Helping the AI

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

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Chris21wen
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Helping the AI

Post by Chris21wen »

Having got to the stage where the AI is committing suicide by continually invading Lunga with scraps I've decided to try switching to the AI for a short time. Sounds easy but I'm lost. For those of you who do it what do you advise?
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Bo Rearguard
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Bo Rearguard »

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Having got to the stage where the AI is committing suicide by continually invading Lunga with scraps I've decided to try switching to the AI for a short time. Sounds easy but I'm lost. For those of you who do it what do you advise?

Sounds like you are already doing the best that can be done. They put on no airs, it's genuine fake intelligence.

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Numdydar
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Numdydar »

The best thing to do is not try and play the other side (as it can be hard to try and 'fix' everything as you have discovered), but to change the difficulty to Very Hard. This pretty much puts supply everywhere for Japan. Run it that way for 2-3 turns every week or two will help a lot. Assuming 1 day turns. Then switch back to whatever difficulty you were playing on. But I would not play any lower than Hard unless you are new to the game.
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PaxMondo
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by PaxMondo »

+1
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Chris21wen
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Chris21wen »

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

The best thing to do is not try and play the other side (as it can be hard to try and 'fix' everything as you have discovered), but to change the difficulty to Very Hard. This pretty much puts supply everywhere for Japan. Run it that way for 2-3 turns every week or two will help a lot. Assuming 1 day turns. Then switch back to whatever difficulty you were playing on. But I would not play any lower than Hard unless you are new to the game.


Will that stop the stupid attacks?

If I manually cancel the TF going to, in this case Lunga, will the AI restart them?
Buckrock
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Buckrock »

Cancelling an existing TF's orders and then handing control of the turn back to the AI will often result in even worse stupidity. If you are
going to try what you mentioned, it's best to stay in control of the AI player long enough to sail the offending TFs back to a major friendly
port and then disband them.

There is no good solution to this, just least-worst ones.
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Alfred
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Alfred »

ORIGINAL: Chris H

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

The best thing to do is not try and play the other side (as it can be hard to try and 'fix' everything as you have discovered), but to change the difficulty to Very Hard. This pretty much puts supply everywhere for Japan. Run it that way for 2-3 turns every week or two will help a lot. Assuming 1 day turns. Then switch back to whatever difficulty you were playing on. But I would not play any lower than Hard unless you are new to the game.


Will that stop the stupid attacks?

If I manually cancel the TF going to, in this case Lunga, will the AI restart them?

The AI will continue with it's script which in this case involves capturing Lunga. It will only cease this focus when
  • the script end date has passed
  • all allocated assets have been destroyed

Alfred
adarbrauner
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by adarbrauner »

Another option: whereever possible, let the AI move his units without attacking them, e.i., have pity on the AI and close an eye on its suicidical moves, spare it;

In this case, you may let it land small LCUs to try to destroy once in land, without attacking his shipping.

(Or, alternatively, let him take Lunga [:D])

This provided the AI does not come with appropriate naval and air escort , support and cover, in which case you have a real fight and challenge.
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DanSez
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by DanSez »

ORIGINAL: Chris H
Having got to the stage where the AI is committing suicide by continually invading Lunga with scraps I've decided to try switching to the AI for a short time. Sounds easy but I'm lost. For those of you who do it what do you advise?

And The Answer Is:
You will have to establish some limits when playing AI oppponents.
Sorry, just the way it is.

But since you play solo, you can limit your abilities. That can be 'only expand to historic Japanese limits'.
Another example is to play PDU OFF. I believe the AI's ability to maximize or even exploit the capabilities of switching air frames is very limited. Giving that up will make for a more competitive long term game. Also you will learn about R&D so that if you go PDU ON vs human, you will be far ahead in knowledge of which planes and series are worth investment. Lots of benefits in the long term with some sacrifice today. PDU OFF is a pain in the planning stage.

To your post specifically, the best way to extend the AI's abiliby is to allow the AI to take the target so it will not sit in a death spin over the same objective. You can still cause plenty of damage to AI ships, planes, airfields, LCUs and once achieved a price, give it away. The benefit is to learn to do a tactical and strategic retreat, a very valuable skill set needed if you venture into PBEM.

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Numdydar
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Numdydar »

+1 to all of this.

When people play the Allies against the AI and fight tooth and for every inch, then complain about how dumb the AI is something I do not understand.

If you want a good game against the Japanese in stock do the following. I will note that I have never played the Allies, but I do know Japan's limitations so take the below with that in mind.

-Play on Hard or VH
-Let Japan take whatever they want for the first 6-8 months. In other words is you see an invasion force going to Port Morseby, let them invade. Do not reinforce, do not send SFs or CVs TFs to defend, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, etc. Just let it go.
-In the beginning run away with all that you can. This will help the AI do better and hopefully save some ships/planes you can use later. I would even entirely abandon Burma as part of this 'exit' strategy.

IMHO, I would actually not do much against Japan until late '42. Like Oct/Nov. You want to give the Ai enough time to capture the historical targets, plus some 'extras' if possible, and become well established in the areas it has taken before launching any counter attacks. I would also not use any sub warfare until the torps were fixed. This would allow the Japanese economy to at least try and be decent.

2-3 days before any major offensive by you as the Allies, switch the game to VH and then keep it there while you try and take something. If successful, then switch back to Hard if desired.

I would also recommend play Scenario 2 versus 1 if playing the Allies. Actually I would never play any PBEM game using Scenario 1. With Allied foreknowledge, the gap is too big between equal players to ever play Scenario 1 against a human player. But that is just me [:)]

You need to do these kinds of things in order to have a good game in '43 and later. As bad as we think the Japanese High Command was during the war, the AI is 100 times worse.

Now Japan against the Allied AI? Play on Normal and overrun the Pacific [X(]
Numdydar
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Numdydar »

Sorry for the double post but I wanted to keep this separate.

PDU Off playing as the Allies would be another way to help the Ai. As the Allies cannot pack every squadron with the best planes.

I have played exactly one campaign game with PDU Off as Japan and I will never play another one like that again. What a complete mess and pita for a human Japanese player. I could go into great details to why, but do not want to have this thread go completely off topic [:)]
Chris21wen
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Chris21wen »

In this game I'm Japan but do also play the Allies.  I do and have done everything mentioned in this thread for a long time with the except the PDU OFF. What I wanted to do is stop the stupid suicide runs on Lunga but that was impossible against a persistent AI.  I've currently done the following:-
 
Pulled Kido Butai back to Truk, further if necessary.
Gone to VH, 
Pulled all my subs back to defensive position.  I found were the AI was routing TF without escorts.
Pulled bombers back as well but leaving LBs on search. 
 
This should allow the AI to take Lunga.  Any further suggestions?
 
By the way it's scenario 33 Andy's Scenario 1 (Historical) and it played very well until the Lunga incident.
 
If there's one thing I want for Christmas it's proper AI but you can't have everything you wish for.
 
One last thing.  Did anyone ever look into the ability to manually change scripts mid game?
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Zecke
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Zecke »

The AI always invade unprotected situations..it happens to me at kawaljen twice at singapore (Georgetown) twice and always at port moresby
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Alfred
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RE: Helping the AI

Post by Alfred »

The specific script is chosen at scenario selection when starting a game and cannot be subsequently replaced mid-game with a different script.
 
Alfred
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