I hope Tortuga coming thrue with AI war mod

[swedewolf]

To be playing as USA it feels strange to always fight UK and France. They are strong enough to feel threaten by the US. And as there are no (not yet) war between any other nations it gonna interesting to how the game will handle Mussolini and the fuhrer now in my game (1935). Been fighting the so call allies since early 1900. Lets imagine germany being agressive , the only oponent to pick is my US navy. And as the tension always climbing between UK France and me because I compete with each type of ships quality and quantity. Maybee Us is bad choice for a human in a long play until Tortuga creating an AI conflict mod, hopefully with some tension reduction amongst historical friends. Well Italy was on the "good" side during and on the "evil" side during ww2, so it might be tricky.

[warlock]

Yeah I have always felt it a tad unfair that none of the AI nations have to deal with the same level of attrition that you do with all the wars you fight. After a couple wars, it seems like you can never quite catch up to the numbers that the AI nations have at their disposal.

[tortugapower]

Wow, that's a lot of pressure! Here's where I'm at:

So far, I have a working tension system for all the nations with each other. The script reads the game file, checks the date, and every time the date advances by a month, it randomly moves the tensions between AI nations. I have some framework in place to make this "better" (like non-similar government types have worse tension chances), even if it's not implemented yet.

The problem is, once tensions are over "12" and war happens, what do you do? You have to simulate a combat between the two nations for the mod to really mean anything (to kill off some AI ships).

...So I'm trying to get my auto-resolve simulator ported over for RtW2 to get this all working. And with the addition of carriers, there is a lot of nuance here. This is a much simpler update but similar to what Fredrik had to do to get the tactical combats to work with carriers (e.g. extended range battles, model plane scouting, allow ships to fight entire out of sight from each other, etc.).

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but if you have any suggestions as to things you'd like to see in an AI Wars mod, please let me know! It's always easier to code in a placeholder for those things now than to go back and try to add a completely new framework later.

[swedewolf]

@tortuga: By all means please hijack this thread.
(ulf jönsson)

[Warspite]

May 24, 2019 6:58:36 GMT -6 warlock said:

Yeah I have always felt it a tad unfair that none of the AI nations have to deal with the same level of attrition that you do with all the wars you fight. After a couple wars, it seems like you can never quite catch up to the numbers that the AI nations have at their disposal.

Agreed.

In my game as Germany recently I fought France twice, then the US and then Russia. I lost most of my BB and BCs in these wars and I was also building carriers so I could never 'catch up' to parity in the number of heavy ships that my AI opponents had at their disposal in the 1930s. The game really needs some form of AI v AI attritional warfare other than allies helping you out in a war.

[garrisonchisholm]

May 24, 2019 9:11:37 GMT -6 tortugapower said:

Wow, that's a lot of pressure! Here's where I'm at:

So far, I have a working tension system for all the nations with each other. The script reads the game file, checks the date, and every time the date advances by a month, it randomly moves the tensions between AI nations. I have some framework in place to make this "better" (like non-similar government types have worse tension chances), even if it's not implemented yet.

The problem is, once tensions are over "12" and war happens, what do you do? You have to simulate a combat between the two nations for the mod to really mean anything (to kill off some AI ships).

...So I'm trying to get my auto-resolve simulator ported over for RtW2 to get this all working. And with the addition of carriers, there is a lot of nuance here. This is a much simpler update but similar to what Fredrik had to do to get the tactical combats to work with carriers (e.g. extended range battles, model plane scouting, allow ships to fight entire out of sight from each other, etc.).

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but if you have any suggestions as to things you'd like to see in an AI Wars mod, please let me know! It's always easier to code in a placeholder for those things now than to go back and try to add a completely new framework later.

I've only been thinking about this for 2 years, so allow me.  :]

A)   Combats shouldn't "automatically" happen, look how frequently battles occurred in WWI.  There should probably be a 1 in 3 at best chance of a sea battle with losses each month, and then only 1 in 3 of those should be Fleet Actions.

B)   The war, if between two land-border belligerents, should very likely be decided by national economy size, and for extra difficulty you can toss in nation modifiers; education, industry, government type, etc.  Sea battles in such a case should be "VP gravy".

C)   There should be Events which occur because of the conflict- "Will you help me, why aren't you involved, reactions to random atrocities, etc."

D)   A resolved war should have government types highly be considered in the results.  A victory by a fascist state should be more harsh, they would liekly insist on it.

E)   To be interesting to the Player, the AI war should have periodic pop-up News Paper headlines, which somehow describe in general how the war is going, and more specifically show the results of significant naval actions.

That's all I've got for now, let others add!

