Giving Combat Bonuses to the AI on higher difficulty levels

[TheDeadeye]

Hi!

Been a long time player of WW1 and I´d like to know what the general consensus is among other players in terms of giving some bonuses to the AI when it comes to combat on higher difficulties ONLY (4 and higher).

The AI as it stands right now is doing a superb job in what it can do to prosecute the war from 14-18, HOWEVER what my fear is that an experienced CP player can eventually breakthrough the AI lines and encircle and destroy her armies and force surrenders of Entente nations well before 1917. On top of that the AI has to worry about a myriad of things such as supply, movement, troop placement, etc so why not give it a hand in combat to balance errors made in the latter to not really hand a default victory to the human player in the former (combat)?

So, if Calvinus were to give certain resilient bonuses to the AI to give those veteran players a good challenge in combat and troop management, then winning the war as the CP would be harder to achieve by default and the CP player has to pay a lot more attention to defence as well.

If the player is the Entente, well then it makes it doubly challenging for the veteran players to create a solid defence as the AI is more likely to punch through since it gets some bonuses and therefore might really become REALLY dangerous for the Entente in 1914. Another argument I could bring in favor would be that since the Entente will eventually outnumber the CP, the CPs REALLY could use a boost in defence in order to make breakthroughs harder.

I know though that Calvinus won´t make such changes unless it is welcomed by other players. So please, give your opinions in here, as I am very sure that he´ll read this with great curiosity

[Random]

Not sure what you mean by "resilient bonusus"; is this a matter of skewing combat factors or giving the AI favourable dice roll modifiers for all combats?

Am always somewhat leary of this sort of solution since they tend to invoke the laws of unintended consequences in unpredictible and sometimes undesirable ways.

I have found that the game plays better by toning down the AI aggression to "3" so it makes fewer poor odds attacks and is more inclined to sit in its trenches than it is to conduct front wide offensives until it runs out of manpower.

We already see the AI get RP bonuses, watch the battle screen as it runs down to zero RP and you will see additional RP's materialize out of nowhere and that is a big advantage. Also it would seem as though all combat units can be rebuilt by the AI although am not so sure about headquarters. The AI can move any unit anywhere, one frequently sees Black African corps fighting in Europe and of course in the stock game the AI can launch an amphibious invasion anywhere and often occupies the Entente colonial possessions. At least the latter behaviour can be modded out.

There is no way to prevent any player from exploiting the AI's built-in weaknesses but I play with self-imposed house rules that attempt to minimize "gamey" play and find the AI can be pretty challenging overall. It can deliver some unpleasant surprises at times and I would consider it one of the more sophisticated computer opponents out there, in my experiance anyway.

One can always tamper with combat factors by editing the relevant files to see what happens. I am not a big fan of arbitrary and possibly hidden combat bonuses in favour of the AI. Hopefully others reading your post will offer their opinions too.

Cheers

[Athens]

I would add there are some moddable files for AI, but unfortunatly undocumented.

[Averkinen]

Hmm ... It would, of course, is not bad, add some bonuses to the AI​​, since the end of the war, I thought, it becomes even easier to win. Still, even if given any bonuses, all the same in the end people will be stronger, because under any level of computer can be used. And if they give something of AI, the game will continue to be to move away from historicity, but because in this she built. So it's better just to improve the skills of the AI​​, and not give him any bonuses.