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Hearts of Iron IV

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

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Pete Dero

Great tutorial about battleplans  (e.g. multiple plans on one front or having a number of plans executed in succession)


mikeck

Quote from: RyanE on June 29, 2016, 08:16:01 PM

I always think about Nazi Germany not  putting the economy on a war footing until 1942.  If the AI did that, people would be screaming for someone's head at Pdox.  How about taking all of your carriers, putting them in one giant "super-fleet", and attacking the largest US naval base in the Pacific?  Or how about invading the China with a relatively small army in 1937?  If the AI did any of those things, we would be calling it one of the worst AIs ever.

Agree 100%
"In my game, Germany was at war with Britain and the U.S. and fighting in North Africa, putting down threats in Yugoslavia and Greece as well as preparing for an inevitable cross-channel invasion. For no reason, Germany decided to invade the Soviet Union and is now fighting everywhere! Paradox!!! Please fix the AI so that it doesn't start new wars until the old ones are finished!"

Lol
"A government large enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."--Thomas Jefferson

SirAndrewD

Quote from: mikeck on July 03, 2016, 11:50:52 AM
Quote from: RyanE on June 29, 2016, 08:16:01 PM

I always think about Nazi Germany not  putting the economy on a war footing until 1942.  If the AI did that, people would be screaming for someone's head at Pdox.  How about taking all of your carriers, putting them in one giant "super-fleet", and attacking the largest US naval base in the Pacific?  Or how about invading the China with a relatively small army in 1937?  If the AI did any of those things, we would be calling it one of the worst AIs ever.

Agree 100%
"In my game, Germany was at war with Britain and the U.S. and fighting in North Africa, putting down threats in Yugoslavia and Greece as well as preparing for an inevitable cross-channel invasion. For no reason, Germany decided to invade the Soviet Union and is now fighting everywhere! Paradox!!! Please fix the AI so that it doesn't start new wars until the old ones are finished!"

Lol

While I see your point, there is certainly valid criticism on the weakness of the Axis AI.  It's one thing to compare the AI to the very dubious decisions that Hitler made in World War 2.  It's another when the AI fails to capture France by sending its armies against the Maginot line, and then decides to transfer 180 of its 200 divisions to the peaceful border with Russia and Ethiopia, allowing the British and French to take Berlin by mid 1940 (And this after Germany declared war on Sweeden, Mexico, Peru and the US).

There's going to be a marked improvement in how it does things after a few patches, but there are absolutely legit issues here when it comes to AI front priority, war justification logic and division spam.  Of course people will always complain regardless.   
"These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable. Last week was my birthday. Nobody even said "happy birthday" to me. Someday this tape will be played and then they'll feel sorry."  - Sgt. Pinback

Swatter

There is a fine line that a human might catch and the AI might miss- how much is too much? Germany did launch Barbarossa while Britain was still standing and there was heavy fighting in the Med. It does sound like the AI was biting off too much in the given example. Hitler finished off the Balkans before he invaded Russia, historically. Having said that, though, the AI needs work.

mikeck

No, I understand what you're saying and although I have not put much time into this game, I have certainly played a lot of Europa universalis and Stellaris to understand the paradox AI. So,  I understand what you're saying. I guess my point is that lost in AI's poor decision-making are a lot of decisions which are possibly un-wise in retrospect, but not unrealistic. I think a lot of people on the paradox forums are categorizing unwise decisions as broken AI, when in reality unwise decisions were (and are) made all the time. But yes you are correct that the AI makes weird decisions at times...but I'm not sure that's ever correctable 100% in a game this complex.
"A government large enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."--Thomas Jefferson

RyanE

Just to be a little counter...

Read some of the strategies new- to mid-level players take on this and the Pdox forums...there is as much weirdness as any AI decisions being made.  The AI isn't perfect, there is no open-ended or sandbox game that has one.  But if you held human players to the same standard, you'd ind very few MP games.  I look at some of my games and more than a few times say either "why the hell did I do that?" or "I can't believe I forgot to do that".  The AI doesn't work from autosaves and get re-do's

mikeck

#741
Edit.
"A government large enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."--Thomas Jefferson

Pete Dero

Quote from: Swatter on July 03, 2016, 04:10:11 PM
There is a fine line that a human might catch and the AI might miss- how much is too much? Germany did launch Barbarossa while Britain was still standing and there was heavy fighting in the Med. It does sound like the AI was biting off too much in the given example. Hitler finished off the Balkans before he invaded Russia, historically. Having said that, though, the AI needs work.

I'm thinking a lot of the AI decisions are based on available resources.  AI Germany invades Russia because it needs the oil.  I guess that is also why Japan almost always attacks the Netherlands in the East.
Maybe Germany is also programmed to strike early before Russia becomes to strong and an invasion is no longer possible ?

Ian C

One thing I've seen which I'm not happy with is the Empty Homeland 'bug'.

I've seen the UK attempt to invade The Reich several times and always through the northern coast near Hamburg. A few months later, I invaded the UK and there was not a single UK unit there.

In my last game as the US, invaded Japan in 1946. One unit was guarding it.

mikeck

#744
Yeah, that's an issue..

Maybe amphibious invasions  are too easy in hearts of iron 4 and there needs to be a lot more involved so that you simply can't just hop across the channel.

I imagine that after the British expeditionary force landed in France in 1940 there was not a whole lot left in England had Germany invaded.... But Germany would have been completely incapable of invading in 1940 so I guess that's the point. Britain would've had plenty of notice that Germany was  planning an amphibious invasion. It requires air support, vast logistical supplies, depot build ups, heavy-lift harbor equipment and all sorts of things that you can't hide. There's a reason why the United States was really the only nation that conducted LARGE scale amphibious operations in World War II; They are logistically intense and difficult.  Only the Americans had the types of resources and logistical capabilities necessary.

