Command and Control of AI units during MP Games Question

[Olszowy]

Not sure if this is working as intended or not. Situation. MP game with customized OOB. US I, II, III, V, VI, XII Corps on board. Humans control US III, VI, and XII. Rebel division are all available with Hood, Mclaws, and one div each from II and III Corps under human control. All remaining units are under AI control. Neither Lee or Meade are under human control, all human players are in subordinate units. Union AI corps I and V never moved and II corps split up by divisons and marched all over the place. All goes well until all three Union human controlled corps make an assault on one human controlled rebel division. All of a sudden the AI controlled rebel units, which usually do whatever mission the Army commander wants, flood the field in front of the human player. We found this unusual as the AI seldom makes massed attacks with multiple units unless scripting has focused them OR a human Army commander orders them to do so. After the game the rebels tells us that they were controlling all AI units as peer commanders via courier orders. If AI units started to shift in response to an order from Lee the human players simply resent courier orders to the AI unit.
Is that intended that peer commanders can order AI units as if they were an Army level commander? I can certainly understand asking for support and you may or may not get it, but controlling peer units as if you were a Army commander? If you all knew that, I am dumb and missed that. If not, now you all know.
I know, easy solution is to remove AI units, but it is nice to have the wildcard of not knowing how the AI will behave in lieu of more human players. BTW, total number of troops was around 90,000 and stability was fine, a little lag once we made contact but it smoothed out.

[Blaugrana]

I knew (thanks to MTG) that you could try this and that, IIRC, it might work and it might not. I think I've only done it with artillery.

Did they respond correctly and to various orders?

Jeff

[Baldwin]

I believe it is hit or miss. In my last game they didn't do as I requested and I've had some games where they followed my peer orders precisely. This seems to be realistic in my opinion, they don't have to follow peer courier requests, but may choose to at times.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

I too observe what Baldwin has seen. I go back and forth on whether this technique is a cheat or not. Currently I think it is so I don't use it. You can order them to join you and they will come even if there is no enemy in sight. On the other hand, if you use the 'request support' order, they will not send any help unless you are engaged. That seems more realistic.

By the way, if you request support from a fellow division commander that is himself engaged, he may send you a brigade if he deems his enemy to be insignificant. This is a change from the pre-1.4 versions where the entire division had to be unengaged.

[Saddletank]

:ohmy: The more little facets I learn about this game the cooler it gets.

[Olszowy]

Based on comments after the battle the major issue the rebs had while doing this was two different players were issuing orders to the same unit and were pulling it back and forth. Once they realized that the the units moved just fine. However, if Lee or either Army commander sends sends a new courier after you send a command, the AI unit will change accordingly. If the unit is out of sight from a human player you may have no idea the unit has been redirected. This is VERY hard to manage while you are trying to direct your own corps or division in contact. Best left to someone playing the role of Army Commander or results will vary wildly I think.
I do not know that I mind that this functionality is present, now that I know. If we have mixed AI and human HITS it is not a bad thing to be able to move inert AI units rather then let them sit. We fight at corps level and having an entire US corps or all of Hood's division sit out a fight is not helpful.
The AI does some odd things that make fights very fun at corps level. I was sitting North West side of Sharpsburg with another human player commanding two rebel divisions in a defense. We see US II Corps approaching from the East under AI control, what we did not see was US V Corps under human control right behind it. The V Corps player was using the AI to support his attack on the right flank rebel unit which was a great idea. However, just as US II Corps is about to get within rifle range, it takes a 90 turn and heads South away from Sharpsburg, the V Corps player mutters more than a few unprintable words and was unable to stop his lead division(gotta love couriers!) before they got entangled with the rebel right and then hit from in the flank by my division. He is still sore about that event.
Last Thursday evening I was commanding US VI Corps and came across a rebel division under AI control sitting still. I was able to wipe out its artillery without a losing a man and then get three batteries and a division sized battle line set up before the rebel units even responded. I am thinking what a great move I have made, until I looked behind me to see another rebel AI division marching very quickly straight to me from behind. Not a good place to be. None of my couriers made it as I was surrounded so nobody knew I was in trouble. Luckily, one of our more aggressive human players happened to be marching by and intercepted the unit behind me. Just in time as the lead rebel unit had just made it to rifle range.
You can never tell with AI...

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Olszowy wrote:

just as US II Corps is about to get within rifle range, it takes a 90 turn and heads South away from Sharpsburg, the V Corps player mutters more than a few unprintable words and was unable to stop his lead division(gotta love couriers!) before they got entangled with the rebel right and then hit from in the flank by my division. He is still sore about that event.

He broke the chain of command. He can't justifiably complain. Now if he had requested support from both the other corps commander and army head and then had that happen, cussing a blue streak would be an appropriate response.

What I usually do is request support soon after the battle begins, if I think my fight will be the major engagement. Mostly, help will arrive in time. Although on a number of occasions, it's been very close.

[Baldwin]

Nothing tops the time we were in a HITS/Couriers game waiting as a division for orders from ole Sedgwick (6th Corps), quite some time too. When we see that Sedgwick takes off for the hills and issues no orders to anyone. I'm surprised he didn't issue couriers saying, "save yourselves, all is lost!"