The AI can read my mind

[MrLongleg]

Damn, second time I try this in the 43 campaign. I only land the Americans in Sicily. If I do that the AI knows that the Brits must land somewhere else. I first take most of the airfields, and the AI does not even put up a fight for Siciliy. On turn 5 Messina and Palermo fall without a shot being fired. And every time the AI knows exactly where I will land. Just at the designated landing beaches I find at least 10 divisions, most of them German. How come? I don't think I told anybody except myself. Even the air directives do not focus so much on the invasion beaches. So I think there must be some "cheating" going on. I guess I will have to start playing a human for the real experience.

[marion61]

Honestly this is where the AI likes to withdraw to because it is such a nice choke point far enough from Sicily's airbases to survive a while. Human players fall back to this position every time that I've played one, because it is the most defensible area you have with the forces you have at that point. A good German (human) player would destroy that invasion as you don't have the air cover on Sicily yet to sustain it, imho. The AI on harder setting will do that also.

[MrLongleg]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

Honestly this is where the AI likes to withdraw to because it is such a nice choke point far enough from Sicily's airbases to survive a while. Human players fall back to this position every time that I've played one, because it is the most defensible area you have with the forces you have at that point. A good German (human) player would destroy that invasion as you don't have the air cover on Sicily yet to sustain it, imho. The AI on harder setting will do that also.

Not convinced - the last time I tried this the Brits wanted to land right East of Reggio Calabria just to find about 8 German divisions waiting for them right there. if you were right they would wait further up for me. Again, all the Germans evacuate Siciliy as soon as you do not land with all units there. No fight whatsoever, except some Italian units that surrender on shot 1.

[Grotius]

Every invasion I've conducted in Italy so far has been uncontested. I've landed behind Axis lines twice so far, and each time I seemed to catch the AI off-guard.

[marion61]

I've been playing the AI alot before launch, and even on challenging I would always land on the toe of Italy turn 2, and never once was I contested. With the launch version I've done it once, uncontested so far against the AI. The first turn or two the AI wanted to see how committed you are. I do the same thing, I move every mobile division I can down the toe to catch an invasion there and/or to throw the AI back into the sea which I've done. After you have some airfields on Sicily going, the AI will move back further out of your air range to defend. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, that's for you to decide. I'm just giving my opinion.

[Erik Rutins]

It doesn't cheat, as far as I know, when it comes to peeking at your invasion targets. I've also had uncontested landings - I think it's more that you are reading the AI's mind. [;)]

[carlkay58]

There are natural landing sites along the Italian toe. When you go into Amphib targeting mode you will notice just how few sites there are to invade or isolate the toe. The AI looks at your actual invasion and makes sure that it can account for all of the Allied Amphibs, if it can't it runs with the Germans (at least) and builds up defenses to block the invasion sites - just like a human would do.

[marion61]

This is an AI game using ver .08, and the axis and for the 1st time the Italians are contesting my landings. I have air cover, and sea interdiction so I won't be pushed off. This is the most significant contesting I've seen, but I do have a question as to how the AI moved that Paratroop Division into a mountain hex on turn 3, when the closest axis paratroop division is in Venice?

[LiquidSky]

I wonder if the AI complains that the Human is playing with FoW off.

[marion61]

I never play with fog of war off.

This was my recon from turn two that showed no units in the area, and I re conned it on high set for units and airfields.

[ratprince]

Not saying the AI cheats...but I have reconned an area like crazy.....then, plotted an invasion point...and VOILA, next turn a scad of divisions show up.....

I asked this question a while back too.

[jazman]

Next time my wife wants to play the "why can't you read my mind?" game I'm sitting her down in front of War in the West.

[LiquidSky]

My AI complaining was not pointed at your game specifically, but was a general comment meant as a joke

I wonder if the paratrooper pays the mountain unit cost for moving in mountains (3 instead of 10).

EDIT: If the paratrooper entrains (for 75SMP's) Detrains for 30ish points in Locri, it will have about 7MPs for tactical movment...at most.

And that assumes it had 16MPs to begin with.

[marion61]

It does seems strange I agree.

[MrLongleg]

Well, I have to admit that the AI puts up a challenge. The toe is swirling with German Panzer and Panzergrenadier Divisions. So I will have o pull a Salerno so that the Axis troops have to give up the toe.

[Joel Billings]

I've checked with Gary and he says there is no cheating and reading the invasion hexes that are targeted. He does have the AI check to see if there is an amphib prepping in the Med or one in the north, and if there is one prepping he assumes there is a threat of an invasion and tries to defend accordingly. We feel this is a reasonable thing to do. As for moving on that mountain, that's tougher because there is a certain amount of cheating the AI does to form lines in locations where it appears there is no great trouble getting to the spot. This is probably necessary. If you see something you think is very bad, feel free to send us a save at the start of the AI turn and tell us what you think is wrong. Gary has just made a change so that units that in order to trace a path to Berlin has to trace through an enemy ZOC will not cheat move. This should make it harder for units in nearly closed pockets from cheat moving out of the pocket. It wasn't always cheat moving before, but a recent save showed that there were clearly times when it would cheat. Although this new change in the next patch will weaken the AI somewhat, we agreed that it shouldn't be able to cheat move it's way out of an almost formed pocket.