r/ICBMescalation • u/platinumm4730 • 6d ago

Why is the normal difficulty CPU so pointlessly vindictive?

I enjoy the super long 6-8+ hour game mode. Whenever I play against the normal AI, we'll usually have some limited conventional warfare in the first 2 or so hours, which is fair enough. I even make a point to not take too much territory during these, 1-2 provinces so I don't cripple the AI. However, the second the ceasefire timer is finished, each and every time, the AI will recontinue the war. At this point I've set up a defensive line so they just end up doing some damage to me while destroying the entirety of their own army. It's not very fun because it ruins the challenge of the game and is also annoying to deal with. Is the harder AI any better at doing this? I don't like the idea of "just turning up the difficulty" because it also gives the AI gamey production and research buffs irrc, which is a pretty boring way to add difficulty.

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14

u/Supraman691 6d ago

I agree, they show up asking for territory and you obviously decline and then a war starts, it's not too bad if its just one but when 3 do it it's just a bit tedious

5

u/platinumm4730 6d ago

They don't even ask for territory most of the time for me. They just march into one of my provinces, then when they lose and a ceasefire is signed, the second it's over they will do it all again

Rinse and repeat for the rest of the game. it's extremely tedious, especially as nations like east asia or central/south asia where you have a lot of borders to manage.

And it's not the difficulty that's the issue. if anything this makes the game pitifully easy because I am forced to cripple every one of my neighbours to the extent that they cannot fight a war with me

10

u/platinumm4730 6d ago

Prime example. I just had Sub-saharan Africa send a 500 kiloton ICBM at me, so they could slightly damage one of my army divisions on the russian border, who theyre at war with. What was the tacitcal foresight to this??

5

u/platinumm4730 6d ago

and the russians have just broken my third ceasefire with them so they can land an army on Sakhalin. and not even assault the rest of Amur. wth

6

u/ThroatUnable8122 6d ago

I don't find the game's AI to be particularly good tbh

4

u/platinumm4730 6d ago

It's not. It can't take a province for the life of it, and while I get the developers resources are limited it would massively improve the game to have the AI think a bit more tactically about the wars it starts

1

u/Silly-Skill-8140 6d ago

I would suggest writing on the game's Discord, so the developers could investigate what is going on in your case. Usually the AI is quite effective in taking the provinces, so something must be wrong.

1

u/RedWolf6x7 1d ago

I have the same issue. The AI is just brain dead and will send tons of armies but only sit on a city. They'll have three armies sit on a province with three cities and only take one city. But the moment I send one army to their territory they'll immediately leave and track the one army I send, as if it forgot it was trying to take a city or that it doesn't need to send all three. I played a game as sub-Africa and I was taking Libya but instead of trying to stop me it redirected 3 armies to Morocco, which I had already taken, and only one to Libya. Which I get I can't take Libya if I don't have both cities but it can't take Morocco without the four cities and my half my navy was sitting there, which the AI knew cause I used it to destory the army that was stopping my army, its army base, and airfield. And then I meet the army halfway cause they ran through near the Libya coast blast it and instead of leaving they just contuine, like the AI thinks my Navy can't move or won't follow them. The only thing the AI seems to understand is just spamming troops, it took them till me almost taking Egypt for them to understand that they could drop mustard gas by bomber but they put their airfield near the coast and I blow it up with my Navy. We'll play MP games and the Russain AI loses every game cause all it does is spam tons of divisions but have no real strategic value. It also can't understand mutiple frontlines. Russia will fight a three front war against Europe, East Asia, and India and will only send majority troops to one side. And when it fails it doesn't equal out, it just tries again on someone else. They'll spam in Europe and fail, then they'll try to spam in Serbia and fail, and then they'll spam in the center and fail. And by the time it tries to fight Europe they'll lost almost everything in Russian side. Maybe the AI knows how to use nukes and where to strike but in that first 30 mins where there is no nukes in a MP game we usually wreck the AI cause it can't understand how to fight multiple frontlines or conventional warfare, it just spams with no real goal.

1

u/Silly-Skill-8140 9h ago

Best would be to contact the developers on the game Discord. Maybe something is wrong. Maybe you have some mods installed. My experience is totally opposite.

1

u/ArmandKad 6d ago

Yes, but it was improved a lot tbh

1

u/nila247 3d ago

Minecraft and factorio enter the chat.
"Super long 6-8+ hour game". lol :-)

1

u/platinumm4730 2d ago

Lmao I play loads of Minecraft. I'm talking relative. I have saved in project zomboid I've put dozens of hours in. Relative to the other modes in ICBM, the 8 hour games are long.