the AI failed epically - what the hell ist wrong with this ai?

[Arkarnia]

Does anyone else have any moments of AI's simply stupidest actions?


An example:

Initial situation: Romania and Hungary are neutral, Germany and Great Britain are at war.
Hungary - declares war on Romania
Hungary also - joins the Allies
The end of the action is Hungary being overrun.
Democratic Romania joined the Comintern.
Allies and Comintern are in the World War because of Hungary and Romania and the conflict over Transylvania

Another example...

Hungary declares war on Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia is communist.
Yugoslavia joins the Japanese alliance.
But because Japan is at war with Great Britain and the USSR, communist Yugoslavia is at war with Russia, Great Britain, the Allies, and Hungary, and receives no help from Europe.

Another example...

The USSR at peace with the Allies.
Japan joins the Allies.
Great Britain and the USSR at war because of Japan.
without focus, without war aim or other reasons

what kind of garbage is this? What the hell is wrong with this AI? There are many more examples that I just haven't written down.

Does anyone else have similar retarded moments with the AI?

 

[Umbosch]

When you will know which alliance the war target will join: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Its more important then the ideology. As Poland i have block the border between Russia and Germany so Barbarossa will not trigger. But Russia has war with me. From there i have attack Yugoslavia so they join the Russians and as Germany finish the Yuogolsavia Focus and attack them they will call the Russian with in the war = Barbarossa starts as war of south.

As Manchukuo, i attack portugals Macao and they join the Chinese Front. I do it most time before Japan attack the Phillipines. Then i believe then Portugal will join the Allies. And that bring more probs than with the seafaring nations of the chinese Front.

Then there are things i beleive they will scripted. As i attack Sweden with fasscist finland as they have the random focus tree They join every time the allies. Denmark and Norway never.

 

[Findell_HOI]

Yeah any time you deviate from the normal timeline historical path the game goes nuts.

 

[Cornutus]

Well, you know, Fascist Greece and Communist USSR joined the Allies, while non-aligned Romania butchered its Fascists and joined the Axis.

Historically, weird alliances were the thing.

Poland in 1939 had a lot more in common with Germany or Italy than with France or UK, but that didn't stop Germany getting destroyed because of attacking it.

 

[kettyo]

There is no delicate AI force comparison. They only compare numbers of divisions. What kind of divisions it doesn't matter. There is a new option since Götterdämmerung to compare manpower in the field but i think it's only used for Anschluss currently.

 

[Eh up me duck]

Problem is, HOI 4 was originally designed as a world war 2 simulator. So complex dynamics between nations/alliances weren't really considered.

However HOI 4 today is predominantly alt-history based. I haven't checked the stats but I would guess the majority of players do not play historical games when they load up HOI 4.

So we are stuck with an AI that bases its decisions based on focuses that it picks randomly.

I would hope that in HOI 5 we see a more holistic approach towards narratives/focus trees/alliances. I don't know what form that would take though - one thought I had was that AI nations do not even have focus trees, they simply respond to player choices intelligently. I.e. when designing focus trees, developers script AI reactions to individual focuses and reactions, rather than rolling the dice on each play through.

 

[Varvs]

OP describes AI logic that has not changed since the game launched. A fix would be pay walled like the rest of the rudimentary systems in vanilla. Its a miracle that they gave vanilla players the option to build railway and supply hubs.

 

[KubiG37]

There is no delicate AI force comparison. They only compare numbers of divisions. What kind of divisions it doesn't matter. There is a new option since Götterdämmerung to compare manpower in the field but i think it's only used for Anschluss currently.

Actually the AI doesn't make ANY force comparison when joining factions.

What you're talking about is AI's willingness to 'join a war' against someone they share border with. Yes, then they think for a while before declaring/joining war if there are lots of troops behind that border (or none on their side).

Does anyone else have similar retarded moments with the AI?

Ofc. A single stupid AI decision can cause a massive cascade of other such failures, as it often bypasses other 'historical' AI restrictions.

One of my latest Soviet Union (historical) run was completely ruined when Portugal for unknown reasons joined allies in about 1944 (I guess UK invited them via that decision to invoke alliance), so far OK, but then they declared war on Spain (which was neutral) - as a result Spain joined Axis and it steamrolled Portugal, and closed the Gibraltrar strait - All the allied forces in the mediterranean were cutoff and died, because Italy managed to take Suez as well.

And THEN - after capitulating - Portugal declarared war on some communist nations in South America, which made them join Axis, this triggered several more nations joining Allies/Axis as well (including Venezuela, Brasil, Peru etc). And then they declared war on ME. Just 'because'. And all the Allies (now basically everyone in the world except Axis) joined against me as well, and now I got no access to Rubber and Aluminum and couldn't contest the insane amount of Axis planes attacking me. The war became a WW1 trench warfare that lasted to about 1949. The casualties on both sides were about triple that of actual WW2.

All thanks to 1 AI decision that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

 

[Arkarnia]

Actually ......

the AI goes crazy

 

[pdstanbridge]

As has already been stated, if you head off the historical path at all, you can almost guarantee something funky will happen. But if you don't make any sweeping changes it pretty much goes as you'd expect. I've never played multiplayer OR with historical focus off. So it nearly always goes as I expect, unless I planned on something different.

If I recall the AI in HOI 3 was somewhat better than what we face now. I'm not sure why that would be the case however.

