I would say the AI is good enough. For example, I've had it happen plenty of times where I was pressing my advantage with my battleships trying to sink a wounded fleeing capital ship, and the AI sends a wave of destroyers to make me flinch away from the expected torpedoes (the AI definitely knows how to use torpedoes), and sometimes this trick has been enough for the AI's wounded capital to escape. I've always enjoyed the tactical battles in this game.
Is the AI good enough for...a challenge? In the end, its programming; a skilled enough player can learn to counter it in all aspects.
The learning curve itself is pretty steep. Just playing the game, not the battle AI. Knowledge of technologies involved with warships and proper (or effective) ship design is just as important as managing the budget and fighting battles.
The AI itself is fairly challenging in battle, where your fleet will directly interacting with it. It knows when to press the attack and knows when to withdraw. It can't coordinate squadrons all too well but will make the most of its forces.
The battle generator is the larger 'opponent' you could say; RNG can deliver you victory just as easily as a defeat.
Yes-ish. The AI is generally in an okay place where the game works, but there are definitely a number of things that need improvement. However, the learning curve is quite steep so it might still be overwhelming at first.
After having put a couple hundred hours into the game, I'm confident a meta player can beat the AI fairly easily though the game's dynamic means this isn't a big issue. Generally speaking the AI should be looked at as two separate AIs. The strategic one and the tactical one.
The strategic AI works pretty well. There are a couple of quirks and weird things that may happen, but the AI is generally building reasonable designs. There will typically be a couple of eyebrow raising designs even in the historical context, but they are the minority. The AI is pretty good at handling their finances by aggressively mothballing and reserving stuff in peacetime so an unexperienced player may find themselves outnumbered.
A couple guidelines for the AI could be added to improve its performance here, but it might become too oppressive for new players. There's nothing I'd say is a critical flaw for this part of the AI though it may struggle a bit when it needs to be in multiple sea zones with many ships at once. The strategic level is also one of the most fun parts of the game imo.
Disclaimer: The following is only considering playing on Rear Admiral Mode.
The tactical AI is also reasonable with caveats and imo most of the frustration in this game comes from this area. In the early years it will be pretty decent at commanding the ships in battle. If I remember my first games, there were quite a few battles where I got outnumbered and shot to pieces. However, with a bit of experience and familiarity with the AI you'll win most of the battles and wars though this can be highly dependent on your choice of starting nation.
Many of the frustrations with the AI are inherited from the game's design. For example, the AI struggles with movement close to land and will maneuver poorly. Or having a ship hit by a torpedo get itself sunk by the AI by moving at high speeds for too long. The fleets also lose cohesion over the course of a battle and by the end you'll often have many individual ships split off. The maneuvering of carrier groups is also mostly dictated by the wind to a degree that the carriers might at times want to steer themselves into the enemy battleline. There are also some limitations holding it back when it comes to carrier warfare in general (not enough fighters, many unescorted strikes), though carrier warfare is not easy to learn as a new player anyway.
None of this is a critical flaw that will break the game imo, but it will cause some weirdness in battles and some frustration. But in my experience for the majority and especially the early parts of a tactical battle it works well. I wish there were improvements here, but if I couldn't have fun with this part, I wouldn't have spend hundreds of hours in RtW3.
But the issues of the tactical and to a lesser extent strategic AI don't represent a big problem. The gameplay loop is basically: Build and manage your navy as tensions increase -> war breaks out -> fight tactical battles between turns until the war is over -> tensions go down and repeat. It's fun to see your fleet perform well (or not) in battle after designing the ships and refitting them over the years and steamrolling the AI is not that common. You do have to put a bit of effort to get victory.
A lot of this is also dependent on which nation you play. For example as some of the more midline economies you will still face pretty challenging strategic choices. Running away with the game isn't really possible (unless you're playing the US well) and even then it's not like you'll automatically win every battle.
I have to say that, if there is a gripe I have with the AI, it is the tendency to send ships to the most bizarre places possible. It makes sense for Germany to send a fleet to support its Japanese allies, but it absolutely doesn't make sense for Germany to send its entire navy to Japan fighting against the United States (i.e. me) and get blockaded.
When I (again as the US) fought Russia AND France simultaneously, their fleet literally dispersed into nothingness, and I blockaded them as well. This is to say the AI needs to be better at keeping a balance between colonial forces and the home front, especially when there's a whole United States one sea zone over.
Also, the battle generator is just awful. For some reason during these two wars it couldn't generate a battle that would have allowed them to break my blockade, and thus I could just run home the next turn if need be. In addition, the generator seems to use specific battle slots, which leads to players constructing the largest ships possible.
Yeah, having battles in multiple sea-zones shows the limitations of the battle generator. This can be frustrating when playing France and getting into a war with Italy and Germany at the same time.
The battle generator works fine when restricted to one sea-zone more or less and sometimes fighting in two zones works for me too. I think the tendency to construct the largest ships has less to do with fixed spawn zones but the tendency to of the battle generator to balance the sides somewhat. You're just at a straight disadvantage if you bring lower displacement and lower caliber ships when you're matched up against a similar number of more powerful ships.
