AI cheats? Panzer Corps 2: Allied Operations - Italy: Vol.1

[armedevil]

Enemy units seem to know the position of units that are clearly beyond visibility, and always have been, that have moved but did not attack.

I'm only at the second (British) scenario (first turn), and I have encountered several cases already. Camouflage is respected. No mods used or anything. Maybe it's a bug, or I overlooked something (unlikely), but if not, please do not do this.

[armedevil]

Of course, it's always possible that by sheer chance, the AI made an unexpected move to exactly the right location.

[Nexus]

I would doubt that AI cheats.
In fact it does not have to be exactly the right move. If AI move would pass your zone of control, without actually going to the hex where your unit is, the move will be interrupted and AI unit will land next to yours without triggering the ambush.

[Tassadar]

There are days when I have my doubts. Key suspect for me are planes, which ever since combat predictions were added for the enemy possible attacks, seem to have keen insight of where my units are located and can fly deep into the fog of war to bomb vulnerable targets. In Allied Operations - Italy: Vol.1 I have not seen this behavior aside from maybe a few cases that I'd consider possible misinterpretations on my side, but it does not change the fact the AI sometimes seems to have psychic powers. Might be just bias towards such obscure cases and pure coincidence however, this was never really anything I could reliably replicate.

[armedevil]

I just had an artillery (split) unit among enemy mines (nothing else remotely near) that got attacked by a plane (covered by AA, so attack was aborted). Tried same position again, but moved it, or the companion split part (or the covering AA) and the AI changed its mind. It attacked the companion part where it moved (which should have been invisible there, always only mines in the vicinity).

Tried some other, unrelated moves, and the AI went through with te original (aborted) attack. Strange, it could be one of the longtime bugs in the codebase. It seems to be partial 'knowledge', dependent on seeing moves out of spotting range. Mines have no spotting of course.

[DefiantXYX]

What I can say from over 1000 hours, if you have a 21cm gun and the enemy has one plane left, it will find it

Escpecially on larger maps, when you fight the enemy in waves, the AI always finds your forwarding units asap. I dont know it its using planes to scout if nothing is in range, but it always feels strange.

[armedevil]

@DefiantXYX With planes, evidence is very convincing, because planes can go to > 100 different hexes so when it targets your artillery, it is no coincidence. That said, the strangely swirling paths to and from airfields always make me wonder which hexes were observed by the AI and which were not.

I think Slitherine prefers a 'pure' AI, but the old codebase (which apparently is hard to fix) may not agree.

[DefiantXYX]

Well, it could be a feature for PC3!

Imo a defender should have more vision than an aggressor. I mean normally you fight on your own land, which means you know it better. Retreating units have information about the enemy, civilians might help to spread information and so on.
So the defender should rather know whats coming, while the attacker completly moves into the fog of war. Unless you scout with something.

[armedevil]

Nice idea! A scenario could define the 'defending' part of the map en increase spotting there for the defending side. Maybe also 'terrain expert' (+1 entr).

But in the end, the balance of the game, how hard to play it is, has to remain about the same. So the attacking side would also need some boost (e.g. core slots, heroes). Meaning, probably only a small net effect on the game.

For the AI in general, quality can be a lot better for new games, thanks to advances in LLM-based AI. That would make the game more difficult in the best way: playing against a more human-like opponent. With fewer quirks or obvious weaknesses. And hopefully, no 'illegal' information.

[DefiantXYX]

For the AI in general, quality can be a lot better for new games, thanks to advances in LLM-based AI. That would make the game more difficult in the best way: playing against a more human-like opponent. With fewer quirks or obvious weaknesses. And hopefully, no 'illegal' information.

Yes, that could be the most interesting change in a PC3. Imangine playing the campaign against a reasonably smart opponent. This will be very hard to balance.