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Hearts of Iron IV

Started by Ian C, May 13, 2016, 01:07:15 PM

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Jarhead0331

Quote from: sandman2575 on December 13, 2016, 11:39:15 AM
That's a fair point, and I definitely don't underestimate just how difficult it must be to program an AI for a game as complex as HOI4. What worries me, is that Pdox may have built a beautiful, groundbreaking ww2 game that is simply beyond AI's capabilities to play effectively.

That is totally fine by me because quite frankly, it is the only way someone like me will stand any chance of succeeding. If the AI actually knew what it was doing, I wouldn't stand a snow ball's chance in hell of making it past 1941.
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sandman2575

I'm not someone who needs a super-challenging AI by any means -- I often find the fun and challenge of a game is just learning how to play it. 

But my sense (over 200 hrs played!) is that HOI4's AI is simply a push-over. I didn't feel that way about HOI3. I knew I could always beat HOI3, but AI was just challenging enough to keep it interesting. HOI4's AI seems like 3's stupider cousin.  :uglystupid2:

JudgeDredd

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on December 13, 2016, 12:24:48 PM
Quote from: sandman2575 on December 13, 2016, 11:39:15 AM
That's a fair point, and I definitely don't underestimate just how difficult it must be to program an AI for a game as complex as HOI4. What worries me, is that Pdox may have built a beautiful, groundbreaking ww2 game that is simply beyond AI's capabilities to play effectively.

That is totally fine by me because quite frankly, it is the only way someone like me will stand any chance of succeeding. If the AI actually knew what it was doing, I wouldn't stand a snow ball's chance in hell of making it past 1941.

Amen...I don't need super challenging AI - especially in Grand Strategy games as I don't have "the big picture" mentality.
Alba gu' brath

bobarossa

Quote from: sandman2575 on December 13, 2016, 11:39:15 AM
What worries me, is that Pdox may have built a beautiful, groundbreaking ww2 game that is simply beyond AI's capabilities to play effectively.
I think they've done that a number of times now  ;)

And as far as AI goes, I hoped that they were able to reuse the concepts (not code) developed for HOI3.  Envelopment ideas for HOI3 should carry over to HOI4 unless they use significantly different sized regions. 

Ian C

#874
AI Update #4 addresses Pacific invasions / Invasions and Division Design by the AI:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-together-for-victory-ai-update-4.988515/

also

Patch 1.3 'Torch' patch notes: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-achievements-patchlog.988330/
   
Quote
    Greeting friends!

    This will be the last of these before the release of Together for Victory, and unless I am to write one about a hotfix, the last one for the year.

    This weeks tale from the trenches will actually be about one of the points in the changelog. Sorry about cheating like this for the last diary, but it was too good to leave out:
    - Scary fix makes AI actually consider all target areas of enemy, in stead of one at a time. Should set pacific area ablaze when the time comes, and keep the invasions rolling.

        Wow...so...way back in development before the invasion craft tech limited the number of divisions you could use for invasions, the AI sometimes had a tendency to set up A LOT of them. As a fix for this, that did do the trick in the general case, the AI would consider ONE area per enemy for invasion at a time, before doing another one. When I say area here, it is any enemy territory with land connection to all parts of itself...shitty description, so a couple of examples: Ostpreussen is a separate area from main Germany, which is its own area, so Germany initially consists of two areas. When/if they annex Austria, it becomes part of the main German area. Similarly, every single island is its own area.

    At this point, I am sure you can see at least a few problems this could cause in the pacific. My hopes were that Japan and USA would invade each other, and the invasions would be small enough to happen often enough that this would not become a problem. However...when the invasion is to an island that has had its port taken over by someone else, the AI would not be able to plan an invasion to it, and thus not make any more invasions until that area was fully conquered...which was not a guarantee.
    This restriction was lifted, and the scary part of this was letting the AI be potentially a lot more active. It has turned out that the invasion craft limits and tweaks to the front balancing balances this out really well.

    This is a good example of how fixes to earlier problems can cause new ones further down the line as development progresses. This happens a lot in AI, and not rarely will the same symptom pop up over and over but due to new reasons under the hood.

    So, moving on with more boaty stuff:

    - Added a "pacific continent" to aid in AI prio.
    - Added contininent prioritization for the AI with high scores to Europe and the Pacific, but low to Africa.

        Calculating the value of a larger area is expensive, and the value of locations like the pacific islands depends less on what they contain in terms of buildings and resources and more about where they are located. By introducing scriptable priority for areas, which can be modified through script on a per country bases, it is possible to tweak where countries should focus and even base this on triggers. So, merry christmas, modders :)

    This is also an important part in improving the AIs pacific activity, and is an extra part of reducing their African ditto.

    - AI sets up a couple of fleets to be used for special missions.

