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Development of AoD 1.12

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Cakes said:
but I'd say 700 divisions in 1944 is beyond my abilities to counter.. :)
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Unless it is mostly militia. Which it very well might be.

Also keep in mind that beyond 400 proper divisions tc overload can be quite punishing. If you play your cards right you might still be able to counter it. Initially you donnot seem to stand a chance. But once local supplies have dried out and thanks to tc-overload resupplyment occurs painfully slow, combat effeciency drops by up to 50%. 200 well supplied divisions outmatch 600 divisions out of supplies.

Also keep in mind that upgrading huge armies is quite expensive. AI is not good at that.
 
Pang Bingxun said:
Unless it is mostly militia. Which it very well might be.
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It wasn't - it was a mix of Armor, Mech and Infantry units (I loaded a save as Russia to check out their armies and economy).

That's beside the point though, as I've said, it looks like my game was broken; so it didn't matter how much IC they had.

It's no longer happening after a fresh install and patch to 1.12. I am now tweaking the difficulty.csv bonuses for Axis/Allies - which don't look like these are set in vanilla. Does anyone know if these settings do anything??
 
Cakes said:
If you mean production, then I'm not so sure.
I did try version 1.09 too (though only a quick test) and the countries (well, I tested the UK) seemed to only produce what it actually had the IC to produce.

I can't remember the Soviet Union doing so well in ANY of the early patch versions - and I've been around for a long time.
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To be clear - I did mean production, but as i remember 1.09 was indeed working properly and if i'm not mistaken, it was actually softcode patch over 1.08 version (which was probably best polished hardcoded version). However 1.09 is quite an old story. That's why i said, it wasn't new for me.

You are absolutely right about AI cheating. I just don't take it, that the fact AI can produce more, than its capabilities according to human player has little impact. It's absolutely decisive for what we can observe. There is no way to achieve a level of development as AI can. You can only produce the same amount of units by sacrificin research, intelligence and constructions. This makes huge difference.
 
Yep, there's definitely something that the AI can do that Human players cant. In my 'broken' version (before reinstall) it was definitely able to produce items it couldnt have possibly produced (with its current IC). As mentioned, that was fixed when I reinstalled.

Anyway. If you're on high enough difficulties, the AI does get a bonus. In the order of 10 or 20% to production (and other items such as resources). For IC this is a MASSIVE advantage - as that's 20%..... forever.. My game was max difficulty, so was getting 20% - but even then, it was producing items with IC is didnt have.

I've been tweaking these difficulty bonus figures to try to reduce the massive material advantage, whilst giving others such as combat bonuses.
 
Difficulty settings have actually nothing to do with this issue, because they just set relative difference of potential between AI and the player.
I almost always play on normal and prefer to choose weaker country for challenge, instead of increasing difficulty level, but it's just my preference. However the game should IMO be most accurate exactly on this setting. When AI just ignores limitations it's hard to maintain sensible balance and the game looses its depth.
 
Not sure what your point is. I didn't think that was related to this specific issue.
My install was broken; as to how or what the effects were or why it was broken. Who cares? It was fixed by reinstalling.

I was sugesting that the bonuses at highest levels can lead to unrealistically large economies.
Much better would be to tweak the ALLIES or AXIS difficuty settings (within the CSV file) - if they work, and that was what I was asking.

Turns out they do work. I've just tested it..
If you want to give all the (eg.) Axis members a bonus to combat or movement speed etc, you can changes the values in the difficulty.csv file - leaving economy values etc intact.

I also noticed the crazy build settings for the UK AI (whilst I was checking economies).
-No strategic bombers, in fact, no aircraft at all apart from interceptors.
-The only army brigade attachments it gives is artillery. Just standard artillery.
-It doesn't produce any standard infantry - just marines. In fact, marines are the ONLY infantry it will produce (apart from Motorised infantry, which it produces loads of).
-No paras in there - yet it has them as a research priority.
Very odd..

edit..
Just checked some other countries - compared to 1.09 - and it looks like their AI build options are quite limited and dont bear much resemblance to history.
In the 1936 AI, Russia's (1.12) main build focus is Mountain troops vs (main build focus of) Infantry in 1.09.

Germany (1.12) 1936ai doesn't have 'tanks' in their build list. Just motorised and a few HQ units.
Am I reading this correctly? I've checked the German troops in a save game and it's almost all Motorised units; apart from I guess the other unit types that would have been there at game start. Do these files get used depending on the 'date' of the game?

Capture.JPG


Any idea why the changes were made? It really changes the force makeup's of the major powers..
 
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Cakes said:
Am I reading this correctly?
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Possibly, but you probably donnot understand what you are reading. All major AIs have several files which are loaded by events and the loaded files are in the subfolder "switch". So ignore the mainfolder.

What you read via "debugai" is what AI is supposed to base its production on at that time, but a few weeks later something very different may be loaded.

Early on is loaded what is deemed to be needed early on, later files will contain more long term considerations, usually with items that are more expensive. Motorized divisions however give excellent bang for the buck.

Soviet union is a special case. Current infantry production in mid 1941 is to be maximized and in order to do so the production before 1941 has been adjusted to meet this specific goal.
 
OK thanks..
I did understand it though wanted to clarify any changes to these figures - as you have said, due to any possible events etc.
Clears it up anyway.

