Turning off factories?

[Ormand]

Is there a simple way to turn off factories in a random game? I suspect rulevar 503 would do this, but I bet it would also turn off building roads, forts, and airbases too. Or not?

Of course, I could just remove them, but that is too harsh.

I am in the end game of a random game in a large and I am finding that the AI has a factory everywhere, and is producing units out the Wazoo even though I have 2/3 of its cities. Since the AI seems to be so unburdened by limits with ore resources, it is building tanks, aircraft, and artillery in prodigious numbers. And since I have most of its cities, not so much infantry. Of course, this make the game a bit more interesting in terms of finishing the AI off, but it is also rather unrealistic as it is producing the units it would have the hardest time to produce. I was thinking more along the lines of giving the AI more cities to start with. Or maybe the cost to construct factories could be increased to reflect greater effort in expanding industrial capacity. But, I suspect the AI doesn't really have to pay the PP to build factories. Anyway, I wanted to try an option of production without factories.

[Ormand]

OK, I see that I can make "unbuildable", which is like having a rulevar as well.

How about changing the minimum distance between them? (OK, I found that too. I should browse more before posting).

[Jeffrey H.]

It seems at times the production AI runs wild building things without regard for supply status.

Another thing the AI does is send hordes of units on hopeless runs to nowhere where they run out of supply and sit there and wait to be killed.

[Ormand]

I confess that I spent too much time working on graphics and not playing, so I haven't seen all the things the AI does. This is a two country (Soviets and Germans) war on a random large map. Early on, the AI pushed in the northern sector rather hard, and forced me to pull back from a city (the Fuhrer never forgave me). But, the AI made what I would call suicide attacks to succeed. It kept attacking with infantry, and the loss ratios were about 3:1. Then after beating that back, and making two large encirclements (20+ divisions), I thought that it would not be able to recover. But, there is now a factory everywhere a factory can be, i.e., every three hexes. Also, all the resources are at level 3. I looked and at one point the AI started with 11 oil fields, and after some 20 turns had 220,000 oil stored up. What I wouldn't give to have that! I guess this is because early on, it mostly had armored cars, artillery, and a few planes. (But it also gets help). The upgrade strategy is also odd. The AI went for mortar 2, MG 2, infantry guns 3, heavy artillery 2. And now at the end, it has gotten to light tanks 2 (I have medium tanks 2, but not much else because I don't know where it gets all those PPs).

In terms of really bad moves, on several occasions, the AI has left large artillery formations on the front, with little infantry protection. Needless to say, they became nice targets. The same for planes in a city. In good weather, the AI left several large stacks of air units in a city protected by one infantry unit with a strength of 50 or so. Again, they didn't last long.

Now, with all these factories, the AI is pumping lots of units into a bit of a bulge in the line, and pushing hard with attacks. But, frankly, even though there are many light tanks and armored cars, these are WWI attacks that gain 1-2 hexes, and I can generally reform, and rebuild units, and then pound the bulge with artillery and divebombers, cutting down their readiness (the limiting factor is that I don't have enough oil). The problem for the AI though is that it has put just about everything in this, leaving the rest of the front fairly unguarded. So, while in the north we trade 1-2 hexes a turn, and I lose infantry, and he loses armor, I have continued the advance in the center taking an area roughly 12 hexes deep and 20 hexes long in a five turns (again the only thing holding it up is lack of oil).

In some ways it has been interesting, watching the AI pitter it away is a bit sad.

That said, it is still pretty fun.