Singleplayer Practice - Is the AI any good?
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@captain-crunch If the AI ever evolved that far an AI Tournament Challenge would be so enjoyable.
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@jazan My answer is mostly a no. While the AI has been much improved and it is a very interesting tool, also fun to play, by giving it some good bonuses, and very valuable for current and future games having AI only players in the mix, as far as practicing for learning goes, the skill difference between the AI and a very good player on any games is still too big for the AI to help you improving in that direction, unless maybe in the very early phases, and only in case your starting point is very low. Actually, I believe that, by playing against the AI, also with bonuses high enough to make a difference (that adds the gameplay distortion of increasing placement limits for the AI, as getting more income to spend, without increasing placement limits), you would build a gameplay optimized against such an opponent, that is likely to be significantly divergent with what you would do against a very good human player; so the risk is that, then, when moving to person-to-person gaming, rather than have to learn, you will have to re-learn.
In genenal, the AI is better on slow games, with a progressive build up and no critical round 1 "must-do" moves. For example, "Neuschwabenland" (in Experimental) is probably a good game to play with AI.
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@hepps said in Singleplayer Practice - Is the AI any good?:
@captain-crunch If the AI ever evolved that far an AI Tournament Challenge would be so enjoyable.
Actually, @Zjelcop had a subforum for it in the old WarClub, and I think it was a pretty good idea, but, eventually, it faded out for lack of interest, sadly.
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@cernel it's funny cuz my old trs80 color computer had a game called Robot War I think it was called and you basically programmed 2 robots with different attacks and then battled them against each other ... but an AI vs AI Tournament on an Axis and Allies map would be even more interesting ... for "game theory" enthusiasts ofcourse!
[obligatory Terminator robot pic]
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Is the AI any better if one hosts a game online and then selects all AI opponents? Does the AI improve if it has the AAA servers' computing power to draw on, vs. just my pc's processor?
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@Darren-Brock Nope. You are best off just playing a local game and choosing "Hard AI". You can give them a bid or bonus income to increase difficulty.
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Thanks. I'd love to engage human competition, but my life on the road makes it difficult, plus the difficulties I've had playing online given that I connect through Samsung mobile hotspot. I've so far been unable to make my pc discoverable on the internet
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@Darren-Brock Well, you can always try out PBEM or PBF which as long as you have connectivity to email or post here on the forum should work fine.
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One major issue I find with Hard AI is notably the US not being able to make its mind up about transporting units across the Atlantic. If as Germany I build any naval presence the US usually will shuffle back and forth around Panama not knowing to hit Algeria/Norway or western France. I usually play Pact of steel 1/2 and any classic/revised.
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@Götterdämmerung If you have any save games showing the US playing particularly poorly, please upload them here so I can take a look. The AI generally struggles some with ships/transports compared to land/air combat. Its just more complex and often difficult to determine the good purchases and moves.
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AI doesn't take into account placement limits and sometimes spam factories. I've a map that some values of territories are 4 but no placement is allowed.
AI still build factories in there they though they can place 4 units in here.
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@Schulz Yeah, the AI currently doesn't handle some of the more advanced purchase/placement options as very few maps utilize these.
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@redrum Just the good ones...
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@Hepps Hey now. Just because you don't like checkers doesn't mean its not a good game
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Can AI be a good source for testing balance? Just making every nation AI and watching matches maybe could give some tips?
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@Schulz For maps with rules close to standard A&A maps, it can give an initial pass for balance. But in the end the only way to truly balance a map is lots of PvP games.
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I think the hard AI can be pretty enjoyable. For the standard WW2 maps that don't have complex objectives and features the AI doesn't 'understand' or tech wildcards and the like, it does reasonably for itself. One place where it can be instructive is seeing how airpower and bombers in particular can be pretty effective at covering vs fleets once the AI is amassing a big stack of 'em. Seen some brazen strikes from the machine there. But it still struggles with transports and naval, over-purchasing or spreading things too thin too quickly. You can also back it off a sea zone more effectively whereas a human would probably fight it out or make a trade to force a resolution. Right now it doesn't prioritize things like VCs, so it wouldn't play well vs a PvP strategy where victory is determined that way. Still its useful to have for showing the ropes, and getting familiar with maps beforehand.
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