Slitherine

My basic understanding is that once you have a ground unit adjacent to a flag hex it stops mass spawning units, it can still resupply/reinforce until three are three units adjacent (one can be an air unit directly over it). What i'm not quite sure of is what causes the mass spawning to start.

Early on in a particular scenario, flag hexes only seem to start spawning when threatening units are within their spotting range and even then only gold flag hexes will ever spawn units. But when you are close to the end of a scenario, I just experienced it in the Novoanninsky scenario, when there were only the two southern most flags left, the most westerly one spawned a full complement of AA, AT and artillery, even though none of my units were in spotting range. So what are the rules on how and when AI units start to spawn and am I missing something that I should be doing to minimise it.

Near the end of a scenario turn limit, its not only gold flag hexes either, in one of the France 1940 scenarios I almost got caught out and could have lost a DV because of a mistake I made. I had moved a SP Artillery onto a normal flag hex around turn 10 of the scenario and not realised I hadn't therefore captured the flag. With two turns to go and me working on the last gold flag for a DV, I suddenly had French tanks in my derriere that had spawned from that normal flag hex. It was pure luck that I could capture the last flag for a DV before they caused much damage ( with a little bi of fast moving vulnerable units out of the way to boot), or that they hadn't wandered off and recaptured another Gold flag needed for the DV.

So any tips tricks and techniques out there?

Cheers
Bone

I check the strategic map to track unconquered hexes. I once got MV in one of the Cassino scenarios in 44 West because I forgot to capture one of the victory hexes and had parked a damaged AA unit on it so that it was out of the way - I didn't notice it on the normal map and it was only by looking at the strategic map way too late that I realised my mistake. Checking the strategic map also shows changes - most often if a stray enemy unit slipped past in bad weather or retreated with 1 or 2 strength when you thought it had been destroyed and then starts recapturing hexes.

You can use a strategic bomber to neutralise hexes you missed or bypassed. After neutralisation, the hex can't spawn until it's been recaptured and held for two turns so you can probably leave it alone if busy elsewhere. If it is currently held by a unit that can recapture it, you have two turns to get to it.

Neutralisation is only influenced by strength and experience, not by which type of bomber so you don't have to send your best one. If you can spare the bomber (the remaining targets have too much AA) you can keep bombing it to keep it neutralised.

As for a last minute recapture, there's not much you can do except learn from it and start planning your revenge on the AI and

"Mass spawning" is basically the AI wasting its prestige buying units in newly captured cities. Can only be stopped by a unit of yours being parked next to or in the city, or you owning the place.

- BNC

Ok, so a slightly different question, is the AI's prestige predefined at the start of each scenario or does it gain and use prestige in some way similar to us as players? If it has a balance of prestige in some way similar to us as players can you limit pawning in certain scenarios by allowing it in earlier easier ones?

Alternatively if the AI has a fixed pot of prestige, predefined at the start of a particular scenario, is it actually beneficial to allow certain units to escape total destruction and reinforce or allow spawning to take place more in earlier cities where you have positioned your units to cope, so that towards the end of the scenario you don't face the spawns just as ammo is running low or units are just too far away. Even to the extent that with earlier city's you might even get a unit adjacent to prevent the spawn while you get units into position, then pull it back allowing the AI units to spawn into your firetrap?

Cheers
Bone

Bonesoul,
I just lost a 4* Char B while escaping from Stalingrad due to a nearby city spawning a pile of KV1C, so I like your idea of the firetrap. I am thinking of lots of suppressed and surrounded KV1C just waiting to hand over their surrender prestige, although a mass spawn of BT5 and BT7 would be better for giving that Char a chance to regain some experience.

Sometimes when facing heavy air attacks by overstrength units, it is worth damaging as many as possible rather than trying to kill them off. While the main purpose is to get them to go away for a turn or two to repair, allowing you to pick off the survivors, and making them come back at 10 strength, it would use up a fair bit of AI prestige reinforcing some of the more effective fighters. As to whether this uses enough prestige to cause the AI a headache and restrict its spawning I can't say.

Also, some of the spawns are scripted, which means that they do not rely on prestige so it's unlikely you can completely eliminate them.

