AI Artillery

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This is something I notice testing my upcoming scenario "Pointe du Hoc".

Pictures 1 & 2 :

If you put the MG Foxhole and the hidden artillery in the same AI Team 1 = Static Defence, the MG Foxhole will attack at every turn but the hidden Artillery will NEVER attack during the turns

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Picture 3 :

If you put the hidden Artillery in a different AI Team (AI Team 2) but with the same AI Static Defence, the hidden Artillery will Attack from the first turn and at each turn

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PS : the test was done with a single unit of fortification and artillery for convenience but it is also valid with several fortifications and artillery units (it is the case in my scenario "Pointe du hoc").

Conclusion : it is better to put units from differents types in differents AI Teams even if these units have the same type of AI

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If anyone wants to test, here is the scenario "AI Artillery" :

AI Artillery.zip

(293.17 KiB) Downloaded 62 times

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I always asked myself this question: is the order of the AI Teams important ?

In the precedent example with MG Foxhole = AI Team 1 and Hidden Artillery = AI Team 2, the MG Foxhole is always firing first.

If you change the order of the AI Teams with MG Foxhole = AI Team 2 and Hidden Artillery = AI Team 1, the Hidden Artillery is always firing first

Conclusion : it is better to put units from differents types in differents AI Teams even if these units have the same type of AI and the order of the AI Teams is important

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Why the Hidden Artillery will never shoot if it has the same AI Team (AI team 1) as the MG Foxhole

I found an explanation (Artillery Spotting points = 4) :

-If the artillery does not see you directly even if the Foxhole sees you, the Artillery will not fire -> The Artillery sees you indirectly (Mg Foxhole) but will not fire

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-If the artillery sees you directly, the Artillery will fire

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[Horst]

I can't find an explanation for this misbehavior either without getting smart of the code.
It also happens with other AI behaviors like LD0+ and even S&D 20.
Very strange is that a coastal gun, also a defensive structure, makes the arty fire though. All the other bunkers and forts won't make this happen. Even airstrips and fuel depots with sight range 1 make the arty attack in the same group. Two fortresses in the same group also won't make a sight-blocked one attack.
Also worthy to know if you replace the foxhole with an infantry and the arty with a fortress, a fortress will also not fire if it is sight-blocked to the enemy unit but in attack-range.
If you replace the foxhole and arty unit with coastal guns and the inf-unit with a ship, then a sight-blocked coastal gun also won't fire on the ship.
Buggy stuff is going on with these structures.

It's good to know that it's best to keep these fortifications out of other AI groups. Otherwise, AI units perform best in groups as long as you don’t put more than three aircraft into the same S&D group to make turn processing a crawl.