Germany buying tanks

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

I just played a battle as the Russian x germans 7/42, stalingrad, while my smgs and light infantry and 4 light tanks costed me 1000 points, i gave the germans 2000 points, they bought LOTS of expensive tanks, arty and air strikes, after some turns, theyr tanks were history, theyr arty out of ammo, and theyr AC out of bombs, and i just thought, THE germans buy too much tanks, are they supposed to do that?

[Cross]

In the game, go into PREFERENCES

Look at the AI TANK HEAVY button

It's probably ON

You could turn it OFF if you want AI to buy less tanks.

[DRG]

What kind of battle was it ?

Did you take a save game ?

Don

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

AI TANK HEAVY was off, and it was a random battle, germans assault soviets, but when my enemy's german, they ALWAYS get a lot of tanks, i'll get a savegame when i get to my PC

[DRG]

Check every one of your preferences and let me know if any of them are set to none standard values.


Don

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by iCaMpWiThAWP

AI TANK HEAVY was off, and it was a random battle, germans assault soviets, but when my enemy's german, they ALWAYS get a lot of tanks, i'll get a savegame when i get to my PC

The assault multiplier is AFAIR, 3 times the defender points.

If it is a city map, then the AI will buy more infantry since grunts are good in FIBUA. It may buy extra mortar teams too.

As it was an assault, it will have bought engineer assets.

if visibility was low, then the air strikes allocation will tend to be lower, and/or the AI will hav bought less air assets if credited.

If you have set AI tank heavy and points are high enough it will have bought more armour and less infantry than normal.

Note that the pair of forces, date and battle location ID# MAY also affect the AI purchase. e.g. it likes German FJ at Cassino sometimes, and winter terrain will affect the buy of ski troops. USA forces in the Bulge may find the German AI buys a few more heavy tanks than usual.

Tank company buys are not guaranteed even if the AI has the points (which may be some of your complaint). Even if it has the points if AI tank heavy is off it will sometimes buy a platoon that pass through the buy loop. Infantry companies are the reverse - the AI buys entire rifle coys if it has the points, unless AI tank heavy is on where it will favour platoon buys.

As stated in the Game Guide, if you want to see the sort of forces the AI will buy then run a few test purchase games.

set your points for player 1 in preferences, before the exercise. this removes the need to manually buy for your player.

Set nation and and date in the game options programme - this sets the battle generator to a fixed force set and date so you do not need to keep adjusting these in your purchases.

- set battle type
- set both sides to COMPUTER buy
- set both sides deployment to HUMAN

Now examine the forces bought in the deployment for each player.

You can hit the AUTO DEPLOY for each player a few times to see typical AI starting deployments as well. (Any mines will only be deployed the one time though).

Exit the test game without playing and repeat the exercise for about 20-30 samples for statistical trends to start appearing. You require loads of buy attempts since the AI buy loop is based on random choices depending on many, many factors. This is not the original Steel Panthers where you could almost 100% guarantee the enemy force composition and that they would deploy for the attack in a "Greek Phalanx" formation starting 2 hexes back from their deploy line covering 1/2 their base line with almost nothing deployed on the flanks of that phalanx.


Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by iCaMpWiThAWP

I just played a battle as the Russian x germans 7/42, stalingrad, while my smgs and light infantry and 4 light tanks costed me 1000 points, i gave the germans 2000 points, they bought LOTS of expensive tanks, arty and air strikes, after some turns, theyr tanks were history, theyr arty out of ammo, and theyr AC out of bombs, and i just thought, THE Germans buy too much tanks, are they supposed to do that?

I set up a German assault vs Soviet defend battle in the debugger as per the test game scenario outlined below.

I set P1 points to 1000 and limited the P2 to 2000 as you describe above, to ensure that this override is not being bypassed by anything.

The German player 2 was limited to the 2000 points buy, and not the amount it should have had. Manual points are overridden as they should be, there is no bug there.

I then set the preferences to XXX for P2 and at the entry to the buy routines they had the correct ratio of points (2500 or thereabouts, depending on what the P1 buy was exactly)

As to "too many German Tanks", the AI (when limited to the 2000 you used in your example) over several buy attempts bought between 7 and 12 tanks (P3), with the occasional P2 section and the occasional platoon of panzer grenadiers.

They bought a rifle coy and usually 2 - or a company plus a couple of singleton platoons and some engineer platoons. So up to a battalion(-) of leg supported by a platoon or 2 of tanks, not even a full company. Nothing nuts about that for an assault mission.

Artillery was usually an on map bty of SIG or howitzers, and an off map battery. Sometimes a mortar section as well, and sometimes a section of aircraft.

Remember -
German infantry is more expensive than your Russian ones, at 24 or so points typically. Only USSR Guards are in the 22-23 point region, most line Russians are 16 or so points.

The AI typically bought 3 line rifle coys, 80 points of mines, an ATG platoon, an AAMG platoon, some bunkers and a mortar battery plus a few inf-at on 1K points for the defending Russians. When it bought Guards, then it usually only had 2 guards rifle companies.

If you want a challenge then set the Germans up to 4 times your points spend and try defending against that, or at least let it have the correct 2.5K that XXX points setting would have brought against 1K defending. You were short-changing the AI by artificially limiting its buy.

Cheers
Andy

(NB: The AIAdjustpercent INI modifier was previously only affecting player 2 AI buys in campaigns. I played with that so it now affects any buy, and for any side that is played by the AI. So from the next patch, should you think the AI needs a boost in regular battles you can tweak this INI parameter as descibed in the GG.)

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Thanks, just ran a battle like this and its now ok