One thing mentioned in the general thread was how tough it is to fight using a poor country. I wonder if an AI country might use this to their advantage?
First, take a nation that is considered "poor", say an african country. Obviously they will not be able to field many tanks or mobile units, but will be able to field a great number of foot units.
What if there were a gradiated decision tree based on ability to pay that decided what units the AI constructed and/or bought from the WM?
If poorer nations concentrated on using foot infantry, foot AT, and foot AA, that might allow them to perform better economically, would save them a great deal of petroleum usage, and might allow them to conduct better offensives.
This would play into stacking code which would say that "X stack needs 3 inf, 1 aa, 1 at, then attack this objective" or "form a line of units and advance X hexes, stop, await supply, increase units in line to maintain ranks, advance again" type behavior.
I'd also like to see complementary behavior, like supply trucks following a stack, or an arty stack following a combat stack, etc.
Richer nations would tend to use more tanks, etc over infantry.
Additionally, would it be possible for an AI to "learn" to reserve its rearward units, or to scrap units not in its "combat style?"
Also would be possible to change "combat style" depending on success and scenario changes.
IF the AI could be improved to the point where a base does not accumulate the massive amount of units around it, that would be a serious help. Or if the AI massed units from the rear to the front, that would be a very different game as well.
All in all, still my fav combat game to play
