How is Japanese AI in Vanilla?

[elxaime]

I played original WITP, including PBEM, but it was many years ago. I later bought Admiral's Edition, but haven't tried it yet. My thought was to ease back into the system by playing Allies against the AI.

My question is - is the AI an OK opponent for this? I don't intend to do anything fancy as Allies, just a basic conservative game with attention to history and as a way to relearn the basics. But I recall stories from back in the day that the AI was really rough around the edges. For example, Kido Butai would disappear and later be found floating, out of fuel,in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

How is Japanese AI? Will it give a basic skill level, conservative, Allied player a decent, fun challenge?

[Sardaukar]

Yes.

Just play very conservatively until late 1942 as Allies.

[jwolf]

I'm playing a campaign against the Japanese AI on hard difficulty. IMHO it's decent, but the AI does run out of steam once its scripts are exhausted. It can't make up a plan, outside of its scripts, for either offense or defense. But it certainly does not do outrageously silly things as you described leaving KB stuck in the middle of nowhere, out of fuel. The AI is not very good at land combat in a large theater (as in China, for example) where there is room for maneuver. It has a weakness of trying to do most (all?) operations, whether land or sea, on the cheap. Instead of "go big or go home" it seems (my impression only) to calculate just what it needs to do X, and then sends that much and no more. This works in the early war period, when the Allies are very weak, but leads to serious problems after that period. The AI is in my opinion rather aggressive, sometimes foolishly so, but it definitely makes the game fun. The AI successfully conquered the major areas Japan really did historically, though I made it a point not to reinforce any such area with additional ground troops. Other places the Japanese did not get historically, as Port Moresby, I put up more of a fight and had a fun defensive, then finally offensive campaign there. Overall I've been happy with the AI.

[PaxMondo]

You need to play a stock scen at HARD (minimum) going to VERY HARD at least 3 - 5 days every 4 weeks. More is better.


The AI cannot supply islands and other isolated areas. You need to run at VERY HARD to allow supply to get to those areas.

[JohnDillworth]

Lot more mechanics in this one. Playing against the AI will give you a chance to learn game mechanics. As mentioned don't pick a fight until late 42 at best. Build bases, retreat, start to move supply and fuel forward in vast numbers. Build a chain of bases. Build big bases in Australia and the surrounding areas. Oh, pilot training is a big thing. you need to start a training program and train up lots and lots of pilots. Escort your convoys. Set up search arcs. You really don't have enough of anything, somethings you have very little of at all. You have lots of cargo ships and enough tankers so just keep moving supply and fuel forward. lots of it. Get what ships you can out of the DEI and Phillipines. Don't loss any more capital ships. Turn off replacements for units that are going to die. Roll with the punches in China and just fall back to the rough terrian. British and Dutch subs may get lucky, U.S. ones proably not and their leaders suck. 1942 is all about getting ready to counter-punch in 1943. It will be fun

[Chickenboy]

I do not recommend playing the Japanese AI on 'Hard' or 'Very Hard' modes. Part of your education on this game is learning how the opposition will respond to certain moves or tactics. The AI cheats like a m***** f*****. One's efforts to isolate a Japanese army on an island so that you can starve them and destroy them will fail, as LCUs will not run out of supply. This removes a significant portion of the training value of the AI, IMO, as maneuver and LOS are no longer meaningful. On 'Historical' settings, it will still cheat (e.g., teleporting ships for TFs) in other ways, but pretending that supply doesn't matter is no help at all to understanding the logistics and counter-logistics of this game.

[elxaime]

thanks everyone very helpful

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

I do not recommend playing the Japanese AI on 'Hard' or 'Very Hard' modes. Part of your education on this game is learning how the opposition will respond to certain moves or tactics. The AI cheats like a m***** f*****. One's efforts to isolate a Japanese army on an island so that you can starve them and destroy them will fail, as LCUs will not run out of supply. This removes a significant portion of the training value of the AI, IMO, as maneuver and LOS are no longer meaningful. On 'Historical' settings, it will still cheat (e.g., teleporting ships for TFs) in other ways, but pretending that supply doesn't matter is no help at all to understanding the logistics and counter-logistics of this game.

CB is correct here, just be aware though the AI will not supply areas and so it will fail in places that it should not. You can get about 3 months of reasonable play of the AI at NORMAL for stock scenarios, after that it will degrade quite quickly. Just the opposite happens then; you develop a false sense of security with tactics against an impaired AI that will not work at all in PBEM. EX: IJ expansion starts to rapidly fail after 3 months solely to lack of supply. It cannot stage forward, so it attacks with little to no supply. Your defenses hold when with full supply attacks they may not.

The truth is that playing the AI is very good for learning game mechanics. It is fair for learning some tactics that work across the board. After that you play either AI or PBEM. Tactics and strategies are quite different.