        The AI tries to prioritize naval regions based on a ton of variables, and in the end may miss out on covering some important stuff. By ear marking a couple of fleets for specialized missions, such as covering invasions, the AI is now better at not getting stuck waiting for fleets that may never come before being able to invade. It also steps up its general naval game a bit.


    - Made sure that AI does not completely block itself when having multiple invasion orders against the same area but being unable to cover the regions for all of them at the same time.

        The naval invasion AI tries to coordinate invasions against the same area, but forcing it to do this would make it never invade if it was unable to cover all necessary regions for all the invasions at the same time. This restriction was softened, so the AI will be more capable at getting stuff done. This one was hitting Japan hard when they wanted to navally invade south.


    - Made AI better at supporting naval invasions by focusing on the next one to complete preparation.
    * This one might seem either cryptic or obvious. Before the AI would just pick the top invasion on a list to focus on first, now it picks the one that is next in line to be done preparing.

    - Tweaked naval invasion priority to make them more inclined to take islands (particularly with air bases) and home region.

        Pretty much speaks for itself, particularly in the context of the Pacific theater.


    - Made AI invasions scriptably more unpredictable.

        While only a define for now, it should make life more interesting in singleplayer, with less hammering of invasions in the same location over and over. Also gives modders another thing to play with :)


    - Stabilized AI invasion prio scores. Should result in invasions not swapping units around as much and randomly getting canceled.

        Under the hood the AI has a priority score for every orders. The invasion score was allowed to depend on variables that shifted from day to day, such as preparation level. This would cause different numbers of units to be assigned to them over time, causing some really bad behaviour. Stabilizing this score has made the invasion AI a lot more stable and reliable.


    That was more or less all the work that has been done to the naval AI. The changelog had more AI points in it, some really heavy and important stuff related to AI division design among other things. I really hope you will enjoy the DLC, and even if you don't get it, I hope all these fixes will increase your enjoyment of the game. And either way, I look forward to keep improving the HoI4 AI, and you can all look forward to more improvements being done.
     


Greybriar

I just received an email from Paradox. They wrote:

New Hearts of Iron IV Expansion Out Today

Link
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Ian C

I can confirm that Japanese AI is now invading in the Pacific.

Started playing as UK in '39 and Japan joined the Axis and got roped into the war early. They are now invading the Gilbert isles in the Pacific...


Jarhead0331

Quote from: Ian C on December 15, 2016, 10:45:25 AM
I can confirm that Japanese AI is now invading in the Pacific.

Started playing as UK in '39 and Japan joined the Axis and got roped into the war early. They are now invading the Gilbert isles in the Pacific...

Is this with the DLC, or just the update/patch?
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"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Ian C

#879
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on December 15, 2016, 11:02:35 AM

Is this with the DLC, or just the update/patch?

I have the DLC so not entirely sure, however, the AI updates listed in the patch notes don't specify it's the DLC features:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/hoi4-dev-diary-achievements-patchlog.988330/


EDIT: Japan have taken Tarawa and are now invading Ellice Isles and Guadalcanal. The AI Pacific theatre is now working I guess...

HoodedHorseJoe

#880
Here's our thoughts on TfV: http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/review-hearts-of-iron-iv-together-for-victory/

I've been playing a test game with Australia and I'm seeing Japanese forces popping up on islands all over the shop. They took the Solomon Islands from me which I had to take back. There's even been counter invasions from allied AI, I think but I can't quite tell. Ai seems to like to plonk units on islands atm and not do anything with them.

Also wanted to point out the Division Designer guide we wrote a few months ago as well, whilst I'm here :) http://www.wargamer.com/news/war-machine-division-theory-in-hearts-of-iron-iv/
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Swatter

Quote from: sandman2575 on December 13, 2016, 01:55:18 PM
But my sense (over 200 hrs played!) is that HOI4's AI is simply a push-over. I didn't feel that way about HOI3. I knew I could always beat HOI3, but AI was just challenging enough to keep it interesting. HOI4's AI seems like 3's stupider cousin.  :uglystupid2:

I sadly agree. The more complicated you make various aspects of the game, the smarter the AI needs to be. Paradox just hasn't struck the right balance yet.

FarAway Sooner

You know, somebody a while back (in this thread, I think) posted that Paradox always works hard on improving their AI for a long time after release but doesn't like to talk about it much when announcing what will happen.  I think the contents of this last announcement really showcase that.

Hofstadter

People dont seem to be happy with it. Its getting mixed on steam
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HoodedHorseJoe

Quote from: Hofstadter on December 16, 2016, 03:38:02 AM
People dont seem to be happy with it. Its getting mixed on steam

It's hardly their most game-changing expansion, but not every expansion they do these days feels like a proper "expansion". Cossacks and Mare Nostrum were a bit meh in EUIV, compared to something like Rights of Man.
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Hooded Horse

We are a publisher of indie games with strategic and tactical depth. 28 projects and counting, come check out our portfolio on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store!

You may have seen me around in previous roles such as editor of Wargamer.com and Strategy Gamer.