What would be the optimum difficulty where the AI put units in buildings?

I'm wondering this because the daily mission "breach with X unit" seems nigh impossible if the AI doesn't put itæs units in structures.

I also know tha basic rule of any RTS is: "The second highest difficulty is the hardest without the AI cheating outright". And this might be true here as well, but I haven't really seen what the differences is between the difficulty settings in Skirmish.

Anyone have any tips on what difficulty I should go for?

Haganaz wrote:

Thankfully since last patch (Umber Wasp) the Ai behaves a LOT better, and actually puts wonderful frontline movement & flanks "en masse", as well as putting HMGs in garrison regularly, breaching & assaulting (grenades) at the quickest opportunity.
It may have been a ninja side effect of the pathfinding & map pathing rework, but it is finally happening. Ai isn't dumb anymore, it's even fun! xD

That said, I would advise Very Hard or Expert. I had the sensation the Ai is smarter at Very Hard, but less aggressive. It may not be true anymore.
Axis Ai is a lot more interesting than Ally, too. Little oddities, may be subjective ofc.

Absolutely supporting a harsher curve of difficulty. Against the player Very Hard & Expert isn't making it "insurmountable", it's kinda easy mode. Expert should be actual hell x)
But not just in cheese like previously. CoH3 is proving the Ai can be smart, I'm eagerly waiting for the future of its developement!

Well, I've been playing 1-2 hours daily since the release of umber wasp, and I gotta say I disagree. I still don't see the garrisoned units, MG's or else.
There are rare occasions, but when I posision troops to breach, the garrisoned unit is long gone.

I'm glad you see an improvement in pathing, cause to me it's gotten worse. Where units used to take less optimum paths, they now make outright stupid manouvers. I've had effects where I tried to just change the facing of a tank (DAK PzIII if memory serves), where the tank actually drove a circle and came back and to the new facing instead of just doing a small reposition. If this was a truck, I'd get it. But I've replicated this many times since that first time.
But, I gotta say that I love the tactical pause, as that gives me the opportunity to forego a lot of these stupidities.

Not trying to be pissy here, I just don't see the improvements that are announced.

Oh, and one important point: I ONLY play this game SP. PvP just doesn't happen. So my angle of seeing things might differ a bit.

Original AI garbage . Play with Advanced AI mod https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2942790265

I hope Relic fix their AI.

I agree with Abzurd. I play custom games against the AI daily, and I've not really seen any improvement in its intelligence. I still manage to have fun with it, playing on expert, just to have a shooting gallery, but I don't even try to breach buildings because it's so rare for the AI to ever place infantry in them.

Axis AI is the worst because it has no idea how to use its Marders. It may fire a single shot, then inexplicably turn or even run straight up to me for me to kill. The AI then gets stuck in a loop where it has to keep building Marders because it's lacking anti-tank while my vehicles just sweep the field. It's  rare for the AI to ever even make it to building tanks because it's wasted all of its fuel on an endless parade of sacrificial Marders instead. If I want to make a challenge, therefore, I have to set Allied teammates to lower difficulties, even easy, to become a handicap, as their T3 vehicles usually wipe the Axis off the map.

I find that the AI handles its infantry surprisingly well. It's just vehicles where it totally fails. By the time I rush out vehicles, the AI ceases to be a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the game, but I've long been asking for the AI to get patched. At the very least, it ought to be able to recrew team weapons, use buildings, and not suicide its Marders.

As for PvP, until the devs actually fix the issue of anti-tank grenades not getting thrown, and the vehicle pathing, competitive play would just be pure frustration. Those issues definitely throw matches.

AbZurd wrote:

What would be the optimum difficulty where the AI put units in buildings?

I'm wondering this because the daily mission "breach with X unit" seems nigh impossible if the AI doesn't put itæs units in structures.

I also know tha basic rule of any RTS is: "The second highest difficulty is the hardest without the AI cheating outright". And this might be true here as well, but I haven't really seen what the differences is between the difficulty settings in Skirmish.

Anyone have any tips on what difficulty I should go for?

Highest difficulty is the best one to go for outside of mods imo. It gets economic cheats etc which it needs to stand a chance against a human, even one without much skill such as myself. Still not much of a challenge most of the time though. The advanced ai mod is pretty good, better than vanilla in some ways but worse in others. It builds a lot of mines and has better vehicle preservation, but its build orders and mg use can cause it problems I’ve noticed.

In terms of the breach challenge there’s a trick to it. I recently completed the ‘breach 10 times’ accolade with Wehrmacht using it. Basically get a unit that can breach, a pgren for example and garrison it. The ai loves to breach garrisons. Wait until the icon appears and the progress bar starts, then quickly exit the building using tab and right click, select breach and spam left click until you start your own. There’s a small window where the ai finishes their breach on the now empty building and enters it before leaving again. If you’re quick enough you can breach them right back again completing the challenge. During the breach 10 times challenge I found I could essentially do that on a loop with the two squads constantly breaching each other. Kind of funny to watch but it got the job done. If they roll a flamer unit into view you’ll have to back out but US riflemen and pgrens are very breach happy under ai control.