Quote:
Originally Posted by Suhiir
I'd say the AI in the games is "adequate".
And better then that in a good many other, and newer, games.
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The first thing I did was to make the AI deployment
much more random and sensible (aimed at the objectives).
The initial SP AI deployment was always a "phalanx" set smack in the middle of the deployment zone, basically. The more troops, the more lines in that phalanx. In SP3 it was even worse - the AI always deployed precisely 2 hexes back from the (random in SP3) frontline, so a stonk of arty 2 hexes in plotted in turn 0 was guaranteed to bring results - especially since in SP3, track and weapon hits were treated as kills, and deleted a strength pont of each unit which was a platoon, not an individual. Therefore 60mm and higher mortars were
exellent ways to deal with armour in SP3, even M1s etc...
So I wrote code that moved the deployment about, and made more use of flanking deployments and also the defensive placement was similarly adjusted. Also, some formations get held back and appear later in order to give the AI a second echelon. Some simply have their reaction turn incremented so that they step off later, some are held offmap as reinforcements.
The other thing we had to do was to introduce some idea of
caution to the AI - the original SP games were famed for the AI's "tin lemmings" rush. Our AI is much more cautious now if the enemy is known to be nearby. Mech infantry will tend to debuss rather than charge mounted into the enemy positions. It's still a bit over-keen to try to take nearby objectives, mind. (Objectives exist in order to guide the AI, and arent really "objectives" in the military sense. If there werent any of these then the AI would be hoplessly confused, rather than just plain dumb
)