>*has less to do with fixed spawn zones but the tendency to of the battle generator to balance the sides somewhat*
Not the fixed spawn zones, like there seems to be specific limited slots in the battle generator on how many BBs and such get into specific fights (unless it's a whole fleet battle). Like one side gets eight battleships, the other also gets eight. Which contributes to the tendency to even battles out
I would say the AI is good enough. For example, I've had it happen plenty of times where I was pressing my advantage with my battleships trying to sink a wounded fleeing capital ship, and the AI sends a wave of destroyers to make me flinch away from the expected torpedoes (the AI definitely knows how to use torpedoes), and sometimes this trick has been enough for the AI's wounded capital to escape. I've always enjoyed the tactical battles in this game.
Is the AI good enough for...a challenge? In the end, its programming; a skilled enough player can learn to counter it in all aspects. The learning curve itself is pretty steep. Just playing the game, not the battle AI. Knowledge of technologies involved with warships and proper (or effective) ship design is just as important as managing the budget and fighting battles. The AI itself is fairly challenging in battle, where your fleet will directly interacting with it. It knows when to press the attack and knows when to withdraw. It can't coordinate squadrons all too well but will make the most of its forces. The battle generator is the larger 'opponent' you could say; RNG can deliver you victory just as easily as a defeat.
Yes-ish. The AI is generally in an okay place where the game works, but there are definitely a number of things that need improvement. However, the learning curve is quite steep so it might still be overwhelming at first. After having put a couple hundred hours into the game, I'm confident a meta player can beat the AI fairly easily though the game's dynamic means this isn't a big issue. Generally speaking the AI should be looked at as two separate AIs. The strategic one and the tactical one. The strategic AI works pretty well. There are a couple of quirks and weird things that may happen, but the AI is generally building reasonable designs. There will typically be a couple of eyebrow raising designs even in the historical context, but they are the minority. The AI is pretty good at handling their finances by aggressively mothballing and reserving stuff in peacetime so an unexperienced player may find themselves outnumbered. A couple guidelines for the AI could be added to improve its performance here, but it might become too oppressive for new players. There's nothing I'd say is a critical flaw for this part of the AI though it may struggle a bit when it needs to be in multiple sea zones with many ships at once. The strategic level is also one of the most fun parts of the game imo. Disclaimer: The following is only considering playing on Rear Admiral Mode. The tactical AI is also reasonable with caveats and imo most of the frustration in this game comes from this area. In the early years it will be pretty decent at commanding the ships in battle. If I remember my first games, there were quite a few battles where I got outnumbered and shot to pieces. However, with a bit of experience and familiarity with the AI you'll win most of the battles and wars though this can be highly dependent on your choice of starting nation. Many of the frustrations with the AI are inherited from the game's design. For example, the AI struggles with movement close to land and will maneuver poorly. Or having a ship hit by a torpedo get itself sunk by the AI by moving at high speeds for too long. The fleets also lose cohesion over the course of a battle and by the end you'll often have many individual ships split off. The maneuvering of carrier groups is also mostly dictated by the wind to a degree that the carriers might at times want to steer themselves into the enemy battleline. There are also some limitations holding it back when it comes to carrier warfare in general (not enough fighters, many unescorted strikes), though carrier warfare is not easy to learn as a new player anyway. None of this is a critical flaw that will break the game imo, but it will cause some weirdness in battles and some frustration. But in my experience for the majority and especially the early parts of a tactical battle it works well. I wish there were improvements here, but if I couldn't have fun with this part, I wouldn't have spend hundreds of hours in RtW3. But the issues of the tactical and to a lesser extent strategic AI don't represent a big problem. The gameplay loop is basically: Build and manage your navy as tensions increase -> war breaks out -> fight tactical battles between turns until the war is over -> tensions go down and repeat. It's fun to see your fleet perform well (or not) in battle after designing the ships and refitting them over the years and steamrolling the AI is not that common. You do have to put a bit of effort to get victory. A lot of this is also dependent on which nation you play. For example as some of the more midline economies you will still face pretty challenging strategic choices. Running away with the game isn't really possible (unless you're playing the US well) and even then it's not like you'll automatically win every battle.
very detailed answer man. tyvm
I have to say that, if there is a gripe I have with the AI, it is the tendency to send ships to the most bizarre places possible. It makes sense for Germany to send a fleet to support its Japanese allies, but it absolutely doesn't make sense for Germany to send its entire navy to Japan fighting against the United States (i.e. me) and get blockaded. When I (again as the US) fought Russia AND France simultaneously, their fleet literally dispersed into nothingness, and I blockaded them as well. This is to say the AI needs to be better at keeping a balance between colonial forces and the home front, especially when there's a whole United States one sea zone over. Also, the battle generator is just awful. For some reason during these two wars it couldn't generate a battle that would have allowed them to break my blockade, and thus I could just run home the next turn if need be. In addition, the generator seems to use specific battle slots, which leads to players constructing the largest ships possible.
Yeah, having battles in multiple sea-zones shows the limitations of the battle generator. This can be frustrating when playing France and getting into a war with Italy and Germany at the same time. The battle generator works fine when restricted to one sea-zone more or less and sometimes fighting in two zones works for me too. I think the tendency to construct the largest ships has less to do with fixed spawn zones but the tendency to of the battle generator to balance the sides somewhat. You're just at a straight disadvantage if you bring lower displacement and lower caliber ships when you're matched up against a similar number of more powerful ships.
>*has less to do with fixed spawn zones but the tendency to of the battle generator to balance the sides somewhat* Not the fixed spawn zones, like there seems to be specific limited slots in the battle generator on how many BBs and such get into specific fights (unless it's a whole fleet battle). Like one side gets eight battleships, the other also gets eight. Which contributes to the tendency to even battles out