Bonesoul wrote:Ok, so a slightly different question, is the AI's prestige predefined at the start of each scenario or does it gain and use prestige in some way similar to us as players? If it has a balance of prestige in some way similar to us as players can you limit pawning in certain scenarios by allowing it in earlier easier ones?

Alternatively if the AI has a fixed pot of prestige, predefined at the start of a particular scenario, is it actually beneficial to allow certain units to escape total destruction and reinforce or allow spawning to take place more in earlier cities where you have positioned your units to cope, so that towards the end of the scenario you don't face the spawns just as ammo is running low or units are just too far away. Even to the extent that with earlier city's you might even get a unit adjacent to prevent the spawn while you get units into position, then pull it back allowing the AI units to spawn into your firetrap?

Cheers
Bone

In the editor, both sides have exactly the same boxes:
Those 0's and 1's in the boxes can easily be edited

In short, they have scripted pp. Modders like myself frequently give the AI varying amounts to increase or decrease the difficulty of the scenario.

- BNC

Unfortunately the AI spawn mechanism is neither consistent nor does it have a reliable influence on scenario difficulty.

Just as an example - being fast and efficient in the "Escape from Stalingrad" scenario you can easily end it 4 to 6 turns before deadline. I might still see some of the KV1c or a forgotten infantry in the southwest might still encounter these, but apart from that they only hurt the struggling player in his desperate last turns rush.

Compare that to Kiev 43, where you are only really hurt by the JS 1 spam IF you are efficient and fast and cross the river before they spawn. Behind the river or in Kiev itself the player is pretty safe even if the AI spams 15 JS 1 with 3 stars the last 10 turns.

To be quite honest - I don't think the scenario designers put many thoughts on the AI units spawned but conecentrated on the scripting.

Regards,
Thorsten

Not wanting to be too critical, I believe in general the scenarios I have played so far have been well designed. The one thing I always find frustrating is where in an unforeseen way scripted events punish good play as ThorHa is saying can be the case in Kiev 43. I always remember being 4 months ahead of schedule in one world war II sim I played, it wasn't HOI but it was that type of strategic sim, only to have a whole Russian army spawn miles behind where my front line had got to.

As to the way the AI spawns units, I agree you cant do much about scripted spawns, but most scenarios, the spawning that takes place when there are only one or two objective flags left in AI hands is usually the AI consuming any prestige pool it has left in general on AA, AT and Artillery. When I see that type of spawn, rather than the 4x KV-1C variety, I always assume its using up remaining prestige. In fact and some might argue this is an abuse of the system, in the earlier GC scenarios where I have turns to go and a DV in the bag, I will surround the remaining victory hex with units (all on hex away so spawning can occur) and milk the kills/exp. Over 4 or 5 turns the spawning dries up to a trickle, 1-2 units at most per turn, which implies two things.

It must be possible if you deliberately allow spawning early to at least partially exhaust the AI's initial stockpile of prestige and also that in most scenarios the AI gains a small amount of prestige per turn (enough for an AT and Artillery say) or the spawning would dry up entirely.

One thing I'm finding as I progress towards the end of GC42, just about to start into Stalingrad, is the spawning of AI air units, in 39-41, pretty much if you killed off the planes placed on the map, that was it and your air units had free reign. Now the AI is quite clever, it will spawn air units when it see's a suitable target but wont bother if it cant (the target usually being my OS Stuka or strat bomber I was careless enough to leave unprotected that one time). As the spawns are opportunistic, the feel like they are from any available prestige pool rather than a scripted spawn, if this is the case if allowing the odd T-38 to escape with 1-2 strength and reinforce back to 10, especially as the reinforcements are suppressed so can be killed easily again and again, seems like a nat trick to minimise the AI's ability to contest the skies (or butcher my poor stuka's).

So worth a shot?

Cheers
Bone

PS: The idea of forcing the enemy into unfavourable use of reinforcements/reserves is not mine and was used historically. The German strategy at Verdun in WW I, was to allow the French an avenue to funnel troops into the city (politically the los of which was unacceptable). Where they could be slaughtered by massed artillery in favourable positions surrounding the defences.