-15000 pts with the germans as defenders

perhaps a second button similar to the ai tank heavy on should be added, with off, nothing changes, with on, the ai avoids the cheapest tanks...

used and usefull only for the guys who want to play with germans and a size core of 12000 pts

well, i hope you will not consider me as a geek

Maybe someone else can explain this so you can understand this but from where I sit both Andy and I have already done that.

The "allies" can build bigger cores becasue the Germans have more expensive "toys" that build up points faster without running into the units limit. The units limit is the "problem" in this case which is why we ran experiments with huge unit and formation limits to see where the boundaries actually are.

And NO we cannot code the game so "the ai avoids the cheapest tanks..." and as Andy already explained loading up the AI will allied heavy tank coys etc does not make much of a dent in the "problem" becasue the tanks themselves don't cost as much as the German ones do so don't run the points count up as quicky as it would for the Germans AND that would throw the balance of forces off with so many heavy tanks

Don

[francoisD]

Don

You have been the most severe with me,

Speaking of pigs with wings…is quite insulting. You say I do not understand anything, so that I am a feeble man…

I have always been polite in all my posts.

And contrarily to what you say, I understand well how the game works on this particular point, thanks to the numerous trials I have done.

I have identified a problem, at least for me, and asked for a solution. You could reply that you have many things to do before than solving this minor issue, and I would perfectly understand

But do not say that I understand nothing, or that it is impossible or too complex to do what I request

Because I think you are wrong and I am right.

Indeed, when you say that quote

becasue the tanks themselves don't cost as much as the German ones do so don't run the points count up as quicky as it would for the Germans

how can you explain that the germans, although they have the biggest tanks, are only the second or third armies in pts, behind Americans and british armies?

When you claim that you cannot control the points of an army, how can you explain that an army in exactly the same setting, can go from a 16000 pts army to a 26000 pts army?

If an army can go from 16000 pts to 26000 pts, that is exactly what I am saying: you can control the size of the army in points, but not with the game engine currently. Something has to be added.

This is the issue I raised.

Now I will explain what I have deduced from my experiments, and you will easily tell me if I am right or not

Point1

According to the date, type of battles, and so on… you determine what classes the AI has to buy
For example, the Ai has to buy 30% or so of tanks, roughly 45% of infantry, 15% of artillery, 10% of supports...

Then point 2, according to a rarity code ratio table you designed, the ai buys troops according to point 1. it does so until it exhausts all the points it could spend or until it reaches a size of 500 units.

This rarity code ratio table is simply acting like a probability distribution, and you use a random wheel like in a lottery to determine what troops are actually used…

That’s it.

So effectively, with this type of code, you absolutely cannot control the value in pts of the final army, and this explain the huge variance of the army points. And this also explains that to raise the pts of the army, you have only one degree of freedom: the maximum number of unit, 500...

Now I simply says that it is possible to raise the quality of the troops so that the Ai will build armies bigger in size.

Although in depth testing is required, you can simply define several rarity code ratio tables! Possibilities are endless: you have currently the rarity table for standard forces. You could create a table for elite forces, with expensive units (not only tanks, but artillery and so on). Probability degrees are simply the ones of the standard force, shifted to expensive units

But you could also design a rarity table for cheap support troops, with probabilities shifted to cheap units…

So that now with a 5000 pts battle, the game engine would have the choice to build a standard force, an elite force, and an army build of tips and bits of cheap and broken units

You simply now add a new probability distribution on top to choose what forces you can have, that depends on total number of points to spend. If the points to spend are higher than 10000, then choosing an elite force is compulsory.

This is so simple tha I wonder if this is not already the case

Now I will provide a small academical example with the cheapest army, the Russians, that proves clearly that within the absolute limit of 500 units per side you can build a very expensive army with the above proposition, at least 50% bigger than the typical current Russians army in January 1944 (average pts equal 19000).

70 kv 85, 70 t34 1943 equals 11875 pts for the tanks

32 hvy howitzer 152mm, 7500 pts

300 standard infantry worth each 16 pts, 4800 pts (infantry costs always the same in all armies, you do not need to rewrite the rarity table)

20 heavy at gun 61 pts each= 1200 pts

80 units worth each 40 pts, easy, means 3200 pts

That equals with a (standard) elite force of 500 unit, 29000 pts…

Now with this I can build a german core of 12000 pts