Quote:
Originally Posted by Randomizer
I would never use the pathetic AI found in the SES Jutland/Distant Guns games for a standard as it is really pretty pathetic. I certainly have never seen this shadowing behaviour that you refer to and both games time out after 30-minutes or less with no combat. 1st Cruiser Squadron's shadow of Bismarck was some 12-hours and so unreproducable by Jutland because of the timeout issue.
Jutland also used a far too simplistic and entirely linear, points based algorithm to determine the force ratio. The AI, such as it is, will always flee a superior force and always close to suicidal ranges against an inferior force. Since these values are global across the action, it explains why it sometimes behaves in odd ways. I have been told by a source that I trust (of course you do not have to), that the AI also has full, real time knowledge of the strengths and locations of the Player forces and so never suffers from the Fog-of-War.
Try the Coronel scenario as von Spee and you will see that Cradock will always run. Playing as the British see the Germans will soon close to ranges where even little Otranto can get hits with her 4.7" popguns. Every time that I have played the scenario, this cycle of lameness repeats.
The AI in the Steam and Iron franchise does shadow and never times out and makes a far better example of an adequate naval programmed opponent.
-C
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Interesting. I was impressed by certain aspects of Jutland's AI (I often used BC's for commerce raiding and the British destroyers would always run from me, as they should). I did not know about all the other issues - hope that the next generation of sims (Wolfpack, Crash Dive) fix this.
Another issue - rescuing survivors. That's another issue that historically limited Allied escorts - several ships were sunk rescuing merchant crews, and naturally the Allied navies found that leaving lifeboats behind was bad for merchant ship crews' morale. All the more reason to NOT have every single escort come charging after the player's sub once torpedoes hit a ship. No need for a complex animation (although that would be nice) - just have 1 or 2 corvettes/DD's approach a sinking ship for 10-20 minutes...maybe animate some men climbing up a Jacob's Ladder.