Historical german AI could really use some help, it's just silly now

[Gort11]

While I agree they could definitely do better, the amount of tanks isn't such a problem, the AI does field a few thousand of light and medium tanks, but even they can't usually push through the ORG wall + Red Air the Soviets now field.

In previous versions they didn't have such problems and (at least for a few months) could push and encircle groups of soviet divisions.

I was interested in this take, so I ran a test game as Haiti and tagged over to Germany a couple of times to see how their tank forces were doing.

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At start of WW2 (invasion of Poland), Germany has 7 deployed tank divisions of this template:

4 light tank
1 medium tank
3 motorised
Engineers, artillery, AT

Total tank numbers are:

1680 light, mostly Panzer 2
277 medium, all Panzer 4

-----

At start of Barbarossa, Germany has 15 deployed tank divisions of varying templates, most of which are still:

4 light tank
1 medium tank
3 motorised
Engineers, artillery, AT

Total tank numbers are:

3920 light, mostly Panzer 2
916 medium, all Panzer 4

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At the start of Barbarossa, they have 69 factories on infantry equipment, and 11 on tanks.

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So I'd say there are two main problems here:

1. I'll stick to the position that for an army that loses due to a lack of manpower and needs to do a lot of attacking, that is a tiny number of tank factories, and a tiny number of tank divisions as a result.

2. That's a pretty horrible tank division template. It's very small. It has no AA. It has AT guns, but it shouldn't need them 'cause the division should have a good piercing vehicle in it. Light tanks are bad, but by including a single medium tank battalion in there you're throwing away the speed of the light tank, which is basically its only advantage. Mixing tank types like this also means that you have to double up on research and production lines, and if you have a shortage of either tank type your divisions will slow right down.

My solutions for the problems would be:

1. Encourage the AI to put more factories on tanks.

2. Encourage the AI to only include one weight-class of tank in a division.

OR

3. Remove the distinction between light and medium tanks and just have one battalion type called "tanks". That way a mixed division of Panzer 2s and 4s is not so bad.

 

[Caeric]

?thats nothing with how many factories the AI puts on Infantry equipment, artillery, and support equipment. If the AI just stopped attacking for 70 to 100 days they would have their stockpile back, probably even while being attacked by the Soviets.

Except they don't stop as you know. They are just burning their entire stockpile attacking over and over getting nowhere.

Sov were actively pushing into and capping Romania and Bulgaria. And this one year after Barb

 

[American Traveler]

Except they don't stop as you know. They are just burning their entire stockpile attacking over and over getting nowhere.

Sov were actively pushing into and capping Romania and Bulgaria. And this one year after Barb

Yeah the mindless attack bug has been a problem since… whenever this game was released 9 years ago?

I had hoped altering the “defines” folder for min attack strength could have an affect. I wonder if this was tried in OPs mod?

 

[marcelo r. r.]

sometimes i alt tag to see how AI performs with my "empire", AI just throw tank divisions on river atack (the largest penalty on game, your damage become 10dmg).

 

[goodcigar]

sometimes i alt tag to see how AI performs with my "empire", AI just throw tank divisions on river atack (the largest penalty on game, your damage become 10dmg).

I don't think the AI cares about terrain at all when moving Divisions does it? Years ago I asked for terrain controls on Divisions/Armies/Army Groups so we could tell certain units to avoid certain terrain.

 

[lilcritt]

Anyone else notice allies using soviet airfields?

 

[Zenbeast]

I don't think the AI cares about terrain at all when moving Divisions does it? Years ago I asked for terrain controls on Divisions/Armies/Army Groups so we could tell certain units to avoid certain terrain.

Bots don't understand supply either, keep that in mind. It's why they'll stack a billion units on a godforsaken jungle or desert tile far away from a supply hub.

The force concentration scripting has helped a bit with keeping valuable units out of bad terrain, but only a bit as the bot will see your 'thin' line and stack up, not realizing it's thin because the enemy is massively overextended and you're on a mountain behind a river with supply.

 

[vermicious knid]

Can confirm Germany is struggling. I've been doing Japan runs so haven't had a chance to closely observe the specifics of the fail.

 

[BurningEGO]

Curiously in the runs I have done as China or Chinese warlords, Germany always kills USSR. In either historical or ahistorical, but I have had one or another run where they actually struggled hard and collapsed after advancing a bit on the russian front. So I can't say this is what "always" happens.

Just took a peek at German AI logistics and it's dire.

Normal, because of MEFO debuffs that kill the AI's production. They can't deal with the impact it has on production.

Did they actually pass the decisions to use gold from other countries?

If not, thats why. The AI after MEFO rework could never manage things properly, I have had cases where years after civil war, the ai still has the non-aligned von mackensen as head of state and as consequence 0 stability due to the stability modifier that only dissapears after you get an actual government.

In some ahistorical scenarios Germany struggles hard to get Czechslovakia or even Poland.

On historical much of its production will actually come from countries' capitulation. So if somehow these countries got their production impacted, it could indirectly affect Germany. Probably also reliant on allied shipments to some point.

 

[Nitros14]

The clearest thing to me is that the AI doesn't build or employ tank divisions well. They put a tiny fraction of their military factories into tanks, make divisions that are half light and half medium tanks, and then don't concentrate the few tank divisions it does build into a cohesive attacking force.

The German AI has always relied on repeated attacks from infantry/artillery divisions.

To be fair to Paradox, historically Germany began Barbarossa with 3500 tanks, many of which were light, organized into 17 armoured divisions. They didn't roll in with 10,000 tanks like a player would.