 

[kettyo]

One of my latest Soviet Union (historical) run was completely ruined when Portugal for unknown reasons joined allies in about 1944 (I guess UK invited them via that decision to invoke alliance), so far OK, but then they declarer war on Spain (which was neutral) - as a result Spain joined Axis and it steamrolled Portugal, and closed the Gibraltrar strait - All the allied forces in the mediterranean were cutoff and died, because Italy managed to take Suez as well.

And THEN - after capitulating - Portugal declarared war on some communist nations in South America, which made them join Axis, this triggered several more nations joining Allies/Axis as well (including Venezuela, Brasil, Peru etc). And then they declared war on ME. Just 'because'. And all the Allies (now basically everyone in the world except Axis) joined against me as well, and now I got no access to Rubber and Aluminum and couldn't contest the insane amount of Axis planes attacking me. The war became a WW1 trench warfare that laster to about 1949. The casualties on both sides were about triple that of actual WW2.

I absolutely hate that kind of nonsense. That's why i do my mod.

 

[Erebus115]

This is what happens when the devs rely on pre-scripted focuses trees, which have no flexibility or reaction to the world around them, to be the driver of geopolitics/diplomacy in their game. Until we get past this insane reliance on focuses trees and replace them with something more mechanical, the problem will persist.

 

[KubiG37]

I absolutely hate that kind of nonsense. That's why i do my mod.

Me too, the first thing I did afterwards was make sure it cannot happen again in my own mod.


But sometimes I just couldn't be bothered even more by this and just pause the game, and use the console to kick nations out wrong factions, force white peace, disband other stupid factions that make no sense etc... And then the game usually crashes after I unpause . So I stop playing Hearts of Iron IV for at least a week.

 

[KubiG37]

This is what happens when the devs rely on pre-scripted focuses trees, which have no flexibility or reaction to the world around them, to be the driver of geopolitics/diplomacy in their game. Until we get past this insane reliance on focuses trees and replace them with something more mechanical, the problem will persist.

This is what I liked about earlier HoI IV versions, before "AI plans" were introduced - turning historical focus off simply meant that the AI was now deciding what to do on per-focus basis. They didn't have a specific goal or path to follow, so they could end up doing anything.

You couldn't force AI to follow certain path, but this system was way more flexible, as each focus could be assigned AI weights and modifiers which could account for what's actually happening around. The experience was way more immersive in my opinion.

Today, if you turn it off, apocalypse happens - all countries' governments suddenly fall despite being stable for decades, Hitler is shot, Stalin is locked in Gulag, fascist Turkey ends up in a faction with communist Switzerland, and landlocked Hungary declares war on a landlocked Paraguay, because a focus told it to do so....

 

[Arkarnia]

A Reddit user experimented with incorporating ChatGPT into his HO14 strategies. He had ChatGPT make decisions about countries, doctrines, and divisions. Although some recommendations were unconventional, they worked surprisingly well in-game. This demonstrates that ChatGPT is capable of making meaningful strategic suggestions that can compete with HO14's existing Cl.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1c3kb92/i_made_chatgpt_play_hoi4_heres_what_happened

 

[kettyo]

Me too, the first thing I did afterwards was make sure it cannot happen again in my own mod.

Your mod is pretty awesome looking by the way

 

[Lord Sheogorath]

The game I'm playing now, the USSR was in a stalemate (slowly losing) with Germany, Germany which defeated the allied invasion of France. Then for some reason, the USSR declared war on Japan, while in this game Japan defeated china solo (except Siam). This went as expected and the USSR went from slowly losing to quickly losing. I even joined to get a few scraps.

On the flip side, this game the Axis AI is very competent, Japan gave me (India) almost whole of south east Asia, still managed to defeat china without my help. Now Japan has taken Hawaii and Italy has capitulated Ireland. Germany might defeat the UK at this rate.

Can the AI successfully invade the USA? And will the Axis go berserk and declare war on the co-prosperity sphere?

 

[Findell_HOI]

The game I'm playing now, the USSR was in a stalemate (slowly losing) with Germany, Germany which defeated the allied invasion of France. Then for some reason, the USSR declared war on Japan, while in this game Japan defeated china solo (except Siam). This went as expected and the USSR went from slowly losing to quickly losing. I even joined to get a few scraps.

On the flip side, this game the Axis AI is very competent, Japan gave me (India) almost whole of south east Asia, still managed to defeat china without my help. Now Japan has taken Hawaii and Italy has capitulated Ireland. Germany might defeat the UK at this rate.

Can the AI successfully invade the USA? And will the Axis go berserk and declare war on the co-prosperity sphere?

Generally the AI is unable to invade the USA except in cases where they have some large pieces of land nearby from a peace conference. Stuff in South America typically post the fall of France/UK.

 

[Eh up me duck]

A Reddit user experimented with incorporating ChatGPT into his HO14 strategies. He had ChatGPT make decisions about countries, doctrines, and divisions. Although some recommendations were unconventional, they worked surprisingly well in-game. This demonstrates that ChatGPT is capable of making meaningful strategic suggestions that can compete with HO14's existing Cl.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/comments/1c3kb92/i_made_chatgpt_play_hoi4_heres_what_happened

Getting chat gpt to play hoi 4 is basically getting /r/hoi4 to play hoi 4. It can't actually rationally compute information.

Chat gpt can't even play hangman.

 

[Arkarnia]

Then for some reason, the USSR declared war on Japan,

This has often surprised me until I, as a Russia player, found out that the Sakhalin Peninsula and the reason for this