SpainAAR-World Conquest hotspotting with the military AI?

[Chris73]

Hello again Gonzar,

How the Russian campaign is going, are you managing to do (virtually), where many great leaders (Napoleon, Hitler) failed ? I saw the unit you chose and i'm wondering something. I may be newbie, but why using LAV-5A units. Is it because of their quality/time to produce value, their range/speed, because they spot far and can shoot 10km away (sure it's huge for infantry) ? I ask this because in one of the game i played, with Australia, i researched metal storm weapons, and then designs related to these. They have way higher attack values than the infantry you choose. Does metal storm weapons have a big flaw in their use, despite of their immense attack value ?

[Gonzar]

Hi Chris73,
I am not playing this campaign anymore, because the AI was not very challenging at this stage. I had several ideas on how to better the AI performance and i have been busy testing them. You can read about it in this thread http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 34&start=0

But i am sure i could have conquered Rusia and the world, though, because i had already a too big advantage in techs and number of units. If Rusia or any other country would have been played by a human, it would have been very different, so i would never compare myself to Napoleon or the great german generals in WWII (not Hitler, military was he nothing at all, well, not only military).

Regarding your question if you can tell me what units are you talking about i can give you my opinion. In this campaign i was building the LAV-5A for a reason, but i was already researching more advanced units, because my tech level was already at 125. If you wish, tell me which units you mean and i will give you my opinion .

[Xbwalker]

Hehe one of the longer AARs. Good work for as far as you got.

[Chris73]

Hello again Gonzar,

It took time to answer, but i now have the information about the metal storm units, but i don't know the flaws of these.

The one i remember (i post from another computer my game is installed on), is a Storm Hunter battle tank, i've seen the design on a diplomatic exchange with Southern Germany, with technology level is 107, requires advanced composite armor and metal storm weapons pods. One thing that brough me attention about this design is the huge 75 soft attack value, and above 100 (106 i think) value for hard attack one ... all this for what i call a "medium" battle tank. I don't remember the weight of a squadron, but i clearly remember it's lighter than a Leopard 2A5 ... and by number roughly twice as powerful.

All this looks quite interesting but ... what is the trick, is there anything in which this design is way worse than a Leopard 2A5 ? I know it has lower defense values, it's normal since a Leopard 2A5 is a heavy battle tank, and this one a medium one, but what else ?

If i researched that kind of design, which should be possible for me playing libya in around 3 or 4 game years, i plan using then as assault units, and not defense. Would i be correct ?

[Gonzar]

Hi Chris,
I know which tank you mean and will just compare it with the Leopard 2A6 design, the most advanced leopard also available from the beginning of the campaign.
Just take a look at both and you will see several "flaws" that would make me not choose the hunter but the leopard if i were at your situation:
- Combat time for the Hunter is just two hours/day, also the supply is quite weak (35t). The Leopard has 11 hours/day and 65t supply. In combat in the game that means that the Hunter get very quickly out of supply and stops fighting, while the Leopard can combat a lot longer.
- Firing range of the Hunter is just 6km vs. the 14km from the Leopard. That means that the Leopard will fire earlier than the Hunter.
- Indirect fire defense from the Hunter is 90 vs. the 104 from the Leopard. That means that the artillery or missiles will make much more damage to the Hunter than to the Leopard.
- Finally it takes 91 days to build one Hunter vs. 80 for the Leopard. This is a small issue, but important if you have a small production capacity.
The upkeep costs for both are similar.

Regarding my game i was choosing between infantry designs and had no tanks, so i think this explains why i choose the LAV-5A. Infantry has much better close combat values than any tank design and the most intense battles you will face against the AI are meanly around cities and complexes, there the close combat value come in play. Infantry is also capable of fighting 24h/day, has better supply and is faster to build and much cheaper than tanks. Tanks are good at open terrain.

So for your question that you plan to use assault units, i would build mainly infantry and not tanks. You can build a small percentage of tanks though, they make a quite good job in fighting hordes of enemy tanks. But a front stack of pure infantry backed with a stack of artillery will advance at quite good speed, killing every defense on its way. Keep always more infantry in reserve to replace damage front stack units and some airforce support and you will do quite well.

I hope that helps.

[powercell]

Storm Hunters are medium tanks? Are you sure?

Anyway, besides the above comparisions, there is one more thing worth mentioning about Strom Hunters, their close attack. This means they can attack city hex fairly well. However, if I have access to Leopard 2 PSO, Challenger III-U, M1A3 TUSK or Lecler AZUR, I may consider these designs over Strom Hunters. I usually use a mix of 2-3 different tank designs in 1 stack: 1 with high indirect def for chasing enemy arty away, 1 with longer range as the main combatant, and (if I can) 1 with high close combat for urban combat when I don't want to wait for my infantry.

[Chris73]

With my campaign (real newbie mode), i still don't have access to the storm hunter design, but i could purchase it from another country (southern germany). I've noticed, this weekend, that infantry can be extremely useful properly used. I've invaded Cyprus playing Libya. It worked well, especially when i dropped elite forces in country, they couldn't effectively counter the invasion.

Anyway, thank you Gonzar and Powercell for your advice, i'm now well less eager to use metal storm units since they have big flaws considering the way i'm playing. And yes, a combat would last long, they look to be ill suited in that case. I've just learnt how to be careful with the supply and trying not to go too fast invading a country.

[ollobrains]

have u attempted it with the new ai

[Gonzar]

No, not really, though i have the impression the AI has been indeed improved in all warfare aspects (maybe besides combat aircraft) in this expansion.

I have been testing/playing with different aproaches and looking in detail how AI in different countries is handling their wars. There seem to be less "frozen" fronts overall, what is directly related to better warfare abilities by the AI, i believe. Also, there seem a better capability to update their builded designs, though too slow compared to the human player. I consider this last aspect important, than in many ARRs we can read here, there is a way to large tech advantage from the human player compared to the AIs they are invading. Most fierce battles are at the beginning, when the tech advantage is not that big, well at least by those ARRs that begin early with warfare.

I have been considering giving the military AI again a try and letting it manage all (yes, all, i know, ) my military and see how far it comes. But i am not sure if i will try soon another AAR as it takes a lot of work and time to do, specially because my english is not that good.

Lets hope more people join this forum, and we see more posts and ARRs. I like to read them, and i always learn new things about the game and possible strategies. One of my favourite subforums in Paradox are the AARs . Pretty good ones there, but mostly (or just) only about the self developed paradoxian games and mods.