Remodelled AI

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Jeremy Pritchard
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
Location: Ontario Canada

Remodelled AI

Post by Jeremy Pritchard »

In the next version of PacWar there will be a lot of changes, one of them is the AI.

I am editing the AI to remove many of the wreckless attacks (like when the Combined Fleet attacks Pearl Harbor, or the 25th Army goes for Ceylon without any support). It seems like the (Japanese) AI likes to do too many attacks and weakens itself too much with the current versions.

In the AI I plan to eliminate attacks on the Hawaiian Islands, India, Australia, and the South Pacific (New Caledonia, etc..) so the Japanese AI will conquer the historic East Indies, Burma, New Guinea and Solomans but will no longer continue attacking both against India, Australia and the Hawaiian Islands (like the old AI tended to do). So, once they conquer these bases, they will go on the defensive, so it will be tougher for the Allied Player to break through as the Japanese will not (hopefully) do any more of these wasteful attacks.

I did this because the aggressiveness of the AI only catches a Human player off guard on the first few games, after that, they come to expect Japanese moves and end up slaughtering them. This will hopefully result in an AI that realizes its limitations, and stops attacking after they achieve their 'primary barrier'.

However, I also have come up with a way to include a very aggressive, yet more intelligent aggressive Japanese and Allied AI.

It is very possible to have more then one EXE file run Pacific War. For example, there could be...

Pac.exe
Pac IJ1.exe
Pac IJ2.exe
Pac US1.exe
etc...

Each will independently run the game, and access all the files, with the only differences being in the EXE. So, the AI of Pac IJ1.exe will be different then the AI of Pac IJ2.exe, with different objectives.

What I plan to do, is to create the following...

#1. PAC.EXE

A Generic AI, that is cautious and takes only the bases that were taken in the first 6 months. It won't attack into India, Australia or Hawaii (unless bases are vacant, which the AI can read and does take advantage of). It will concentrate on defending the perimeter, and will hopefully make a much more challenging opponent to defeat then one that attacks itself to death. Allied forces will advance along the similar attack path.

#2. PAC IJ1.EXE

This AI will have Japan conuqer the historic 6 month territories (Philippines, East Indies, Burma, New Guinea), but will do a concentrated attack in the East against the Hawaiian Islands. HQ AI orders and objectives will all be directed toward capturing the Hawaiian Islands, and possibly going after the US West Coast (instead of having an attack on Hawaii, India and Australia at the same time!).

#3. PAC IJ2.EXE

This AI will have Japan go after Australia after the historic 6 month territories.

#4. PAC IJ3.EXE

Japan will go after India.

#5. PAC US1.EXE

Central Pacific Focus: The Central Pacific is the main target of Allied forces, with Formosa, instead of Philippines being main target (SEAC Objectives will be the same).

#6. PAC US2.EXE

East Indies Focus: The Allies will concentrate advances in the East Indies from the South (northern Australia) and the North (China-Burma).

The AI's won't be in the same order, and I will possibly put together a small program that will randomly load a EXE file (between 1-4 if you choose the Japanese AI, and 1, 5-6 if you choose Allied AI), so you won't know which AI is being loaded into the game.

However, this is just in its infancy, and I am mainly testing out improving the PAC.EXE file before doing anything with any extra AI EXE files.
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pasternakski
Posts: 5567
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2002 7:42 pm

Post by pasternakski »

Yes, Jeremy, please do the randomizing program. If you know what the AI's strategic plan is going in, you know too much.

This all sounds absolutely excellent. Thanks to you and all who have been working on this revision.
Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.
Jeremy Pritchard
Posts: 575
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
Location: Ontario Canada

Post by Jeremy Pritchard »

It seems like this will take a bit longer then I guessed.

Some HQ's are offensive HQ's, and some are defensive. The Defensive HQ's will not attack, even if they have LCU's ready to go, and they have bases in their AI range occupied by the enemy.

Offensive HQ's will fight to the teeth to capture and retain bases. It is a matter of weeding out the defensive HQ's to maximize the offensive ability of the AI.

Some of the defensive HQ's are, 18th Army, 2nd Area Army, 10th Area Army, 32nd Army, 35th Army (basically any late war IJA HQ that takes over a certain defensive region).

I have 'cleaned up' a lot of the bits AI that did not mesh with the new base organization. Made some changes in the order of bases attacked, to follow history as well as to speed up certain advances.

Some things just won't work. I cannot get the 17th Army or South Seas Fleet to get troops assigned to them to march through the Kokoda trail to Port Moresby, and even if a base is outside of the AI peramiters, they will invade it if it is 'empty of enemy LCU's'. Sometimes ordering HQ's to attack/defend certain bases will just result in them stalling their advance, but removing the base from the AI, or even putting the base in a different order of priority, will have the AI perform better.

Hopefully this will result in a better AI, and with the different AI scenarios, more challenging without being quite as divided in their missions and suicidal in their actions. It will probably take a while, but since WitP won't be released for a while as well, I do know it will be out way before then. Most of the OBC files are done, so it is just a matter of tweaking the AI to maximize its potential.

One thing that I found was that I made the Indian forces in Burma/India too strong, as the IJA have a tough time in just capturing and holding Rangoon in 1942.
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Von Rom
Posts: 1631
Joined: Fri May 12, 2000 8:00 am

Post by Von Rom »

Originally posted by Jeremy Pritchard
It seems like this will take a bit longer then I guessed.

Some HQ's are offensive HQ's, and some are defensive. The Defensive HQ's will not attack, even if they have LCU's ready to go, and they have bases in their AI range occupied by the enemy.

Offensive HQ's will fight to the teeth to capture and retain bases. It is a matter of weeding out the defensive HQ's to maximize the offensive ability of the AI.

Some of the defensive HQ's are, 18th Army, 2nd Area Army, 10th Area Army, 32nd Army, 35th Army (basically any late war IJA HQ that takes over a certain defensive region).

I have 'cleaned up' a lot of the bits AI that did not mesh with the new base organization. Made some changes in the order of bases attacked, to follow history as well as to speed up certain advances.

Some things just won't work. I cannot get the 17th Army or South Seas Fleet to get troops assigned to them to march through the Kokoda trail to Port Moresby, and even if a base is outside of the AI peramiters, they will invade it if it is 'empty of enemy LCU's'. Sometimes ordering HQ's to attack/defend certain bases will just result in them stalling their advance, but removing the base from the AI, or even putting the base in a different order of priority, will have the AI perform better.

Hopefully this will result in a better AI, and with the different AI scenarios, more challenging without being quite as divided in their missions and suicidal in their actions. It will probably take a while, but since WitP won't be released for a while as well, I do know it will be out way before then. Most of the OBC files are done, so it is just a matter of tweaking the AI to maximize its potential.

One thing that I found was that I made the Indian forces in Burma/India too strong, as the IJA have a tough time in just capturing and holding Rangoon in 1942.
Great work Jeremy!

Amazing what you can squeeze out of this program :)

Looking forward to seeing the new changes. . .
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