 

[KubiG37]

I had hoped altering the “defines” folder for min attack strength could have an affect. I wonder if this was tried in OPs mod?

I largely try to stay away from the defines, but yes this can be used, however it affects everyone, including player, and makes your units very passive and refuse to attack even into empty provinces.

I've achieved a similar effect using variables and scripts, German AI halts if it's stockpiles drop below certain thresholds. I also fixed their dying air forces, but I can't fix how dumb AI's attacks in general are.

 

[Gort11]

To be fair to Paradox, historically Germany began Barbarossa with 3500 tanks, many of which were light, organized into 17 armoured divisions. They didn't roll in with 10,000 tanks like a player would.

HoI4 numbers don't really correspond to real-life numbers in a lot of ways, and a lot of HoI4's concepts don't line up with reality either.

As a result, even though the tank numbers are similar, Germany collapses years earlier in HoI4 than it did in reality.

 

[BurningEGO]

HoI4 numbers don't really correspond to real-life numbers in a lot of ways, and a lot of HoI4's concepts don't line up with reality either.

As a result, even though the tank numbers are similar, Germany collapses years earlier in HoI4 than it did in reality.

Thats because the modifiers are quite punitive. They should only truly kick in mid 1942 or something, but by 1941 you will be already struggling if you didn't finish off the uk and got the resources required to complete the focus that removes MEFO negative buffs. And the AI in many cases is sitting there with the negative modifiers on their maximum, lol.

 

[KubiG37]

Report after some further testing:
The patch 1.17.3 indirectly helped with issue, this part specifically:

• AI no longer builds energy & resource infrastructure too early

I've observed the AIs building quite a lot of the new 'power line' buildings, and since each one is about 10% more expensive than a CIV, constructing just 10 of them, instead of 10 CIVs can have quite an impact on the resulting economy few years later. Both German and Japan's economies are stronger now. It could still use some tweaks though, Germany has so much coal that it doesn't need even a single one, yet it still builds many later in the game. Soviets not so much.

I think the Allied planes in Soviet Union are the main problem though. The more I pushed Germany into building more planes (and losing less), the better the result. Soviet airforce gets grinded down and destroyed over time, but UK has near infinite rubber/alumimum sources and will always outproduce Germany. And then send most of it into Russia, where it contests every air zone and prevents german CAS from doing much damage, causing it to lose the initial momentum and never regain it.

 

[goodcigar]

It's fine they added the airbase access diplo action but it should be just 99% restricted for the AI except for the few historical examples where it actually happened. In combination with the ability to practically teleport air wings anywhere on the map it's just messing the game up. For air wings to travel to other air bases they should have to be in range of each other. If not in direct range then they should have to shuttle between air bases to get to their destination. And if that isn't available then they should have to be shipped via convoy/carrier.

Unrelated but something that happened irl that the game isn't modeling is the near complete destruction of the Soviet air force (literally thousands of aircraft) in the first days of Barbarossa. Within 3-7 days their air force was almost completely destroyed and mostly on the ground during the opening surprise attack. The game still has no in depth airbase mechanics to represent this.

 

[L-Histidine]

AI UK seems scripted to cancel military access into Soviet Union immediately after being given it (in an earlier version, when I was trying to cheese Barbarossa by having Western Allies help me), in which case airbase access should have the same treatment.

 

[Shad1902]

no news fpr 10 days....

I wonder when this is going to eb fixed. I can't play HoI with that much of a weak Germany.

 

[Zenbeast]

Unrelated but something that happened irl that the game isn't modeling is the near complete destruction of the Soviet air force (literally thousands of aircraft) in the first days of Barbarossa. Within 3-7 days their air force was almost completely destroyed and mostly on the ground during the opening surprise attack.

The raid mechanic seems pretty perfect for this, especially since the devs figured out how to target supply hubs in NCNS.

no news fpr 10 days....

The devs were pretty clear they are on holiday until after New Years.

 

[gerardproudfot]

AI Air in Russia is a pretty good 'fudge' to represent the massive Lend-Lease quantities of aircraft sent to the USSR IRL. Since lend lease in the game does not really work well between AI nations,.... the air base diplo seems a good work around. After all, it does not matter who's aircraft they are as long as they fly and represent the actual addition to soviet production.

And yes,.... AI Germany should be better at tank production. In fact the Germans should have production lines for the Pz II light and Pz III and Pz IV mediums from 1938 until the adv med is available in 1943-ish. The mediums should be produced in ever growing numbers, replacing Pz II lights battalions as time passes until there are perhaps 1-2 light and 4-5 medium battalions plus 6 motor/mech inf per panzer division.

A AI designed 1939 template might include - 3-4 light, 1-2 med, 4-5 motor, 1 motor art, with support from motor recon, eng, AT and AA coy's (AT for hist accuracy)

By 1941 (Barbaross) - 2 light, 4 med, 6 motor inf, 1 motor art, and support coys as above.

An AI 42 tank template should be 6 med, 6 motor/mech inf , motor or SPG art w/ light armour recon, Eng, AT and AA supt coys. (historically there were 42 armoured cars in the recon battalion but 24 lights in a recon coy would work for AI.

 

[KubiG37]

AI UK seems scripted to cancel military access into Soviet Union immediately after being given it (in an earlier version, when I was trying to cheese Barbarossa by having Western Allies help me), in which case airbase access should have the same treatment.

This is ENG_allies_dont_ask_for_diplo_access_to_SOV in ENG file.

#gerardproudfot - that's pretty much exactly how vanilla AI produces tanks, except it stops producing light much earlier. The tanks are totally useless without air cover though, that wouldn't fix anything.