AI for MWiF-Italy

[lomyrin]

IF the CW sends out a large naval force with carriers into the Med then Italy would have to make a choice of accepting the surprise port strike likely to follow or DoW the CW to preempt this surprise. Whether to also DoW France at the same time or not depends on the situation.
 
This scenario is pretty likely ifthe CW sets up most of their fleet in Gibraltar.
 
Lars  

[trees]

then the Italians can have fun trying to take out a CV with the Frogmen, though they are now less dangerous anything can happen on a suprise impulse.

If the CW wants to risk 1939 US Entry chits I let them. Odds are I'll lose one TRS and get the other damaged. Or maybe not. And then maybe the CW will wish they had more air cover for the TRS that just unloaded the BEF.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: trees
Lately I've been thinking that a prime directive for Italy is to try and take Algeria. If it ends up Vichy that is nearly as good for the Allies as Free French. But if Italy conquers it is theirs to keep and use for their perimeter defense in the midgame. Plus it comes with a resource. So it remains true that one doesn't want the Italian navy to take pointless exchanges with the French navy but I think some risk is worthwhile if there is a good chance of taking it.

Same for me.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

IF the CW sends out a large naval force with carriers into the Med then Italy would have to make a choice of accepting the surprise port strike likely to follow or DoW the CW to preempt this surprise. Whether to also DoW France at the same time or not depends on the situation.

This scenario is pretty likely ifthe CW sets up most of their fleet in Gibraltar.
Lars  

If Italy has no plans for using her TRS to invade, they should keep them in separate ports that are not reachable for port attacking carrier planes from both Med Sea Areas. They should not be alone, 3 other ships should be with them.

Also, in the early game, Italy's TRS should be busy transporting back the Africa / Italy, the INF and Supply that are in Italian East Africa. Without an HQ the later is useless, and without supply, the former is too.

[CBoehm]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: trees
Lately I've been thinking that a prime directive for Italy is to try and take Algeria. If it ends up Vichy that is nearly as good for the Allies as Free French. But if Italy conquers it is theirs to keep and use for their perimeter defense in the midgame. Plus it comes with a resource. So it remains true that one doesn't want the Italian navy to take pointless exchanges with the French navy but I think some risk is worthwhile if there is a good chance of taking it.

Same for me.

I agree - which I why I would also say its a prime objective to protect with the CW ...

[trees]

I wouldn't send the TRS to East Africa though, if the CW is willing to declare war they can just do it when one is on the far side of Suez, effectively eliminating it without a die roll. I would just write off the supply unit and junk INF, especially the latter. If you sense the CW won't declare war I might go get the supply unit, but maybe not...

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

That actually happened to me once.  But I actually survived it.  It was very lucky rolls on the dice that made the difference though.
 
However, if Germany is planning an early SeaLion, this can draw the British focus to NE Africa before they are ready.
 

[hakon]

If Germany is not going for a Med campain, I dont think Italy should, either.
 
My strat with italy, usually goes like this:
39 : neutral, build 2 pilots
40 : dow france only (unless you can get malta) and help help germany with your air force, build mostly pilots and fighter, 1 atr, lnd2 (!) and nothing else. Bring all land forces home to italy.
41 : Send ALL aircraft to the eastern front, except perhaps 1-2 navs, help germany maintain total air superiority in the USSR. Take air impulses almost every impulse. Bring Balbo to the east, and station Graziani in france (to be able to call blitz, if the UK lands there.). Let germany provide stationary air cover over western europe, so he can use most of his air missions to fly those stukas. Build all fighters and atr(ATR are extremely versatile units on the easter front, being able to paradrop, rebase PARA/MTN into the caucasus or reorg the best fighters), then begin to build navs and some garrison type units in the autumn. Bombers are not really necessary, except of course the stuka. Have italy liberate estonia, latvia or lithuania, if possible.
42-43 : Continue to support germany as much as possible in the east, while building an invasion defense in italy, concentrating on both naval air and ground units. Have germany garrison northern italy with his garrs and mil, so that even after italy falls, but dont let this happen easily. Garrison italy A LOT more heavily than france, to make it less tempting to invade there. Continue to build out your fighter and atr force pools, and pump out navs, mil, gar and possibly some bombers.
44-45 : I have no experience of this period, since this strategy has resulted in total russian collapse (conquest of russia, linking up with japan, etc) every time i tried it, followed by allied surrender. Should the USSR survive in good shape, the end game might be tough. The most important part, is to lure the allies into invading France before Italy. If they do, you can possibly survive the war by building land units, otherwise you may want to evacuate, and let germany hold northern Italy.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: hakon
If Germany is not going for a Med campain, I dont think Italy should, either.

