AA Review: It is a bit too easy

How awesome would it be if AA were like left 4 dead 2 where players can jump in and play against you and try to stop you from beating the campaign? Now that would be hard

Didn't Total War Shogun 2 have that feature? In Total War most can take on much superior armies against the AI. But what happens if all o a sudden that superior army was in the hands of a human?

Didn't Total War Shogun 2 have that feature? In Total War most can take on much superior armies against the AI. But what happens if all o a sudden that superior army was in the hands of a human?

Shogun 2 an Rome 2 have a vs campaign mode, problem is that you normally beat your opponent from good use of agent units, armies just mop up whats left.

Who knows they could add the German point of view to Ardennes and add a vs mode with it where your opponent controls what ever units/company is in that region.

There is a lot of potential to add new things to this system, i think they know this but it just takes a lot of time to put together.

It is quite simply a matter that programming AI is HARD. Super hard. And the more complicated the game, the harder it is to take into account the terrain, soft counters, hard counters, dangers, repairing, mines, artillery, flanking, etc, etc, etc.

It took IBM several decades, the best resources of the one of the best computer research facilities, and unlimited $ to spend on programming and equipment to make a program that could beat a human at chess. Chess is MUCH simpler than CoH, only 64 locations, only 6 types of units, only movement with no attack or defense stats, no cover, no shot blockers, no line-of-sight.

It takes someone who is dedicated to the job, who can figure out how to tweak the algorithms, and who has a lot of patience to play many permutations, to make even a decent system seem dangerous.

So yeah, they throw MORE at you at higher levels. I would think they should even disable LOS to make the AI seem smarter and more vicious. (maybe that should be the difference between levels). And

It is hard, no doubt but You can't say that Panther shooting Tank Destroyer primary rather than AT gun is really difficult. It's just target priority.

How awesome would it be if AA were like left 4 dead 2 where players can jump in and play against you and try to stop you from beating the campaign? Now that would be hard

Sounds like a multiplayer expansion. 100% worth the 40$ (23$ over here) price tag.

It is hard, no doubt but You can't say that Panther shooting Tank Destroyer primary rather than AT gun is really difficult. It's just target priority.

I don't know that it is that simple.

Is it simply... "I am being shot by two entities, an m10 and a 57, which do I respond to...?"

Or is the algorithm: "There is an m10 in my mid range and a 57 in my far range. chance to hit the m10 x the chance to penetrate is X, chance to hit the 57 x chance to penetrate it is Y and I am programmed to take the shot with the greatest value." And that is the simple equation. As humans we play time after time so we learn to process and create heuristics to take into account things like:

- Which one is hitting you in the rear?
- can we back out and face armor to both?
- which is more damaged?
- is there infantry on the way to take care of the 57?
- do I have artillery?
- where are the shot blockers? Can I use them?

And that is just one engagement, one unit. We make the decision and then act on it.

What about the AI. How many of these does it make? Does the decision change based because you just made a different action that changes the outcome of the variables? (like the bouncing in and out of garrisoning a house. Each action probably triggered a response in the algorithm to do the OTHER thing.)

And until someone does a WHOLE LOT of testing and tweaking you aren't going to make it even somewhat good. AI in combat games is really really complicated. We don't realize how much we can process as humans that the computer can't until we try to program it. And even when we finally think we did a good job, the decisions the computer makes will still become redictable, and hence, beatable.

On top of that, all of this has to happen fast enough that it doesn't slow down the game.

From my point of view it should be like:
I do shitty damage against inf so no matter what, my main gun will always target vehicles.
That's for TD

For units like KT it should be harder like you said since its effective against inf and veh.

Should I feel guilty for using the Ranger company?

I finished the campaign on Hard difficoulty and I can tell you that the last missions with 5 stars of enemy presence are seriously hard to play, while some missions are quite easy instead.

Overall my feeling is that the more scripted missions (those with the introduction and the debriefing) are harder to play, while the dynamic missions are generally easier (with 1-2 exceptions).

Overall it was fun and I think I'll play the campaign again, especially given what you can unlock at the end for the multiplayer.

(NO SPOILERS BUT IT'S COOL )

But it's not worth 40€.

Btw, you will soon see my complete review of the expansion on COH2.ORG

I agree its not very hard especially once you realize how good rangers are.

