Learn the Art of Strategy and Tank AI: More Tips and Tricks

Commanders!

With Art of Strategy well underway, we'd like to bring you even more tips and tricks to get you acquainted with the new mode. Our first tips and tricks guide gave you some valuable insights, but now we'll dive more into tank AI.

As a Strategist, your toolkit consists of AI-controlled vehicles and defenses. While they are hardly a match for a real player, there’s some serious decision-making power under the armored plates of those units.

Each of the seven vehicles in your squad is a full-fledged AI-controlled combat unit. By watching the battle from a strategic view and assessing the combat situation, you can give them commands to move, attack, withdraw, defend the base, and more. While the basics of these orders are clear, here’s some extra info on how exactly your vehicles will execute those orders.

Secure Key Positions

Let's start with the most fundamental command: Move. You right-click on the ground, and the vehicle goes there. Simple, right? But wait—there’s a lot more to it than that.

While moving to the designated position, the vehicle will try to follow a path that has obstacles protecting it from enemy fire. Moreover, it will stop to shoot if there is a target available:

If the vehicle is undetected and can penetrate the target's armor
If the target can be destroyed with 1 or 2 shots and the shot can penetrate its armor
If the vehicle can inflict more damage than it will receive within the next 5 seconds

The vehicle will shoot on the move if the chance to hit the selected target exceeds 75%.

Break Enemy Lines

If you double-click on a location and issue a Rush command, the vehicle will follow the shortest path to the location, ignore enemy fire, and shoot on the move.

In any case, once it arrives, the vehicle will search for cover within 25 meters of the specified location, preferably one from which it can engage visible targets while being protected from their returning fire. If undetected, the vehicle will try to hide behind vegetation. So don’t be puzzled if you see your vehicle repositioning a bit after it arrives at the designated location—it's simply searching for the optimal spot.

Your vehicles will always check whether they can engage any targets and determine which ones to attack to the best effect. When doing so, they analyze a great range of parameters, including but not limited to:

Distance to the target (the closer, the better)
Exposure (whether the target has any exposed weak points in its armor)
Hit chance (how likely it is that the shot will connect)
Penetration chance (how likely it is to penetrate the target’s armor)
Enemy remaining HP (low-HP targets are prioritized)
Base capture (targets capturing the base are prioritized)
Auto-loaders (with all else equal, your vehicles will try to eliminate targets with autoloaders first)

Focus Your Fire

When you manually issue an Attack command, the vehicle will only fire at the designated target. It will fire right away if it has a clear line of fire and the gun is loaded. Then it will search for cover where it is best protected from all visible targets while still able to engage them. If undetected, it will try to hide behind vegetation. Otherwise, it will only look for hard cover, prioritizing the ones that it can reach without losing more than 5% of its HP.

The vehicle may leave cover to make a shot if it will remain undetected, cause more damage than it will receive in return, or lose less than 5% of its HP.

Make Short Work of Enemies

If the enemy is within 80 meters of your vehicle, your vehicle may attempt to circle around the target—and it will definitely do so if you issue the Charge order by double-clicking an enemy vehicle. In this case, the vehicle will close in on the target and circle around it if it has an advantage in movement speed, enabling it to outpace the rotation of the target’s turret. It will shoot the target’s tracks if they are still intact or if it cannot penetrate the target’s armor, and it will attempt to stay behind the target’s gun. Your vehicle may even attempt a ramming attack if it has a weight advantage over the target and isn’t too low on HP.

There’s a lot more about tank AI and the decision-making of vehicles, but this is already a good introduction to how your squad will make decisions. We don't want to overload you with details—you’ve got battles to fight!