My strat with italy, usually goes like this:
39 : neutral, build 2 pilots
40 : dow france only (unless you can get malta) and help help germany with your air force, build mostly pilots and fighter, 1 atr, lnd2 (!) and nothing else. Bring all land forces home to italy.
41 : Send ALL aircraft to the eastern front, except perhaps 1-2 navs, help germany maintain total air superiority in the USSR. Take air impulses almost every impulse. Bring Balbo to the east, and station Graziani in france (to be able to call blitz, if the UK lands there.). Let germany provide stationary air cover over western europe, so he can use most of his air missions to fly those stukas. Build all fighters and atr(ATR are extremely versatile units on the easter front, being able to paradrop, rebase PARA/MTN into the caucasus or reorg the best fighters), then begin to build navs and some garrison type units in the autumn. Bombers are not really necessary, except of course the stuka. Have italy liberate estonia, latvia or lithuania, if possible.
42-43 : Continue to support germany as much as possible in the east, while building an invasion defense in italy, concentrating on both naval air and ground units. Have germany garrison northern italy with his garrs and mil, so that even after italy falls, but dont let this happen easily. Garrison italy A LOT more heavily than france, to make it less tempting to invade there. Continue to build out your fighter and atr force pools, and pump out navs, mil, gar and possibly some bombers.
44-45 : I have no experience of this period, since this strategy has resulted in total russian collapse (conquest of russia, linking up with japan, etc) every time i tried it, followed by allied surrender. Should the USSR survive in good shape, the end game might be tough. The most important part, is to lure the allies into invading France before Italy. If they do, you can possibly survive the war by building land units, otherwise you may want to evacuate, and let germany hold northern Italy.

Why do you want Italy to conquer the Baltic States?

[sajbalk]

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

[trees]

that's basically a 'kitchen sink' 1941 barbarossa, which is definitely a viable Axis strategy, and somewhat of a high risk, high reward type deal, and pretty fun too. what you risk is possibly Italy being out of the war in 1942. there is no pressure whatsoever on the CW so they have no problem controlling the Med, maximizing CW production, sending aid to Russia and cleaning up all the approaches to Italy (Sardinia, Tripoli) at the same time. If the Russians know how to survive such a ferocious attack, which can be done, the Axis emperors soon have no clothes.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

Please, could there be two settings for AI in MWIF?

Historical and "everythings possible, based on rules as written"?

Sure, WIF rules may allow Italian liberation of the Baltics and German total Mediterran strategy. But most of it was historically not quite thinkable. Fact is, in Nazi-Germany ideology was structurally quite central. That's a main reason why they lost the war.

And its ideology was not about liberating any Eastern people, nor just let the Italians liberate them. Barbarossa was absolutely central for the regime, and it was about extermination and absolute power.

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

I'm quite sure, this is a minority position on this forum. But nevertheless.

Regards

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: wosung

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

Please, could there be two settings for AI in MWIF?

Historical and "everythings possible, based on rules as written"?

Sure, WIF rules may allow Italian liberation of the Baltics and German total Mediterran strategy. But most of it was historically not quite thinkable. Fact is, in Nazi-Germany ideology was structurally quite central. That's a main reason why they lost the war.

And its ideology was not about liberating any Eastern people, nor just let the Italians liberate them. Barbarossa was absolutely central for the regime, and it was about extermination and absolute power.

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

I'm quite sure, this is a minority position on this forum. But nevertheless.

Regards

I am not sure where to draw that line. Hitler had a lot of ideas floating around about who to attack and with whom to ally. Sometimes he did both (USSR). Ruling out possible actions because they did not occur historically or seem too far fetched (weird/unlikely) could be difficult.

[ptey]

A '41 med, '42 barb strategy could probably have happened. However having italy liberate the baltic states seems alittle gamey. I doubt any significant amount of italiens would have kept fighting, even though one or more of the baltic states were "italien".
I would also like to atleast have the option for avoiding italien liberation of the baltics as standard procedure for the ai.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: wosung

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Italy would liberate the Baltic states so that it could use those countries as a new home country in the event that Italy falls. This is best dealt with in a convention or home setting by threatening to throttle the Italian player, but on the computer that would be more difficult.