Do you find that the AI does a good job of leaving forces behind against a land-based adversary sharing the border? For example: does Germany keep forces IN Germany if it's off fighting the Soviets but is fighting France?

So is the problem that and  amphibious invasions are simply too easy into common instead of the nation not leaving forces behind?  Maybe the solution would be to increased the cost of invasion somehow instead of writing something that forces the AI to keep a huge chunk of its forces behind?
"A government large enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."--Thomas Jefferson

Ian C

Quote from: mikeck on July 04, 2016, 10:14:52 AM
Yeah, that's an issue..

Maybe amphibious invasions  are too easy in hearts of iron 4 and there needs to be a lot more involved so that you simply can't just hop across the channel.

I think they ramped-up Amphib for HOI4. That's great, because there's more action now in that area.  Amphib on steroids for the Pacific - I have no problem with this.  Europe though, needs work. Even they have to script-in some changes, they need to adjust the AI for certain theatres if they want to keep some historical feel to it.

Quote
Do you find that the AI does a good job of weeding forces behind against a land-based adversary sharing the border? For example: does Germany keep forces IN Germany if it's off fighting the Soviets but is fighting France?

I'm not sure. I've played two long games so far and not had a chance to investigate certain things. Playing Ironman mode does not allow you to peek at other nations. I will check it though.


Quote from: Pete Dero on July 03, 2016, 08:03:32 AM
Great tutorial about battleplans  (e.g. multiple plans on one front or having a number of plans executed in succession)

Excellent vid. A few things I didn't know and are really useful.

Pete Dero

Quote from: mikeck on July 04, 2016, 10:14:52 AM
Maybe the solution would be to increased the "cost quote open Debbie is beige and somehow instead of writing something that forces the AII to keep a huge chunk of its forces behind?

Could you explain what you meant there ?

I haven't encountered 'the empty homeland' bug in my games so far.

A solution could be to increase the value of your homeland VP's so they are more valuable then the VP you conquered.  This could encourage the AI to protect their homeland VP's.

SirAndrewD

Quote from: mikeck on July 04, 2016, 10:14:52 AM

Do you find that the AI does a good job of weeding forces behind against a land-based adversary sharing the border? For example: does Germany keep forces IN Germany if it's off fighting the Soviets but is fighting France?



This the heart of one of the two biggest problems the game has, front priority.  It looks like the AI considers all fronts equal and gets confused when fighting multiple enemies in multiple places. 

Example I mentioned before in my Japan game where Germany sent more than 2/3 of its army to garrison the Russian front, abandoning its front in France and allowing the French to take Berlin. 

When I loaded up the game from the German perspective, I noticed that Germany was sending huge numbers of troops back and forth on Strategic redeployment,  including a large amount via naval transfer to Ethopia.

Another distinctly rough example was my UK game.  France held the Germans off again, but when Japan invaded Indochina, they abandoned the Maginot line and their entire front to transfer virtually the whole French Army via naval transport to the Far East.  Humorously enough, Germany had its entire army fighting in Ethopia and against Sweeden in Denmark, so the French/German front just went quiet until Belgium decided to walk almost unopposed into Berlin. 

Italy also gets itself in a lot of trouble with using naval transport through the English Channel to try to put troops on the Eastern Front.  In my last Germany game the Italians lost almost a million men to sending their un-escorted Transports through the British navy.  I eventually handled this by, sadly, invading undefended Britain with 8 Paratrooper divisions and forcing their capitulation.

The good news is that this mostly effects the Axis, and can somewhat be reduced by playing AS the Axis.    There are also some modders that are trying to come up with a fix before the PD Dev team comes back from vacation.  As it is, I think it should be something that's not hard to patch.  The behavior seems to be very replicatable, and really it should be something that can be handled by just forcing the AI to consider active fronts neighboring core provinces to be more important.

Interestingly enough, two countries that do not suffer from this problem are the US and China.  They fiercely defend their core provinces.   This is why, so far, the most interesting game I've had was my Japan game in the invasion of China phase.
"These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable. Last week was my birthday. Nobody even said "happy birthday" to me. Someday this tape will be played and then they'll feel sorry."  - Sgt. Pinback

mikeck

Quote from: Pete Dero on July 04, 2016, 01:26:49 PM
Quote from: mikeck on July 04, 2016, 10:14:52 AM
Maybe the solution would be to increased the "cost quote open Debbie is beige and somehow instead of writing something that forces the AII to keep a huge chunk of its forces behind?

Could you explain what you meant there ?

I haven't encountered 'the empty homeland' bug in my games so far.

A solution could be to increase the value of your homeland VP's so they are more valuable then the VP you conquered.  This could encourage the AI to protect their homeland VP's.

Explain? Yes.  It's called the "iPhone text talk fail "

Should say "makes invasions more costly"
"A government large enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."--Thomas Jefferson

Ian C

Quote from: Ian C on July 04, 2016, 09:29:24 AM
One thing I've seen which I'm not happy with is the Empty Homeland 'bug'.

I've seen the UK attempt to invade The Reich several times and always through the northern coast near Hamburg. A few months later, I invaded the UK and there was not a single UK unit there.

In my last game as the US, invaded Japan in 1946. One unit was guarding it.


I take some of this back.

Started a 1939 game as The Reich, and tried Sea Lion and the UK just kicked my ass. Don't know exactly what happened here, but the UK had garrisoned units on the coast, and their navy ripped the hell out of my forces, even though I was sure I'd bombed most of them. I got Air Superiority but they just sank half my invasion force and are now kicking them back on the coastlines. Hmm...