From Cold War Crisis Wiki

Artificial Intelligence or AI in short, is what is referred to in computer games as the "computer player(s)", in Cold War Crisis this refers to the computer players you can add in skirmish matches or online games. The CWC AI was made by our wonderful coder/mapper Skleni, who also programmed the Starter application, he was helped by beta testers Wietse (aka 9K32 Strela) and Icy.

Contents 1 Description 2 Functionality 2.1 Challenge Value 2.2 Advantages over You 2.3 Quirks 2.4 Unsuccessful Tactics with the AI 3 Conclusion

Description

CWC's AI was separated into 3 possible configurations, the Easy, Medium and Hard settings, each of those settings offers a certain level of difficulty for players to play against, we note that each of those settings will result in vastly different results based on what the AI chooses to do. For example the AI has a different randomly-selected set of doctrines to follow, this results in a single Hard AI playing very differently between games. Be wary though that comparably, the Easy AI is severely harder than C&C Generals - Zero Hour's AI, as it will try to best you and at times it will probably succeed.

Functionality

While the AI may not entirely be aware of your tactics, it certainly is aware of whatever you build, in a way it is cheating that it knows what you have and will always be alert about it thus foiling most of your attacks if you forget to fill a gap in your assault. Also like Zero Hour's AI it generally has more cash than you, so don't ever think that cash is a problem for it, however it can also stand by watching at times like when its helicopters are getting attacked by AA soldiers where a human player would simply retreat the helicopter, you could use this to your favour, as does the list of quirks that is included in this article.

Challenge Value

As you increase the difficulty you will meet greater challenges, Hard being actually very hard to defeat unless you know the quirks of the AI which will be mentioned below, we advise you to start with Easy and work your way to Hard as you define your own strategies and become comfortable with the gameplay. 1vs1s will always be much easier to manage than larger games, so we advise you also to start with them and then start playing with more opponents, a Free for all game might not be all that hard, but it will be rather extremely hard if one of your enemies manage to destroy your other opponent, it will have all the fancy gadgets in its disposal, mainly the Rank 5 call-in strikes, which you should fear, and very much so in case you hear an air raid sound. You might find it a lot easier to play a team match allied with a hard AI and the other opponents either allied with each other or separate, this will give you a shoulder to lean on in case the enemy rushes you.

Advantages over You

• Limitless funds.
• Complete knowledge of the entire battlefield.
• Complete knowledge of your entire army and your base.
• This also includes your stealthed units, it will always know where your special forces are lurking in their base.
• Smart identification of your units, and various ways that will allow the AI to counter your units.
• Complete micromanagement of its entire army, it will always be able to retreat its troops or order them to attack no matter how many troops it has or is actually operating.
• It can successfully detect suitable targets and strike even in the Fog of War.
• And since it can see in the Fog of War, it can also know if you have a set amount of units clustered together, so it is never a wise idea to cluster your units together and keep them stationary at any time. This also goes for jet planes in airfields.

Quirks

• While the AI can counter whatever you have, it still can't deal well with a combined assault.
• Outnumbering your enemy will always give you the advantage regardless of the recon advantage the enemy has on you.
• The AI will sometimes focus on a single side of the battlefield, it will not budge until it overcomes you in that side, use this to your advantage if you want to stage an assault and you need time to build it in.
• The same rules of gameplay apply to the AI, use the same ways you use to outsmart your enemy with the AI, for example disabling their Anti-Air capabilities will allow you to bomb their bases rather easily.
• AI is generally oblivious to some of your moves, not unknowingly but rather because it can't focus on stopping two attacks at once, for example attacking from one front with M1A1s and sneaking a couple of Green Beret guys from the other side will generally pass unknown under the watchful eye of the AI (oh hey that rhymes).
• It is also noticeable that the AI will generally do less than well in air battles and general aircraft warfare, so you can try to use that to your advantage. A clear example of this that it will always send its air superiority planes in the middle of the map.

Unsuccessful Tactics with the AI

• Spamming single unit types, trust me it doesn't work (it never did anyway in most RTS games).
• Attacking an AI's USSR base with less than a full force is suicide, unless you're attacking from the air, even then you're going to have to use mostly high-flying jets or else your forces will be utterly crushed by garrison inside USSR structures.
• Garrisoning structures, really ineffective especially against USSR enemies, because they will either send in a single BRDM-2 14.5mm MG or a pair of Mk that will obliterate your infantry really fast unless you have a lot of AT soldiers, or just simply a couple of snipers that will kill your infantry from afar while you're distracted elsewhere and contentiously receive "Unit lost" and don't know where it's coming from, trust me it's not that much worth the effort unless you do it well or you just use a lot of infantry inside the said structure.

Conclusion

While it is generally acceptable to follow guides to achieve victory, you're simply not going to be able to apply what is written all the time, and while some of it may make sense to us it may not make sense or work for you in some case or an another. So generally speaking, you should form your own strategy for CWC, set for a suitable army for your situation and distinguish what is applicable and what isn't, this guide is simply a try to let you better understand how the AI functions so you are better prepared when you get relentlessly attacked by twice as many as your own force.