[warlock]

I have a suggestion/question. The game seems to already have a built in simulator for AI vs AI conflicts in that if your allied with someone during a conflict, you occasionally get messages where your Ally has sunk "X" or that your enemy has sunk an Allies "Y". I am not a programmer but could you somehow tap into that script or whatever the technical term is and get these message to fire off during an AI conflict?

Also I think the mod can be pretty simple as well and still achieve the intended result. I don't think you need a full AI simulating everything that can happen in a war, all you need is a behind the scenes RNG based script killing off and damaging AI nations ships whenever they are in a conflict with each other. Basically click the next turn button and you get an update that England lost, 1 BB, 2 CL, 5 DD and 7 Transports in its war with Germany while Germany lost 2 CAs, 2 CLs, 3 DDs, 17 Transports and 3 Subs and be done with it.

[tortugapower]

May 24, 2019 9:52:15 GMT -6 warlock said:

I have a suggestion/question. The game seems to already have a built in simulator for AI vs AI conflicts in that if your allied with someone during a conflict, you occasionally get messages where your Ally has sunk "X" or that your enemy has sunk an Allies "Y". I am not a programmer but could you somehow tap into that script or whatever the technical term is and get these message to fire off during an AI conflict?

Also I think the mod can be pretty simple as well and still achieve the intended result. I don't think you need a full AI simulating everything that can happen in a war, all you need is a behind the scenes RNG based script killing off and damaging AI nations ships whenever they are in a conflict with each other. Basically click the next turn button and you get an update that England lost, 1 BB, 2 CL, 5 DD and 7 Transports in its war with Germany while Germany lost 2 CAs, 2 CLs, 3 DDs, 17 Transports and 3 Subs and be done with it.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Right now, I don't have access to anything the .exe does, unless Fredrik allows some access to the program (an API). I don't expect one in the near future, although much could be accomplished with three things: access to the end-month log, access to the pop-up decisions, and access to the notification pop-ups generated.  If we could add our own, that would be great.

Assuming that's not the case, my script will have to run in the background with the game, and you'll have to check it to see what happens. Any wars going on and any battles that happen will have no notifications in-game.

[garrisonchisholm]

May 24, 2019 9:52:15 GMT -6 warlock said:

I have a suggestion/question. The game seems to already have a built in simulator for AI vs AI conflicts in that if your allied with someone during a conflict, you occasionally get messages where your Ally has sunk "X" or that your enemy has sunk an Allies "Y". I am not a programmer but could you somehow tap into that script or whatever the technical term is and get these message to fire off during an AI conflict?

Regarding this, I am fairly certain that this is just a die roll against the ship lists, I don't think there is anything simulated in the Ally Fights event pop-up.

[Gerack]

Personally, I think something similar to your allies battles is OK. Random pop-ups "X nation and Y nation had a fight and this and that ships were sunk". Regarding war declaration, I'd be careful: fighting nations that have no ships left is not fun. Now, some things that could come into play when deciding wars are: the political regime (some being more aggressive than others), historical friendships and enemies (like how France had a rivalry with Germany but good relations with Japan; this could be randomized each game for variety), time passed since last war and colonial ambitions (Japan may have no interest in the Mediterranean but would like to grab everything in South East Asia). One thing to keep in mind is that if fascist/communist regimes are more likely to get in wars (cause everyone hates them) they should get a bigger naval budget to help them compensate the losses, and cause it also fits historical events. It may be better to overcompensate in this one, so authoritarian countries become a bigger threat. Kind of like and end boss.
On a side note, it'd be cool if countries that have been beaten up in wars had a bigger chance to get a coup. Not only would it be historically accurate, it would bring them back into the game.

[lumpy]

While I appreciate the ambition to acutally simulate naval engagements between AI nations fully, I think that something simplified, akin to the occasional event in which your allies and your enemy do battle, would be a nice bandaid until something more elaborate can be worked out. Of course, having thoroughly simulated battles between AI adversaries would be very, very neat, but ultimately, if the goal here is to prevent the AI from snowballing too hard due to a general lack of attrition, a detailed and complicated system might not be necessary.

[tortugapower]

May 24, 2019 9:42:02 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

I've only been thinking about this for 2 years, so allow me.  :]

A)   Combats shouldn't "automatically" happen, look how frequently battles occurred in WWI.  There should probably be a 1 in 3 at best chance of a sea battle with losses each month, and then only 1 in 3 of those should be Fleet Actions.

B)   The war, if between two land-border belligerents, should very likely be decided by national economy size, and for extra difficulty you can toss in nation modifiers; education, industry, government type, etc.  Sea battles in such a case should be "VP gravy".

C)   There should be Events which occur because of the conflict- "Will you help me, why aren't you involved, reactions to random atrocities, etc."

D)   A resolved war should have government types highly be considered in the results.  A victory by a fascist state should be more harsh, they would liekly insist on it.