Was there a major re-org between 1.09 and 1.12?
 
1.10 was near identical to 1.09. There were many hardcoded changes, but few that matter. It was mostly an internal issue.
1.11 introduced a new synthax for the research AI and it changed the paradigma to a stronger economic build up.
1.12 introduced many smaller changes. Balance was shifted in favour of soviet union. Now near 50/50, but huge variance.
 
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@Cakes
I was referring to the fact, that AI controlled country can set production to level exceeding its theoretical capabilities according to actual IC. This cannot be done by human player.
I thought You brought it in earlier post. As i said, difficulty levels have nothing to do with this, because it's not the problem of different conditions but breaking the rules.

According to your complains about bonuses at certain levels, well one may say the opposite. They are difficulty levels and are supposed to be "unfair" or unrealistic. I never found them really bad. On the other hand maybe it would be better to let players choose, what difficulty levels can affect like:

DIFFICULTY SETTINGS
PRODUCTION - Normal (total IC, production bonuses - time and cost)
RESOURCES - Normal (all resources growth including manpower)
COMBAT - Normal (fighting, movement, attrition, consumption bonuses)
RELATIONS - Normal (diplomatic actions, trade, intelligence chances)
 
What I find still so disappointing is how weak the AI remains. While I have been critical of Darkest Hour in the past, I am now playing it in a N/N pass as Germany with the unmodified version. This is as close to HOI II and AOD as that game seems to offer. I encounter a better AI, in terms of Airforce and especially Navy organization, and land forces defensive strongpoints & tactical retreats. It amphibiously invades like 1.12 (i.e., more often but with too-small a force) but this still keeps a sloppy player (like me at times) more honest.

Maybe some day the AI play will be improved...? Most mods here try to compensate by either spamming AI builds, and removing Navy range restrictions, etc. In other words, giving the AI "Cheats" as indicated in this thread above, instead of just making a better AI. Other mods take a "We know what's coming" approach and build level 10 forts throughout France & Belgium, and behind the Dnieper. This gives the advanced German player a tough challenge (I'm not that good!) but I always thought this scenario should be an option in a mod.

I have yet to try C.O.R.E. Since I have enjoyed the (no longer supported) Iron Cross in years past, and C.O.R.E. has similarities to IC. Maybe I'll try that next. By the time I get around to playing HOI IV, which I've owned since the start, It will be too old...
 
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MJF said:
What I find still so disappointing is how weak the AI remains.
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That's best resolved by playing online :D
 
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Although making it easier to edit the soft coding for how the AI handles combat would be great. It's quite vague to do so at the moment. The air combat AI modifiers are especially hard to understand.
 
@Cakes
Interesting, your comments regarding a re-install with minimal patching. The install I had so much trouble with was from the initial (non-steam) version, via 1.03, 1.04, 1.05, 1.07 and 1.08 and finally 1.12 so there were bits of six patch versions in there.
I will try loading 1.12 straight onto 1.0 and see if it behaves itself a bit better
 
chuckmr said:
@Cakes
Interesting, your comments regarding a re-install with minimal patching. The install I had so much trouble with was from the initial (non-steam) version, via 1.03, 1.04, 1.05, 1.07 and 1.08 and finally 1.12 so there were bits of six patch versions in there.
I will try loading 1.12 straight onto 1.0 and see if it behaves itself a bit better
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Just done that and noticed some problems. In many .ai files, including in /switch, I am seeing errors on startup relating to an invalid province name "Philippine Trench". This is in the ignore {} section of many admiral definitions. There are around 100 ai files affected.
There are three Philippine Trenches--North, Central and South. I tried changing the references to "South Philippine Trench" as an experiment, but that didn't work so I deleted the references to this trench completely--which did work.
I've compared province-name.csv to one I have running under 1.08 and they are identical. There is no such problem in 1.08. Furthermore, I didn't see this the first time I loaded 1.12 over a heavily patched version as mentioned in my last post.
Has anyone seen this before, and is there a better solution than just getting rid of this entry in the ignore list?
If not, the thing runs and hopefully the Belgian navy will not start patrolling near Manila...or run into the Regia Marina or Kriegsmarine while doing so.
 
if you want to see competent ai, you will have to look for ai mods - pang is in charge of ai for aod and i am not allowed to touch them so they will continue to suck until the day he gets his head out of his rear and start to make them compently... which may take a couple of ages
 
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Vanguard 1936 (which is part of the latest update) and Improved 1936, which can be found here
 
PB-DK said:
Vanguard 1936 is only the setup for nations that is included in the update - no ai there
Improved 1936 is decent, worked on some of the setup and ai there to help jarski
i also made the vanguard ai mod can be found here
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I've been playing Vanguard, but saw no AI improvement (?), just more manpower and AI units, which is the opposite of what I'd prefer - Hiatorical unit counts, just better AI (Although Vanguard is based on historical counts, I believe). Nonetheless, VG gives a deeper challenge. I made some comments on this in your Vanguard section, If you recall. :D

Improved 1936 Mod just looked like a "What if your enemies knew what was coming...?" Mod. Level 10 forts extended from the Maginot line through Belgium, and built by Stalin behind the Dnieper. An interesting what-if idea, and probably a challenging MP mod, but as a regular contest.....?
 
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