A similar situation would arise where the USSR takes Bulgaria and Italy liberates it.

Please, could there be two settings for AI in MWIF?

Historical and "everythings possible, based on rules as written"?

Sure, WIF rules may allow Italian liberation of the Baltics and German total Mediterran strategy. But most of it was historically not quite thinkable. Fact is, in Nazi-Germany ideology was structurally quite central. That's a main reason why they lost the war.

And its ideology was not about liberating any Eastern people, nor just let the Italians liberate them. Barbarossa was absolutely central for the regime, and it was about extermination and absolute power.

I won't say that with German AI there should always be a straight Barbarossa. But personally, I wouldn't like a Mediterrane strategy every second game.

I'm quite sure, this is a minority position on this forum. But nevertheless.

Regards

I am not sure where to draw that line. Hitler had a lot of ideas floating around about who to attack and with whom to ally. Sometimes he did both (USSR). Ruling out possible actions because they did not occur historically or seem too far fetched (weird/unlikely) could be difficult.

OK. main points seem to be:

1. possibilities and probabilities

2. drawing the line between them both

3. gaming fun and historical stuff



1. possibilities and probabilities: No other WW2 participant is better researched than Germany (vanished states are historical researchers friend, best access to to archives. Japanese is harder to access because of language. Italian changed sides in midwar).

German historicans do the main part of research about Nazi-Regime.
They probably always will debate about how to weight different aspects of the regime (Hitler, ideology, opportunities, polycratic power structures) in different fields (e.g. foreign-, social policies, the holocaust).

But there is quite a long lasting consensus, that war policy was neither totally opportunistic nor somehow traditionalistic (like napoleonic rationale of beating Russia, the last continental "weapon of weapon of England", if you cannot beat England itself).

The Nazi war against Russia was one of the few main targets of the regime and its ideological repertoire. "Lebensraum" and a new racial order just were in the focus.

Hitler Stalin Pact was just a tool to secure invasion of Poland and France. And this tactical move confused Germans and Russian population alike, which were used to anti-communist and anti-nazi ideological antagonisms.

Battle of France was about revenge for Versailles and a stepping stone for Barbarossa. The ongoing war against England was not seen as really necessary by Hitler, the "insulted admirer" of the aryan British Empire.

2. To put it bluntly: A Mediterranean strategy was secondary to the regime simply for ideological reasons. Apart from cheap victories. Even if this might hurt anglosaxon pride. [:)]

So from a German historical point of view, even a Mediterranean Nazi strategy seems quite unlikely.

Now Italian liberated Baltic states, well, is quite ridiculus: Why should the Grossdeutsche Reich give its Lebensraum away? Why to the mediterrean oriented Italians? Remember, the Baltics even had a German minority (Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi ideologue was a Baltendeutscher).

3.Where to draw the line between gaming fun and historical probability? Well, that's a matter of taste. And therefore I would love to see two AI settings. But I can see that this maybe might be difficult to accomplish.

And I can also see that for the anglosaxon gamer its fun play WIF with Wallies-German focus. It's the same with some of the anglo-american historicans: Nobody loves Rommel like them [:)]

Post Scriptum: I checked some references on the German consensus about Nazi Barbarossa focus. They are a little older now, but believe me, discourse here on that hasn't change since then.

Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, MGFA, (ed.): Deutschland und der Zweite Weltkrieg, [Institute for Military-historical research, it's the "official" ongoing German war history in ten thick volumes, VERY detailed, lots of statistics. Quite expensive per volume, about 40 Euros. But sometimes you can get the eight already published volumes cheaper on ebay.de]

Vol. 1 Ursachen und Voraussetzungen der deutschen Kriegspolitik [ Origins and conditions of German war policies], Stuttgart 1979, p.700
Vol. 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion, Stuttgart 1983, p.12.

Andreas Hillgruber, Der 2. Weltkrieg: Kriegsziele und Strategien der großen Mächte. [War aims and strategy of the Great powers]. Stuttgart 1996, p. 66-67.

Regards

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: ptey

A '41 med, '42 barb strategy could probably have happened. However having italy liberate the baltic states seems alittle gamey. I doubt any significant amount of italiens would have kept fighting, even though one or more of the baltic states were "italien".
I would also like to atleast have the option for avoiding italien liberation of the baltics as standard procedure for the ai.

And the same for the Italian conquest of France? Or Yugoslavia? Or Greece?

