Hearts of Iron IV's AI is so good, the devs sometimes need to handicap it via code

Hearts of Iron IV is a grand strategy game that attempts to offer the ultimate World War 2 sandbox. Through historical and plausible alt-history options, it allows you - in each individual game - to fight your own version of the Second World War, and tell your own stories of an alternative greatest generation.

But with the player taking charge of only one out of dozens nations that existed in 1936, making sure the rest of the world behaves in a manner that facilitates an engaging and believable narrative is an on-going struggle. In many cases, the developers have intervened directly; it seems the UK was so good at beating Italy in North Africa, for example, the team had to hard-code a solution that rendered them less effective.

Reddit user drefvelin on the Hearts of Iron IV subreddit discovered a line of code while looking at the AI files for a mod they are creating, called "ENG_please_stop_stomping_italy_so_hard_in_africa_ty". The gist of the code ensures that Great Britain and any dominions (if controlled by the AI) don't put too many troops into North Africa to ensure that the Italian AI has a fighting chance of winning the theatre. "These kinds of AI directives are usually there for a few reasons... [for instance] to control pacing," Hearts of Iron IV game director Dan Lind tells us.

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