does the AI launch amphibious attacks?

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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

It's always easy to say the AI should do it, and I certainly agree, but the tough questions are;

- when should the AI send a unit on a landing mission?
- what unit should it send?
- what transport should it use?
- what should it use to guard the transport?
- how much of its resources should it devote?
- where should it try and land?

These are what make it all complicated. Many of the answers depend on variable in game conditions...
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Post by Draken »

The only time I've programmed an AI was for my OOD/OOP class project: Stratego. fix terrain, known rules and few units types... And it wasn't easy...

Chris, you forgot to ask about the goal of the Op. Is it to conquer another region or to cause a distraction or ... ? ;)

And don't forget that you need to gather intelligense too...

Not an easy task you have there...

I'll try to put a list of the things I do and look when planing an op during the weekend...
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Post by tkobo »

- when should the AI send a unit on a landing mission?
When it would be good for the AI to do so

- what unit should it send?
The unit/s that would be most effective

- what transport should it use?
The best one for the job

- what should it use to guard the transport?
Something that makes a good guard for transports

- how much of its resources should it devote?
Just enough, BUT not too much OR too little

- where should it try and land?
At the best landing location

Sheesh, those questions were easy :P

Sorry, i just couldnt ressist :P
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Post by BigStone »

:D
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Post by Balthagor »

ya, we'll get right on programming that in... :P
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Post by Il Duce »

We'll be lookin' for it in update 5, and thanks a bunch for the snappy update response...
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Post by margab »

- when should the AI send a unit on a landing mission?

When it has enough troops (doesn't the AI do "normal" invasions when it has enough troops anyways?). So if a country AI isn't fighting a war on the continent, and only against an island nation, then it's really wise, considering it has enough troops.

Other than this, if the AI recon detects any undefended parts at a country, it should attempt an assault there to distract the opponents forces.

- what unit should it send?

Easily suppliable troops, lots and lots of artillery and coordinated air strikes (yeah I wish :D )

- what transport should it use?

Prefer sea transport. Usually the AI buys tons of these in my most games so they don't even need to build extra.

- what should it use to guard the transport?

I don't know if they can do that since the AI right now doesn't send ships to enemy waters. So first that needs to be fixed for the AI to be able to do guard missions and amphibious assaults

- how much of its resources should it devote?

Like I said at the beginning, if it's fighting against an "island" oponent especially, then it should devote all its resources to this.
Otherwise it's more random and harder to say since fighting on the frontlines is more crucial than trying hard amphibious assaults.

- where should it try and land?

This is obvious. Not mountainous land, preferebly open land or even undefended forests to hide the landed troops. Recon is key here since it would need to "detect" a weak spot.



Other than these, my only wish would be that the AI send more troops to the front lines. I'm hoping to see an improvement in the latest patch. Right now for me the AI is too defensive (massing troops around cities and bases... the obvious ones everyone encounters)
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Post by Balthagor »

- When should it perform AA
margab wrote:Other than this, if the AI recon detects any undefended parts at a country, it should attempt an assault there to distract the opponents forces.
Here is the first issue, the AI doesn’t use recon. This does not stop use from setting the rule as “AI has no opponents on mainland ANDAI has spotting to area on island of opponent AND spotted area is undefended”

For anyone familiar with Boolean logic, I usually find that’s how I right out the statements. This seems like a good start but I expect we’ll need many more AND/OR/NOT statements…

- what unit should it send?
margab wrote: Easily suppliable troops, lots and lots of artillery and coordinated air strikes (yeah I wish :D )
So I see this as;

“combat time = high (define later) AND some indirect fire specialty units”

Currently that would see it only sending artillery. We need something in the rule for identifying infantry, recon, AT or tank. What should it prefer for the action?

I’ll add my own idea here; OR {amphibious AND Class = infantry} OR {amphibious AND Class = tank}

- what transport should it use?
margab wrote: Prefer sea transport. Usually the AI buys tons of these in my most games so they don't even need to build extra.
I was thinking more along the lines of should it prefer or avoid carriers are transports? Should it use 3 x 2000tonnes or 1 x 6000tonnes? If it has two transports, same cargo, one has air defense capabilities, how should it chose between them? (obviously the target hex would determine if the ship needs to be amphibious capable, landing at a pier would not require this).

- where should it try and land?
margab wrote:…Not mountainous land, preferebly open land or even undefended forests ... Recon is key here since it would need to "detect" a weak spot.
So the rule would be;

“terrain not equal to high ground AND units in hex < 1”
If you look at the coasts of the UK, this makes almost the entire island a target if the AI has pulled its troops inward. We’d need more conditions here.

Obviously it doesn’t take long for us to find things we’d like the see the AI do, but here we’ve already got a bit of a “but first” in having the AI use recons and deploy navally. I know that this is one issue that when we start to tackle AI issues we have a number of issues that seem to keep coming up for implementation before naval landings.

Perhaps for now we should focus on the “what should it send” question. We seem to have a good start there…
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Post by tkobo »

Since it soooo much easier to spot flaws than give good ideas, ill point out a flaw first :P

They should land almost zero artillary,anti-air and supply units.These units cant hold land.As such they are far to prone to retreat and have no where to go in such a landing.