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: ptey

A '41 med, '42 barb strategy could probably have happened. However having italy liberate the baltic states seems alittle gamey. I doubt any significant amount of italiens would have kept fighting, even though one or more of the baltic states were "italien".
I would also like to atleast have the option for avoiding italien liberation of the baltics as standard procedure for the ai.

41 med, 42 barb historically could have happen, IF it would have been a cheap option for Germany in ressources.

Remember, in 1940 Hitler perrrzonally (!) negotiated with Franco in Hendaye, Spanish-French border. But even Francos' price was too high for Hitler.

Now who/what would have had a higher price, a negotiating Franco, a German Invasion of Spain and/or English defences at Gibraltar??

Regards

[ptey]

Well excuse me, but i like having atleast *some* historical foundation.

Anyway, some italiens fighting on from yugo or even greece doesnt seem THAT unlikely, if said countries are italien controlled during the war. However italy fighting on from estonia is imo ridiculous.


edit: I just checked the rules. A new home country must be an aligned minor. That means that greece and france are out of the question for italy. That leaves the possible new home contries for italy to be yugo, iraq, persia, spain and whatever countries they have liberated after a russian conquest. Ie the baltic states.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: ptey
Well excuse me, but i like having atleast *some* historical foundation.

Anyway, some italiens fighting on from yugo or even greece doesnt seem THAT unlikely, if said countries are italien controlled during the war. However italy fighting on from estonia is imo ridiculous.


edit: I just checked the rules. A new home country must be an aligned minor. That means that greece and france are out of the question for italy. That leaves the possible new home contries for italy to be yugo, iraq, persia, spain and whatever countries they have liberated after a russian conquest. Ie the baltic states.

Someone previously (probably in this thread) had discussed Yugoslavia as a second home country for Italy. His suggestion was for Italy to press Germany to make that happen.

My questions were not meant to be argumentative. I just wanted to know the level of "historical accuracy" you were comfortable with. For example, in some situations having Italy conquer France or Greece might be preferred to having Germany be the conquering country (purely hypothetical here). Historically, I do not see Hitler likely to grant that glory to Mussolini. According to the WIF rules it is clearly possible. Should the AIO be denied that choice?

Reversing roles, should the AIO have to defend against legal but non-historical actions by the human player? Yet still be limited to 'historically likely" choices for its own decisions?

I get the feeling we are drifting into "house rules" here rather than following the WIF FE rule set.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: ptey
Well excuse me, but i like having atleast *some* historical foundation.

Anyway, some italiens fighting on from yugo or even greece doesnt seem THAT unlikely, if said countries are italien controlled during the war. However italy fighting on from estonia is imo ridiculous.


edit: I just checked the rules. A new home country must be an aligned minor. That means that greece and france are out of the question for italy. That leaves the possible new home contries for italy to be yugo, iraq, persia, spain and whatever countries they have liberated after a russian conquest. Ie the baltic states.

Someone previously (probably in this thread) had discussed Yugoslavia as a second home country for Italy. His suggestion was for Italy to press Germany to make that happen.

My questions were not meant to be argumentative. I just wanted to know the level of "historical accuracy" you were comfortable with. For example, in some situations having Italy conquer France or Greece might be preferred to having Germany be the conquering country (purely hypothetical here). Historically, I do not see Hitler likely to grant that glory to Mussolini. According to the WIF rules it is clearly possible. Should the AIO be denied that choice?

Reversing roles, should the AIO have to defend against legal but non-historical actions by the human player? Yet still be limited to 'historically likely" choices for its own decisions?

I get the feeling we are drifting into "house rules" here rather than following the WIF FE rule set.

But that's more about programming, not about house rules.

I'm not a rule lawyer, but in WIFFE there seem to be lots of optinal rules about quite minor aspects of the war, to make everybody happy.

And, for example, the Italian Home country in the Baltics wouldn't be quite a minor aspect of the war.

I'm not a programmer, but if there would be choices for the human player for AIO foreign policy behavior, then couldn't AIO also be programmed to take activated choices into account for its defense against human player?

Like:
Option "rule laywers' AIO": AIO is programmed for playing and "defending" against all the RAW possibilities, like the Italian Home country in the Baltics.

Option "Historical AIO": AIO is programmed for playing and "defending" against only historical plausible strategies.

Historical plausible strategies could be defined by a forum vote for example.

Regards

I can even imagine, that the option "Historical AIO" is far easier for you to programm than the option "rule lawyer AIO". Far less choices with the former [:)]