Tough AI in this game

PrinceBimz · May 14, 2003, 14:58

I figured since I was familiar with RTS games I could start on moderate level. Anyway its been difficult! I have yet to beat the AI in 1vs1 on quick battle. I know how to play the game but right now I can't beat it thats for sure. So now we know there is a good AI in the game. It attacks and does it well.

Solver · May 14, 2003, 15:38

Yes, the AI job is better. I can't say how good exactly till I get my hands on the gold version (AFAIK, AI always gets improved quite a lot between beta and gold), but also judging from the demo, the AI is more formidable than other RTS games to say the least.

Inverse Icarus · May 14, 2003, 15:42

i concur that the AI is indeed better than any other RTS. kudos BHG.

i have found, however, that the AI does not handle a blitzkreig very well. rather than sacrificing some of their border cities to amass troops for a later battle, they will send whatever they have, ie 2 infantry units and a tank, to engage the attackign force.

so essentially, if you don't stop for long at each city you conquer, you'll easily roll through the AI.

i'm sure with humans though, this game will kick some major ass.

Solver · May 14, 2003, 15:47

All RTS kick more ass with humans

.

Dunno how it's in gold, but it's usual for AI to send whatever it can to defend. I didn't experience this problem much, though, because in the games I played, I actually stopped for enough time after conquering a city - contrary to how I play other RTS games, where, once my big attack begings, I either lose or win the game with it.

Inverse Icarus · May 14, 2003, 16:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Solver
All RTS kick more ass with humans

.

Dunno how it's in gold, but it's usual for AI to send whatever it can to defend. I didn't experience this problem much, though, because in the games I played, I actually stopped for enough time after conquering a city - contrary to how I play other RTS games, where, once my big attack begings, I either lose or win the game with it.

thats how i play most of my games, but the last one i played went down like this:

it was a 2 v 2 v 2, me and all AIs. I was Egypt, had a huge food boom early game, nabbed nearly all the early wonders. my economy was booming.

The map was Random Land, but it ended up being one composed mostly of ridges / mountains.

so i build my 2 border cities in defensive locations. i wish i had some screenshots, it was pure brilliance

The Turks come and start attacking one of my border cities with knights and catapults. the "out of city defenses" slow them down while i move men into position. they actually mvoe the catapults close enough to the towers for me to fire back. i take out some infantry and 1 catapult.

i had the terra cotta army, which gives you an infantry unit ever 30 seconds (plus 1/2 second for every infantry you control), so by the time they attacked i had about 12 free infantry units. i threw in some supply wagons, knights, and mroe infantry, and start marching.

on my way there, i advanced to the gunpowder age, and upgraded my units. they were no match.

i tore through their invasionary force, and head into the city where they came from.

The AI built barracks / siege workshop right on the border. that was interesting to see.

so anyway, i take that city. assimiliate it, take another, yada yada. i keep advanncig / reinforcing / attacking, until i take their capital, and their ally shows up to defend. i was mid-industrial by now, and i had the statue of liberty. my troops upgrade automatically and for free. wow.

purple (i forget what nation they were) actually slowed me down a little. The turks had this one city left. in the dead center of the map, with their knights walking around. my Ally showed up and took it.

me and my ally attacked Purple, suprisingly, the AI works well with a human ally. they tend to follow / support you.

we rampage through most of purple, then the other team attacks my ally, and all his troops high tail it home. i continue fighting purple, easily, now with Versalles to heal my troops, and i enter the information age. everythign upgrades for free, i start work on Artificial Intelligence and Missile Shield at the same time. i also build 6 ICBMs.

just for laughs. i nuke purple's capital, twice. no buildigns left but the main one, run in and take it. the rest was mop up work. purples dead.

my ally had a monster of an air force, and started bombing the crap out of Teal, and pretty much ran through them without any help from me. Teal wasn't advanced very far.

now, you have the set up for the blitzkreig i was describing. i control the entire left portion of the map, blue the lower regions, and Yellow the upper right 1/4. they are on par with us with tech. they even build the missle shield, so my ICBMs are pretty much useless.

i attack a town, stealth bombers, tanks, infantry, a swarm of troops. take it quickly. the AI's main army shows up, and i destroy it with moderate losses. i send the bombers to hit key objectives, namely defenses / wonders / troop buidings.

this is where the blitz starts. i bombed their next city, and walked right up to it. the AI sent what little they had in the area, dead. villies dead before i even got a chance to order my troops to move.

i just kept doiung that, without even waiting at all, from city to city. each time, the AI would send less than 5 tanks at my force, of roughly 30 tanks and some mixed infantry. they also attempted to build forts, AS my tanks rolled in.

anyway, i just felt like boasting about my recent game on Tougher cause i'm bored and it was fun. I'm sure it could be realitevly easy to script the AI to "give up" some cities for the defense of the entire nation.

MahoTsukai · May 14, 2003, 17:03

the AI is quite smart, but on moderate its a complete joke to beat, at least in my case.

kolpo · May 14, 2003, 17:44

I also can't beat the AI at moderate, in the modern age does it kill me, especially nukes(I don't know who i can defend againsts them) are very letal.

PrinceBimz · May 14, 2003, 18:07

I think a good solid AI is a true sign that a game has been playtested very well. Speaking of in the demo I have not found anything buggy yet. I bet the patches will only consist mostly of balancing figures when people get to playing it alot.

Inverse Icarus · May 14, 2003, 18:14

sadly, the AI still isn't up to the Uber challenge. this, on "toughest":

the first assault force created. nothign too impressive.

Inverse Icarus · May 14, 2003, 18:17

what pisses me off the msot is that they only killed 90 of my units throughout the entire game, and thats with them NUKING two of my cities.

i'm suprised they never think to nuke my nuke silos, if they can see them, that is.