E)   To be interesting to the Player, the AI war should have periodic pop-up News Paper headlines, which somehow describe in general how the war is going, and more specifically show the results of significant naval actions.

That's all I've got for now, let others add!

Great suggestions! I'm sure there's a reason you are on the RtW team.

(A) completely agree. I want infrequent battles, and not too decisive. As mentioned, we don't want the player to fight an ship-less nation.

Something that will need long-term tweaking is how to adjust the AI budget for war in order to compensate for these tensions. 
Right now, the player's budget is dictated by tensions. I believe the same applies to the AI, maybe based only on player tensions with that nation. AI might need a boost if it's at war with another nation.

(B) Long-term idea. Would be optional as it moves focus away from navy.
(C) Absolutely. For instance, I plan to make a pop-up if you are allied with a nation and they go to war: Bravely Join or Meekly Decline. Join means you go to war. Decline means you lose 10 prestige points.
(D) Good. Long-term.
(E) I have no access to the .exe, so this would have to be done in my GUI. If someone wants to help code these, I'm all for it. Otherwise, long-term.

Thanks!

[garrisonchisholm]

May 24, 2019 10:48:05 GMT -6 tortugapower said:

May 24, 2019 9:42:02 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

I've only been thinking about this for 2 years, so allow me.  :]

A)   Combats shouldn't "automatically" happen, look how frequently battles occurred in WWI.  There should probably be a 1 in 3 at best chance of a sea battle with losses each month, and then only 1 in 3 of those should be Fleet Actions.

B)   The war, if between two land-border belligerents, should very likely be decided by national economy size, and for extra difficulty you can toss in nation modifiers; education, industry, government type, etc.  Sea battles in such a case should be "VP gravy".

C)   There should be Events which occur because of the conflict- "Will you help me, why aren't you involved, reactions to random atrocities, etc."

D)   A resolved war should have government types highly be considered in the results.  A victory by a fascist state should be more harsh, they would liekly insist on it.

E)   To be interesting to the Player, the AI war should have periodic pop-up News Paper headlines, which somehow describe in general how the war is going, and more specifically show the results of significant naval actions.

That's all I've got for now, let others add!

Great suggestions! I'm sure there's a reason you are on the RtW team.

(A) completely agree. I want infrequent battles, and not too decisive. As mentioned, we don't want the player to fight an ship-less nation.

Something that will need long-term tweaking is how to adjust the AI budget for war in order to compensate for these tensions. 
Right now, the player's budget is dictated by tensions. I believe the same applies to the AI, maybe based only on player tensions with that nation. AI might need a boost if it's at war with another nation.

(B) Long-term idea. Would be optional as it moves focus away from navy.
(C) Absolutely. For instance, I plan to make a pop-up if you are allied with a nation and they go to war: Bravely Join or Meekly Decline. Join means you go to war. Decline means you lose 10 prestige points.
(D) Good. Long-term.
(E) I have no access to the .exe, so this would have to be done in my GUI. If someone wants to help code these, I'm all for it. Otherwise, long-term.

Thanks!

"(C) Absolutely. For instance, I plan to make a pop-up if you are allied with a nation and they go to war: Bravely Join or Meekly Decline. Join means you go to war. Decline means you lose 10 prestige points."

Well, ... I *almost* threw a flag here thinking there is no precedence for such a prestige loss, however I then realized taht now in RTW2 if you support a coup and it Fails the penalties can be extremely harsh indeed, so I withdraw my comment.  -  Yet none-the-less decide to send what I have written anyway.

[warlock]

May 24, 2019 10:06:54 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

May 24, 2019 9:52:15 GMT -6 warlock said:

I have a suggestion/question. The game seems to already have a built in simulator for AI vs AI conflicts in that if your allied with someone during a conflict, you occasionally get messages where your Ally has sunk "X" or that your enemy has sunk an Allies "Y". I am not a programmer but could you somehow tap into that script or whatever the technical term is and get these message to fire off during an AI conflict?

Regarding this, I am fairly certain that this is just a die roll against the ship lists, I don't think there is anything simulated in the Ally Fights event pop-up.

Which would all that would be needed to implement this feature, just some ongoing die rolls to see if any ships involved in an AI conflict were damaged or sunk.

[alsadius]

Depends how ambitious you want to get. But I'll throw some ideas out there. Not sure how many of these are practical, but that's the joy of brainstorming.

- Invading colonies
- Peace deals (whether capturing colonies or altering budgets - I'd probably have it be a bit of both, perhaps weighted by national inclination)
- Altering prestige/unrest/etc. for AI nations.
- Changing design philosophy to counter the ships of their AI opponents.
- Better blockade rules (see nws-online.proboards.com/post/45911/thread for example)
- Pick-from-a-list battles at first, but ideally replaced with more realistic battle outcomes later.

(I'll probably add more here later, but lunch break is over).