I "think" the AI should use infrantry 80% and tanks 15% and land REAL close to city hexs which they should than take first thing after they land.This gives them both a local supply source AND the advantage of close combat (with infrantry holding the cities).The infrantry units the AI chooses to use should be based on combat stats-close combat first(offensive and defensive)- hard target second and soft target third- the units who have the highest scores in this stats should be the ones the AI uses.And yes, the infrantry should be amphibious as should the ships if they are available to the AI.
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Post by red »

Balthagor wrote:- when should the AI send a unit on a landing mission?
- how much of its resources should it devote?
I'd think there should be some kind of overall way for the AI to know whether or not amphibious operations are even useful to it. I'd say have the AI be aware of:
* whether it is on an island or not
* what proportion of other regions it borders by either land or by sea
* the distance to any sea opponents (presumably no 5000km amphibious assaults)
* the belli/relates and some kind of military worth indicator for other regions (A is 100, B is 50, so B knows its neighbor is twice as strong/a huge threat)
then it could set a priority value (contiguous land vs. amphibious land operations) for whether a region should be building amphibious ships/units and do amphibious operations. Plus this could be recalculated every month or declaration of war, region collapse etc. so that a situation where the player is sitting in the UK being ignored by the last standing mainland Europe AI region is avoided.

So I guess choosing to conduct operations against an island would be clear enough. For land fronts, then, it could decide whether to conduct operations based on a new 'stalemate' value which the game could calculate for fronts depended on the relative military values of the forces (1:1 would be "stalemated"), and if this front is stalemated and the region has the ability to conduct amphibious operations against its enemy, then it could do so (Salerno, Inchon :)).
Balthagor wrote:- what unit should it send?
Would the AI understand waves? Either way, I think simply infantry and anti-tank units to establish a beachhead. ;)
Balthagor wrote:- what should it use to guard the transport?
It should use a box formation of anti-aircraft frigates such that their maximum ranges overlap, and also air cover. ;)
Balthagor wrote:- where should it try and land?
How about it begins searching from piers or ports, as these are presumably necessary for any serious operation and starting there would minimize the number of hexes to compute, and then it searches for within an x-hex radius of contiguous (to avoid outlying islands and a reliance on bridges which could be blown) hexes for these bare minimum requirements:
* (pier or port)
* an urban hex or three
* existing (enemy) supply which isn't extremely low (so as to not land in the middle of nowhere)
* motorway
and which doesn't have::
* bridges
* highly urban areas (land against a wall)
* medium or large military bases and air base

Then if it's okay with that, it can select the best site by weighing:
* proportion of plains or desert versus mountains, jungle, etc. (would be nice to have an overall 'terrain mix' rating for a region which would be weighed, so that landings don't always hit the one spot of plains in a jungle region--plus jungle regions with jungle neighbors and no hopes of plains combat could stop producing tanks etc., Netherlands could build close combat inf, and the like)
* distance from nearest friendly pier or port to target hex
* if possible, whether, say, a straight line from this friendly source of supply to the desination hex would path over an enemy hex... the purpose being to avoid torturous routes which would increase the exposure of transports to missile platforms
* proximity to outpost or perhaps small military bases
* proximity to industries, capital etc. eventually ;)
* if you do history, whether or not the AI has attempted a landing there before
Balthagor wrote:- what transport should it use?
In my view, transport casualties should be assumed in an AI operation against an enemy coast, and so the AI should choose:
* the minimum tonnage required to transport a single unit the distance (thus maximizing the number of cheap ships, because I think the AI will be just as bad at defending a Sacramento etc. against anti-ship missile attack as a dinky LCPL)
* ships which are amphibious, of course, even if the destination is a pier (IIRC their becoming damaged removes the bridge effect?)
* highest anti-air value which fits within the "many cheap ships" choice, but I don't see this as too importance because I don't think transports should have any expectation of surviving battle outside of their escort
and it should never use carriers.
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Post by Balthagor »

As usual, the forum exceeds the feedback I expected! :D

This is all good stuff, I wish I was the programmer and could start on it now ;). I will of course make sure George reads this at some point...
tkobo wrote:..They should land almost zero artillary,anti-air and supply units...
Not even Mortars? The game usually gives mortars better close defense and longer combat time so this seem a good use since the suppression they cause could be helpful for a player trying to hold a city till reinforcements arrive.
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Post by tkobo »

I'd say skip any unit that cant hold a hex til things are stable.

The area should be fairly well held before any units that cant hold a hex are landed.
If the ground forces need some artillary support,use the fleet to provide what it can.
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Post by BigStone »

I think the initial attack should be done by specialist leg units...
Marines.. commandos .. and some simple art like houwitzers
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Post by bergsjaeger »

Well it needs to be like real life. Its complex in a way. Marines, Arty, Helios loaded with troops for advance placements, Supply truck, some light infantry, and maybe armor. So the whole works. But for the game any type of infantry would work. They should be first then everything else.
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Post by dust off »

It's always easy to say the AI should do it, and I certainly agree, but the tough questions are;

- when should the AI send a unit on a landing mission?
- what unit should it send?
- what transport should it use?
- what should it use to guard the transport?
- how much of its resources should it devote?
- where should it try and land?
IMHO it does not matter if the AI does not make perfect amphib decissions. But it is important that playing a game in which the real threat comes from a possible landing then it should at least be possible. Otherwise it's like playing a chess game where the AI doesn't use rooks.

D-day had many discussions and disagreements within Allied command. The US wanted to go a year ealier; the Brits a landing somewhere else.
The point is not to make an AI that thinks like a human; but to provide a challenge and at least appear to make human like decissions that can be flawed and faulty.
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