What if AI Germany went for a Russia First strategy??? - [WiP Dropbox Download available]

[W4lth3r]

Hi there,

Tired of the German AI always attacking through Belgium? Should Germany go for Russia first as many players would do? Do you yourself want to go for a Russia first strategy where the Entente AI is kind of able to react to it?

THIS is the mod for you (though it's still work in progress, it mostly works).

It's the vanilla 1914 campaign, but AI Germany goes East first.

Download the current version here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ng1gld0cs9am ... Kqlta?dl=0

[mdsmall]

Hi W4lth3r,

This is a very interesting variation for SC WW1. In the interests of sharing, could you explain to readers what elements of the vanilla game scripts you changed to produce this mod? From my initial look at it, I can see that you have added new Offensive and Guard scripts for the AI for both Germany and Austria-Hungary. Plus you have transferred a number of German corps from the West to the East in the initial deployment positions of the game.

Are there other changes to the vanilla game that you have made to get this to work? In particular, how you were able to script the game so that the Auto-Deploy function places those 6 German units in the Deployment Queue in the East, rather than the West, on first turn.

Looking forward to hearing more about your design work on this.

Michael

[W4lth3r]

Hi Michael

What changes to the vanilla game have I made?

Wow, I don't think I remember all the changes I made to set this up. It took many iterations over several months until I was happy with how the AI behaved and the campaign played out.

Keep in mind that I thought about how a player would approach the campaign, so I somewhat optimised the opening moves beyond what especially Austria-Hungary (AUS) would have been able to do historically. (i.e. AI AUS is aware of the German (GER) Russia-first strategy and moves its units accordingly)

I definitely made the GER AI deploy their units in the East, plus I think I might have moved two Corps from West to East to reflect a Plan that was not suddenly developed on 1 Aug 1914 out of the blue. (If one doesn't like it, it doesn't take any coding skill to revert these changes in the Editor. You would just need to check the unit placement in the original 1914 campaign.)

Then as you noted, Offensive and Guard scripts have been adjusted so that the Central Powers (CP) coordinate an attack against Russia with a major part of their forces. Other fronts are treated as secondary and mainly defense-only. The Entente has received Script changes as well since they will eventually need to attack GER. Russia's defensive scripts should be more or less vanilla as they worked fine.

A major change is that I reduced the AI's research cheating. As a player, I found it quite frustrating to see an enemy faction that I crushed to dust in the field outpace me in research and field high-tech equipment. The AI in most cases now has to actually pay for its research, otherwise, it won't get it. As the UK and France don't have to fight much, they will have no trouble with this change. (If I remember correctly, the AI should compensate for less cheating with more optimized research investments. [Focus on trenches, Artillery, economy])

A small change was made to artillery, reducing the max number of shells to 7 with max Logistics, as the constant artillery fire towards the late game can make for boring turns.

Further, I allow the AI to spawn in quite a few defensive units, as it is still bad at strategically employing the forces it has and prefers to just throw them into the meatgrinder instead. Expect to meet many reserve/conscript/militia units along your way to AI-controlled Moscow.

I think I also added a secondary supply resource in Arabia, to enable naval invasions down there.

That's all I can think of right now.

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How do you make the AI deploy its initial units in the East?

Go to the Editor, Edit Country Data, Deployment Queue, Germany.

You will see the 6 units in the Queue for deployment August 1, 1914.
Select one, then select the destination resource you want it to use, then click the Add/Edit button.
Repeat for the other 5 units.

I hope this helps

Best regards
Walther