Facepalm On-Demand
 

Pull up a Mk5 Attacks Skirmish Game, and set both sides to AI.

Holy crap it's hard to watch. Especially the *ridiculous* number of 1:2 attacks it will attempt. GEVs getting killed by a M2 OGRE with no MBs is the saddest thing. It doesn't feel like the AI looks even one move ahead.

Maybe it was watching 8 GEVs take 1:2 shots at the missiles all the way to the center line.

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

AI vs AI is probably a very good way to expose some of these kinds of issues.

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

In the Beta the AI seemed smarter (although just to me, apparently, since everyone else seemed to report idiot AI). Although it was cheating by stacking 15 infantry. Were there different AIs in the various Beta builds?

I had a lot of trouble before, but since release I just get complete victories...

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

I wonder if the AI properly understands that missiles are one-shot. It seems to have way more interest in shooting them off (early, not late to knock critical hexes off the range) than I've ever seen justified.

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

Ideally, it will fire them off early if you are targeting them, and hold back if you are targeting other systems.

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

I think there's room for extensive debate on that, albeit in no way specific to computer Ogre!

Honestly, I'd be more inclined to conserve missiles that the enemy is targeting, so that they keep targeting them rather than other components. On the other hand, missiles that the enemy is ignoring and I'm just carrying around are missiles that aren't helping me but could be preventing damage by knocking out enemy tanks.

(Ultimately, my usual approach is to conserve one or two missiles for a long-range threat to howitzers/CP and spend any others early to thin out armor - waiting to find out whether the enemy will focus on the missiles doesn't seem a great use of time.)

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

How valuable to you are missiles as ablative armor for your mains, instead of as missiles?

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

Valuable enough that I'd certainly target an enemy Ogre's mains before targeting its missiles.

That seems a valid symmetry to me.

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

My missiles get fired early, and I generally ignore missiles because they will get fired at me so I don't have to waste shots on them. It's almost always better to shoot MB and treads over missiles. IF the Ogre can't move, who cares if it still has missiles?

Re: Facepalm On-Demand
 

I'll fire my missiles early if there are good targets - if there are just a few GEVs, I may want to take them out - and if the target is within range of my secondaries on my planned next move, I'm fine with disabling it.

But holding one back is always a valid way to distress the opponent.