Grand Strategy Axis declaration of war on Switzerland

[82dawgs]

Playing CS v1.02 with an Axis AI at Even and Axis +1 advantage the Axis declare war on Switzerland shortly after they make their main assault on France. The assault immediately grinds to a halt. Is this a function of v1.02? Kinda makes the rest of the game a mote point. Can the game AI be tweeked to prevent this DOW?

Along similar lines Axis AI declares war on Denmark and Holland while still engaged in Poland and no troops actually attack those countries on the turn DOW occurs. AI does pull 1/4 to 1/3 of troops on Polish border out of the attack turn 1 but they don't seem to show up on anyone's doorstep. While I can't confirm it's almost like AI detects good weather and wants to take advantage of it but the troops are off working on their tans .

This is my first post here. I greatly appreciate the time and effort the developers put into making this mod. I like the improved weather rules and you came up with a interesting solution to U-boat warfare. Bonus points for a comprehensive game manual. But what have you got against the Swiss?

[Samhain]

The AI plays even worse than I do. Back in BJR as the Axis it would move into nearby friendly forts rather than push on into Poland much!

[Horseman]

Yeh the mod is really optimised for player v player

As the Allies (max Axis advantage) I not only managed to hold onto France but also Denmark.....it ended in 1942 when I gave up playing it as I had UK forces coming from Italy into southern Germany (Came from Africa/middle East) and from the north after landing in Denmark, the French and Americans coming form the west and of course the Russians coming fom the east....no real challenge, several Swiss Corps had proved invaluable in the defence of France though ultimately Switzerland did fall before the end it may be better to set Switzerland back to pro Axis so the AI cant declare war on it but with an entry date to prevent them ever comig in on the allies side, they had also declared war on Denmark on the 1st turn, Holland on the 2nd and Belgium on I think the 4th.


It is slightly more challanging as the Axis side but not massively so....last game ended with my forces 1 turn away form capturing Washington! All other countires save Switzerland and Ireland were already conquered!

In short I think it is actually better to play vanilla against the AI as it seems better able to cope but GS is (hopefully, about to try my 1st game against a human!) better for PBEM

[timhicks]

when playing against the Axis AI with max help to Axis, the Axis also attacked Switzerland, but despite the wasteful AI moves, I didn't do as well as Horseman. I lost France, and the Axis were only a few hexes away from Omsk, before I captured Berlin, and ended the Game. Useful practice , but not very realistic, since the Axis basically ignored the defense of the west.

I think on Max difficulty it's useful to practice, before you go to PBEM.

Horseman, you're game as the Axis against the AI sounds impressive, was that on max difficulty too ?

[Horseman]

No I think it was 1 away from max advantage to allies, possibly even only a moderate advantage.....I find the Axis in GS much much harder to play!

I also had some luck....Poland falling on the 1st turn and lots of good weather early on to allow me to overun Holland, Belgium and Norway reasonably easy

1 other thing I've noticed, in both games playing as the Axis many French troops including their armoured corp seem to pull out of the front line....they must go to southern France but they took no part in the fighting....that of course makes it easier!

The AI is quite limited and I find it easy to exploit its weakness's and its predictability (a common problem in most strat games once you've played them enough) and I'm expecting a far sterner test in PBEM.....

EDIT: 1 thing I did in my Alllied game was rail some Swiz corps to help in France....they're pretty tough for early troops and didn't falter until after their manpower pool dropped below 50% (they were in the front line)

[BuddyGrant]

The difficulty settings are basically various levels of AI cheats for production and tech. You can see exactly how the AI at max advantage works by assigning France to the Axis side and playing as the Axis. I believe in that situation the max labs for France can reach 60+ even though the game only allows a maximum of 20 labs!

Using the max AI advantage you can do very well as the axis until 1941-1942, because the AI's moves are always pretty weak. Unfortunately the AI's vast tech advantage will make the rest of the game after mid-1942 near unplayable. Example: A single Russian Infantry corps will often wipe out a 10 strength GE armor unit in one attack.

Playing as the Allies against max advantage axis is much easier, partially because the axis often has path troubles when attacking France, and partially because the AI does not seem very interested in protecting the west once it does capture France:P.

IMO you can make a pretty challenging solo game at the 'moderate' AI advantage setting, but you need to mod the heck out of the game to do that:D.

[Horseman]

IMO you can make a pretty challenging solo game at the 'moderate' AI advantage setting, but you need to mod the heck out of the game to do that:D.

Yeh and thats exactly what I'm trying to do!

[timhicks]

In my game against an Allied AI, the allies declared on the Swiss. It caught me completely by surprise. It was in late 1943 and I was about to attack Omsk. The Italians were holding a good line around Turin, and at the time everything looked quiet on the western front. The allies completely outclassed the poor swiss, just creamed them, and since l had commited everthing to Omsk and didn't have any reserves it did cause me a big problem. I 'resigned' from that game soon after.