I mean, apart from morale of armies and fertility malus, does the AI get any better with harder difficulty level?
Does Difficulty does anything behind what's clearly stated (like in HoMM 3)
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AFAIK the difficulty level pretty much only determines how big enemy armies are - pretty much everything else stays the same. Revolts get bigger, enemy levies replenish quicker and enemy attrition is lower (not sure of this last one).
AI doesn't get tougher, it just gets bigger.
AI doesn't get tougher, it just gets bigger.
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Are there any games that actually have better AI at higher difficulties? I mean actual tactics not just making it more aggressive etc, I can see games making the AI dumber at levels lower than normal in some cases but AI programming is tricky enough that there would be no reason to not having it working at full for the standard difficulty.
Medieval total war 2 actually did this, but even on the highest difficulty it receives some morale bonus
Also tabletop game adaptations tend to follow this model as well.
in heroes in first difficulty computer wont even build buildings in each turn, only every second turn
my question was more along the lines of hidden stats for ai like "honor" "agressivness" etc
my question was more along the lines of hidden stats for ai like "honor" "agressivness" etc
I don't know if still true, but in EU4, the AI more aggressively uses Condottieri. I believe this was originally the case for Normal, but then they reduced it for Normal and moved the aggressive use of it to higher difficulties. I always play on Normal because I hate AI bonuses in general, so I can't speak from experience. I know this is technically "more aggressive", but I interpreted line that as more zerg than aggressive use of mechanics.
It wouldn't be too hard to make AI to take advantage of marriage and claimant system, and check exploitable possibilities daily, but then human wouldn't possibly be able to beat it.
There are hidden stats that guide AI behavior, but as far as I know they're not affected by difficulty, only religion and traits. For example Deceitful characters are more willing to join murder plots, Brave characters are less deterred from attacking by the army size of their perspective opponent, and Ambitious characters are less deterred from attacking by high opinion of a potential target.
By game standards, CK2’s AI is archaic. It just wasn’t built for being able to scale up and have better decision making.
The only way to have a “hard mode” is to make the player’s life harder.
But, I wouldn’t even use the game difficulty settings. If you really want a challenge you can make one using game rules. No matrilineal marriages, 1/4 demesne size, etc. The possibilities are endless and you can cater them to your style of playing.
The only way to have a “hard mode” is to make the player’s life harder.
But, I wouldn’t even use the game difficulty settings. If you really want a challenge you can make one using game rules. No matrilineal marriages, 1/4 demesne size, etc. The possibilities are endless and you can cater them to your style of playing.
There are some AI tweak in EU4 to reduce the AI aggressiveness in easy and to allow more human like behavior in hard (I think they won't restrict their alliance to 1 great power or something like that).
Halo 1 and God Hand are the only games I know of.
EDIT: I forgot XCOM and XCOM2.
Civ5 claimed on lower difficulty levels it's AI was more likely to make suboptimal decisions