long range paratroopers?

[davidlallen]

We are trying some unexpected things in the Dune Wars mod. Recently we have discussed long distance raiders, using suborbital transports.

How well does BBAI use standard paratroopers compared to what a human player would do?

What would happen if we defined a unit with iDropRange 20? It is a really long range paratrooper. Would BBAI use it effectively to perform attacks, to defend vulnerable cities, to pillage in undefended areas?

 

[Cybah]

that's something you could try out.

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the suggestion. It is always possible to guess the behavior from the outside. I was hoping that somebody who had written or studied the code from the inside could give me some insight.

 

[peter450]

I have modded my paratroops to range of 8, as 5 was just pap, i have not noticed any differance in the way the AI uses them, they rarely if ever build paratroopers and i rarely see them make paradrops

 

[jdog5000]

Hmmm ... I don't believe the standard AI will use paradrops on defense, pretty sure they'll only drop into enemy territory. They should drop onto resources and next to enemy cities, but only on plots where the player has visibility. So a player with espionage visibility or an approaching stack or recon planes may send in the paratroopers.

 

[Cybah]

Think so too. And strange is: They are more useful for defense (paradrop from city to city).

 

[PieceOfMind]

Think so too. And strange is: They are more useful for defense (paradrop from city to city).

I agree. It would be nice if the AI learned how to paradrop onto cities.

Possibly the best use I've ever made of them is paradropping into a recently captured AI city. Reinforcing these cities can be difficult at this stage of the game because the captured city may be surrounded by enemy culture. Paradropping in is easy and instant.

Also, island hopping. Considering paratroopers can be launched from forts, using them to hop around islands without the need for transports could be quite nifty.

Could the AI maybe build up some paratroopers as a special type of reserve and use them more in the defense of island cities?

 

[Roland Johansen]

Paratroopers are a fun unit, but not really that useful. I don't know how valuable it is to teach the AI about them for the normal unmodded game. If their range were 8 instead of 5, then they would be a bit more useful, but still not great.

For instance, the above mentioned jumping into just captured cities can sometimes be useful (especially if the unit has many city garrison or drill promotions). But in most cases, you could have also created another different unit and sent it along with your attack stack to defend the city. And often the facilities to jump into the just conquered city (another city or fort in range) aren't there. The human player can create a fort so that the paratrooper can jump into the city, but that's pretty complex behaviour for an AI. Of course, there are a few cases where the paratrooper can help, but it's very hard to teach this to the AI and I seldom use them myself as their usefulness is just too rare.

Paratroopers can be useful if you're in total command of the battlefield. Then they can allow quicker conquest. But it's rare to be in such a situation that you can just drop them next to enemy cities without any risk of destruction before they can attack the city. Large bombing campaigns or a significant technological advantage can get you in that situation but that's very atypical for the AI.

 

[PieceOfMind]

If they are only really jumping into enemy territory all the time, can we teach them to prefer to jump onto tiles with a good defense rating? Or is that fairly pointless as well?

 

[Roland Johansen]

If they jump into the land of someone that can bomb them or has modern armor, then they will be killed without harming the enemy (in most cases).

Mostly, they will also just sit there, maybe slightly annoy the enemy, but it costs the one who build the paratrooper the hammers invested in the paratrooper.

You can't use them to jump when the enemy has an air force that could intercept the paratrooper so when you use them, it's likely that the enemy doesn't have significant air forces. So jumping onto defensive terrain, next to a city while the enemy doesn't have modern armor or bombers seems reasonable. But it's of course not that great to do it with a single paratrooper, you need to arrive in force. And the enemy shouldn't have the strength to quickly destroy your paratrooper force as in that case it's better to use other troops.

All in all, the considerations when they are useful are pretty complex and tactical. For a human player, these considerations aren't that hard, but I think the AI will mostly be better off with other units.

I think this is a pity as it is of course fun to see the AI opponent use a variation of different forces against you. One could even argue that an AI that is uses inferior but more fun tactics against you is a better AI, but I won't be the one to argue that.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Yeah well using them around the time of modern armor isn't going to be very smart, but then so is using most other units that are practically an era behind. If they are being used so late in the game with the current AI, it would be worth somehow toning that down.

When they are first available, paratroopers are at least a decent unit aren't they? They are better against tanks than infantry.

What about a paratrooper-unique mission type that reinforces injured units in the field? Possibly medic paratroopers (what I often use them for).

Not that you were necessarily advocating it Roland, but I agree a better AI might make more use of units like paratroopers even if they are not optimal.

Before Mech infantry and modern armor, paratroopers are probably decent city garrison reinforcements, right? Maybe it would only do it if it took more substantial losses in taking the city than it expected.

I'm just not convinced there aren't at least a few uses the AIs could find for them that aren't beyond their tactical capability. Honestly I don't play games through to that era of the game very often to use them much myself either, but mixing them in every now and then will at least make the AI more interesting.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I mentioned the thought of using paratroopers by the AI just for variations sake and not because it is optimal because I know such AI opposition might make the game more fun. I'll remain on the fence on whether it is a better AI. Still, it could be considered as one of the reasons to teach the AI to use paratroopers a bit.

The problem with paratroopers is that they can very easily be used in very dumb situations and it's very tough to make the AI use them tactically smart.

So things like using them as airborne reinforcements if the opponent has no air force to intercept or using them en masse to threaten a city if it has at least some chance of success will be decent ways to use them. But to say that these uses are better than using other units... probably not. Still, the AI may surprise a player now and then because the player didn't expect it and that's always interesting.

So more to the point: things to be considered when using paratroopers (for the AI):
-Don't build too many of them, they're special forces.
-Don't use them when the enemy has air cover (duh).
-Don't use them when the enemy can potentially easily overwhelm them with forces close to the landing area (reconnaissance by planes or spying like jdog said). If the value of enemy forces close to the landing spot is too high, then don't use them.
-Use them on defensive terrain near cities or pillage resources with them.
-Use them en masse, no single paratrooper landings please. The entire paratrooper force of a civilisation should just be used in one spot. That way, it's more likely to do something useful.
-It would be very useful if the AI could be taught to promote them after landing. That way, the promotions could be tailored to the area where they land.

Any other reasonable thoughts that could maybe be taught to an AI?

 

[peter450]

I think the AI could certainly use them to pillage a bit, as in drop them on a nice resource tile or near to and then pillage it

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think the AI could certainly use them to pillage a bit, as in drop them on a nice resource tile or near to and then pillage it

That's usually better handled by air strikes or spies .

Maybe a "nuke then drop" or "cruise missile then drop" script would be funny, but I'm not sure how well the AI could apply it in practice.

 

[r_rolo1]

There is one thing that could definitely be taught to the AI in terms of paratroopers, that is the quick reinforcement of isolated cities.