At least company strength makes you like not yolo through it super hard, and the element of time is always a factor so you can't loligag around too much but i almost never felt like i was in jeopardy of losing a mission.

It's like EiRR mod but with even less skilled opposition (not that I was a dirty dirty vetwhore with blobs of Vet5 Riflemen w. Oversupplied triple BARs and the 10% acc in cover bonus from the T2 Bipods unlock backed up by a ridiculous Vet5 sniper w. Heroic crits and an Officer adding 15% accuracy and -15% cooldown)!

Mein hue.

I finished the campaign on Hard difficoulty and I can tell you that the last missions with 5 stars of enemy presence are seriously hard to play, while some missions are quite easy instead.

Overall my feeling is that the more scripted missions (those with the introduction and the debriefing) are harder to play, while the dynamic missions are generally easier (with 1-2 exceptions).

Overall it was fun and I think I'll play the campaign again, especially given what you can unlock at the end for the multiplayer.

(NO SPOILERS BUT IT'S COOL )

But it's not worth 40€.

Btw, you will soon see my complete review of the expansion on COH2.ORG

See, now I know that the difficulty is all over the place in this game. To me the final mission (also had the max stars on hard) felt like a God-mode money-shot to end the campaign. I felt like the AI just let me have my way with it like it was a fan service to complete the campaign.

And then other missions the AI would drop in multiple P4s, Panthers and AA HTs.

I think I'll play through it a little bit again to see what's going on with that.

See, now I know that the difficulty is all over the place in this game. To me the final mission (also had the max stars on hard) felt like a God-mode money-shot to end the campaign. I felt like the AI just let me have my way with it like it was a fan service to complete the campaign.

And then other missions the AI would drop in multiple P4s, Panthers and AA HTs.

I think I'll play through it a little bit again to see what's going on with that.

Just did the 2nd playthrough, in the final mission, KT + 2x Pz IV run into my baSe
But it doesn't really matter because i was airborne with shitload of supply drops

See, now I know that the difficulty is all over the place in this game. To me the final mission (also had the max stars on hard) felt like a God-mode money-shot to end the campaign. I felt like the AI just let me have my way with it like it was a fan service to complete the campaign.

And then other missions the AI would drop in multiple P4s, Panthers and AA HTs.

I think I'll play through it a little bit again to see what's going on with that.

The very last mission is very easy yeah ^^ I don't even think it's possible to lose on that one considering there's also no Company Strenght.

Space Marine final boss all over again

I finished the campaign on Hard difficoulty and I can tell you that the last missions with 5 stars of enemy presence are seriously hard to play, while some missions are quite easy instead.

Overall my feeling is that the more scripted missions (those with the introduction and the debriefing) are harder to play, while the dynamic missions are generally easier (with 1-2 exceptions).

Overall it was fun and I think I'll play the campaign again, especially given what you can unlock at the end for the multiplayer.

(NO SPOILERS BUT IT'S COOL )

But it's not worth 40€.

Btw, you will soon see my complete review of the expansion on COH2.ORG

didnt know that. that would be really cool!!! cant wait

Just did the 2nd playthrough, in the final mission, KT + 2x Pz IV run into my baSe
But it doesn't really matter because i was airborne with shitload of supply drops

Yeah, that KT was an "Oh shit!" moment for sure but then the AI derped it so hard it just ran at me ass-forward and it targeted infantry that I had in the base so it was easy for my ATGs to finish it. From there it was smooth sailing.

I finished the campaign on Hard difficoulty and I can tell you that the last missions with 5 stars of enemy presence are seriously hard to play, while some missions are quite easy instead.

Overall my feeling is that the more scripted missions (those with the introduction and the debriefing) are harder to play, while the dynamic missions are generally easier (with 1-2 exceptions).

Overall it was fun and I think I'll play the campaign again, especially given what you can unlock at the end for the multiplayer.

(NO SPOILERS BUT IT'S COOL )

But it's not worth 40€.

Btw, you will soon see my complete review of the expansion on COH2.ORG

but i love spoilers

Space Marine final boss all over again

Actually that was harder.

AA last mission was good made, but disappointingly easy with just 2 companies on highest level, the only moment where I struggled was when KT showed up.

The last mission with Dog Company is pretty... interesting. I wanted to give Baker a break because the mission before that I was hugging to death a KT with four sturets and two Bulldozer Shermans. It wasen't pretty.

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