The diplomat · May 14, 2003, 18:19

I find that the difficulties seem pretty well balance for me. On easy, the game is a cake walk. On moderate, it is fair, I win, but I have to put some effort. I have not tried the harder levels, as I am not quite ready for them.

I find that a blietskrieg is an excellent strategy against the AI. Don't stay very long after you conquer a city, but move on to the next city even before it is assimilated. It is risky, as the AI will try to retake the city.

It is also a good strategy to attack the enemy capital as quickly as possible. Bypass small cities if possible, and head right for the capital. If you succeed in taking it, the AI will have a hard time coming back.

But overall, the AI is pretty good, definitely better than AoK.

nihilocrat · May 14, 2003, 19:47

The AI is pretty good, especially if you get complacent with expanding your empire, army, and resources. One of the most potent tools in combatting the AI that is absent in other RTSes as far as I know is that you can pause and give orders to units and buildings. I think this is an amazingly useful tool, as it makes the game seem much less like the click-fest that tends to characterize most other RTSes. More importantly, though, it allows me to effectively manage domestic affairs while reinforcing and moving an invading blitzkrieg army. In most other RTSes I largely avoid domestic affairs after I have been successful with a major attack, leaving me with a massive pool of resources and a small pool of units in base that I made 'just in case,' When there was a lull in the fighting.

Anyways, I haven't been as successful against the AI as all of you, but that's probably because I suck at games, considering how addicted I am to them.

The AI shows some interesting features... I'm not sure if this was just a coincidence, but after conquering an enemy city and its accompanying wonder, the enemy's ally began heavily bombing the wonder. This seems interesting simply because I qualified for a Wonder victory at the time and the counter was counting down. The AI also tried bombing a much-better defended wonder in one of my outer cities. Is this intentionally done by the AI to attempt to thwart my victory?

Inverse Icarus · May 14, 2003, 20:44

Quote:

Originally posted by nihilocrat
The AI shows some interesting features... I'm not sure if this was just a coincidence, but after conquering an enemy city and its accompanying wonder, the enemy's ally began heavily bombing the wonder. This seems interesting simply because I qualified for a Wonder victory at the time and the counter was counting down. The AI also tried bombing a much-better defended wonder in one of my outer cities. Is this intentionally done by the AI to attempt to thwart my victory?

yes.

MahoTsukai · May 14, 2003, 21:55

yep I noticed that too (above), as I said the AI is smart but nothing overwhelming. Does it cheat at higher levels ??

MahoTsukai · May 14, 2003, 21:59

Hey btw, lookking at UberCrux screenshots, I noticed that overall 2317 units were built (by all civs) and only 1627 were killed, again by all civs.

Now where are the 690 missing ??

MxM · May 14, 2003, 22:40

Quote:

Originally posted by MahoTsukai
Hey btw, lookking at UberCrux screenshots, I noticed that overall 2317 units were built (by all civs) and only 1627 were killed, again by all civs.

Now where are the 690 missing ??

Alive?

Inverse Icarus · May 14, 2003, 23:00

Quote:

Originally posted by MxM

Alive?

me and my ally both were still alive at the end, and i believe purple might have had some villes or something after their last city fell.

MahoTsukai · May 15, 2003, 19:06

kk I see. Between the lost and killed units there is still a diff of 30 pop. Did you disband some units ? Or does the comp kill his own units to make room ? The latter would be awesome.

Grandpa Troll · May 21, 2003, 21:55

I think ai is great

Thanks for the great job and I am very satisfied with my investment and EXTREMELY satisfied with the time,effort and resources committed by BHG.

I havent been satisfied with many games of late..but this has my thanks..for not taking advantage of the purchasing public!

Thanks again!

Peace

Grandpa Troll

yin26 · May 22, 2003, 16:25

To test the AI, I'd keep things at 1v1 first of all...

Dominae · May 22, 2003, 18:19

I'm still playing the Trial version.

If find the game's difficulty to be directly related to the frequency you use the Pause option. After playing only a handful of 1v1 games, I can now beat the higher levels of the AI, when I allow myself to pause whenever I feel like it. I played a couple additional games, but only paused when I nature and other things called, in this case only beating the AI on Average and losing to the level above that.

This tells me that the AI is well-balanced, but not especially "good". If you're good/fast enough to force the AI to play on your terms, its strategies will not allow it to prevail. In this respect it is very similar to the Warcraft 3 AI (which is actually a lot tougher until you get a good hang of the game).

Watching the AI play against itself at the second-hardest difficulty, I've noticed some problems with it. For instance, it rally its new troops at a useless position in its empire, and will keep them there until it feels like attacking. A smart player will position his or her troops for defense on the frontlines, before pushing on to attack. You could argue that the AI is just making sure it has the "perfect" army to attack with. But this seems absurd, as it will often lose the first big skirmish in which it has to defend, since its the bulk of its troops are not available for about 20-30 seconds (and this with a General's Forced March ability). I may post some other comments on the AI after I play some more games.

Dominae

MahoTsukai · May 22, 2003, 19:52

dominae I beat the AI on toughest, without pausin' that's in the trial version. The gold one seems a lot more smart and tougher. Gives me a run for my pesos at moderate o_O

Dominae · May 22, 2003, 20:05

The AI improved that much from Trial to Gold? Wow.

Dominae

Grandpa Troll · May 22, 2003, 21:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
The AI improved that much from Trial to Gold? Wow.

Dominae

Yes..kinda amusing..say you set peace until "Period X"..once its over...Katie-Bar-The-Door!!!

It comes quickly, multifaceted attacks...front line backlines sideways..

Be prepared..makes Bantu a nice choice with extra citizens...

Peace

Grandpa Troll