Best AI mod? If any?

[Rommelstiltskin]

Best ai fix mod?

[Dazven]

Expert AI 4.0: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741805475

Easily the best, it is not compatible with most major mods (Ex: Road to 56) with the exclusion of Black Ice (Expert AI 4.0 is included in that by default). There may be more major mods that are compatible, but none come to mind outside of Black Ice. In regard to the incompatibilities, it is possible to play a game with Road to 56 despite them being incompatible, but you will run into some issues.

It isn't perfect as you can only do so much without having direct access to the code, but this is probably the best you can do. Either way, it makes the game infinitely more enjoyable.

Edit: For those who may not know what Black Ice is:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137372539&searchtext=black+ice

The current state of development is rough with crashes and bugs, but the complexity it adds is so good that it is hard to go back to any other mod/vanilla for many including myself.

[Harbaugh]

How is black ice these days? People swear by it for HOI3, but it doesn’t get much buzz for this iteration.

[Dazven]

Originally posted by Haynam:

How is black ice these days? People swear by it for HOI3, but it doesn’t get much buzz for this iteration.

Mixed feelings, I will tell you right now if you want the most in depth experience then it is the way to go. I struggle to even play anything but Black Ice (I will when I Black Ice is a bit too much with the crashing) as it is pretty incredible.

The other side to that is that Black Ice suffers from crashes quite often. They've added in so much content that it seems to be a very hard balance for the team to keep it stable yet continue development. Essentially they will fix major issues (Or at least the most critical), but their focus is primarily on getting the mod as complete as possible before working on stability.

You are right about HoI 3, the crowd was a bit different than what it is in HoI 4. The two big one's then were HPP (Historical Plausibility Project) and Black Ice. Both of those were legends in HoI 3, but with approach HoI 4 took not as many people found the more hardcore approach as appealing as those who were already playing a hardcore game in HoI 3.

If you like complexity, more accurate history, choices galore (research, focus, units, etc), and just improved gameplay and AI then it may interest you. The struggle is ditching old habits from vanilla and some mods like Road to 56 as well as getting around the stability issues of Black Ice.

My approach is to play Black Ice when I can then play the Darkest Hour mod when I can't. Darkest Hour is a pretty good alternative imo, very well done so far.

Edit: There are some great workarounds for Black Ice with the current release, but it is a bit of a pain with having to remove certain creation of division events for Germany (As well as turning on OpenGL).

Edit 2: I say current release, but I guess the team did update it. Anyway as the description says for Black Ice it is currently not playable.

[dzantor]

no doubt it's Expert AI 4.0

[Klutch]

Most those mods add stuff you don't want, the ai in the game can be beat so just don't beat it learn how to play with it.

[Dazven]

Originally posted by Katsuchiyo:

learn how to play with it.

That isn't always a possibility. Different nations including the player may end up with different theaters. When you have Germany wasting 8+ million manpower in less than 4 months by attacking there is a problem which you may not be able to rectify. Playing with vanilla AI is like watching a toddler, you have to constantly watch over them and fix the mistakes they won't be able to fix or "baby proof" everything.

Allies just ruin possible strategies with the vanilla AI more often than not, unless gaming the AI is your style and you base your strategies on that. Then there is the ridiculous spam of underdeveloped units, it's just too silly to be taken seriously or actually be useful in a fight.

Personally, soloing as Germany is easier than having AI allies (Best use for them in vanilla is keeping open trade). Less chance of them being stupid and doing something that allows the Allies to waltz right in until they are at your front door.

Then there is the vanilla AI being too easy, it's pretty pathetic and makes extremely stupid decisions. Seriously, last game I played (This was vanilla) I went Fascist Mexico (Contributed quite a bit to World Tension too) with offers waiting to join the Axis. Soon as the US joined the war I joined the Axis and met very little resistance up until I reached New England. They don't understand how to prioritize and seem to just lack self preservation.

Learning how to play them might as well be doing everything yourself or wasting time making sure they won't do something.


As for mods adding in unwanted things, I can assure you that Expert AI 4.0 does not change much outside of the AI and what it does it is not all that noticable. Everything it does is well detailed on its mod page.

[dzantor]

Expert AI 4.0 mod is crazy good, try it and you never gonna back to vanilla dumb ai.

[ThihT]

sorry for reviving this topic but could someone give me the files of the expert ai? i dont have the original hoi4 game but i would like to play with this mod or even another that works with road to 56