EHEHE and then the same AI that declared war on a whim begs for peace over and over at the end of each turn when you start taking its capital.
Silly and quite annoying.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
EHEHE and then the same AI that declared war on a whim begs for peace over and over at the end of each turn when you start taking its capital.
Silly and quite annoying.
Maybe the problem is that the AI's are bad at making peace with each other. I mean. When you get a war declared on you and the AI isn't following up, it is normally because it is already fighting two other AI's. So maybe instead of making them gun for the player they just need the AI's being better at making peace with each other.
And yeah, speaking of capital, thats all you need to take to defeat an AI. Conquer that and the rest of their cities convert to generic. So even though the AI puts a sizeable army defending it, just aoe nuking it with fire/lightning to clear the blob of units and sending in a strike team to take the city is enough to win each and every time. Way way too easy. If this type of tactic is allowed, the AI needs to be able to build walls/pits/traps around its capital to slow an attacker down, and give guard towers from the capital aoe capabilities so you need a much larger force to take the capital.
You know, one thing I noticed is that, at around the same time, I start feeling like the number of cities I control is tedious, and the AI can't handle the quantity of stuff I throw at it. Maybe that's a good level to encourage players to stay at? So you can expand in the beginning, but if you want to use an amazing new spot later on, you might want to take down one of your less useful cities. Say, my total city growth is based on my total food surplus? So if I have one city, it gets all my food-growth. If I have three cities, I get more food, but they each get a third the total growth. If I settle and conquer my way up to thirty cities, even though I have a lot of food, each city gets a thirtieth the growth. Also, maybe settlers could be more expensive if I have more cities? Even if I'm at war with two AI, I can still spam out settlers since they're one of the cheapest units in the game. If they cost 50 gold for each city I have... a couple thousand gold is harder to spare, when I could be getting endgame units instead.
Reposted for massive gaming wisdom.
- Confirmed *
- Confirmed
- Confirmed
( * The first point particularly annoys me, especially when war is declared following my refusal to agree to outrageous extortion demands (usually, more than 50% of my gold or mana).
Those extortion-failure wars, which happen in each and every game in a quite early manner, never turn out to the AI's advantage. My refusals are never followed by a significant attempt to punish me. Those wars provoke me in punishing the AI player in a ruthless and relentless manner, at a moment when I was content in peacefully developing my early-game realm.
Those stupid exortion demands were beefed up with the release of build 25 on 3 May, a few days before the publication of the finished game on 8 May. I suppose that the developers wanted to issue a quick-fix to make the AI more aggressive, because in the April beta-build, the AI would tend to be too passive.
The result of that quick-fix was very detrimental to the AI players : between 3 May and 1 June, I have destroyed over a hundred AI cities in my reprisal reactions to outrageous extortionist requests. I am more a civ-builder than a warrior : if the AI had been fair in its demands (such as limiting itself to 10% of my gold), I would have paid to allow everybody to build in peace. But demanding more than 40 to 50% of my gold or mana, early on in the diplomatic relationship, was asking for war, and when war is declared I become a ruthless warmonger -- which is a shame, because it makes me feel like I am beating up clueless children. )
I understand that coding a competitive AI is very difficult, but I do not believe that reforming Diplomacy should be that difficult. Changing the quantitative parameters of the outrageous exortion attempts should be easy : for example, the coder only has to limit them to a randomized number with a reasonable ceiling (such as 10% of gold or mana stock).
Last edited:
Actually, that brings up a pretty good point. A quick and easy fix to make the whole extortion demands work a hundred times better is to base the demand off the AI's military strength, not your treasury. Weak military? Then it's trivial to keep them off my land. Absurd demand? AI can actually back it up. ... although I've never accepted any of those extortion demands because I don't see why they wouldn't just keep demanding it every turn.
AI: give me stuff or else war!
Me: no, guess we go to war
AI: ok war it is!.... beware the few units I may send at you in single file order for easy slaughter!
Me: ok, and while im at it ill send some powerful units into your territory to mess things up
AI: ok ok I give up! peace! here some stuff!
Me: ok, peace
AI: ok now that we have peace I will begin casting Unity spell and make you my bitch in 20 turns
Me: uhm no, time to go to war again
AI: nooooo! you will pay for this!
Me: *counterspell*
AI: nooooo!.... peace?
Me: ok, peace
AI: muahahahaha! *begins casting Unity spell, again*
Me: *sigh*...
Me: no, guess we go to war
AI: ok war it is!.... beware the few units I may send at you in single file order for easy slaughter!
Me: ok, and while im at it ill send some powerful units into your territory to mess things up
AI: ok ok I give up! peace! here some stuff!
Me: ok, peace
AI: ok now that we have peace I will begin casting Unity spell and make you my bitch in 20 turns
Me: uhm no, time to go to war again
AI: nooooo! you will pay for this!
Me: *counterspell*
AI: nooooo!.... peace?
Me: ok, peace
AI: muahahahaha! *begins casting Unity spell, again*
Me: *sigh*...
Be careful what you wish for. They might make the AI so strong as to be unbeatable.
IIRC players complained that the end boss in Fallout was too easy. But when Fallout 2 was released, few players could win the fight against its final boss.
IIRC players complained that the end boss in Fallout was too easy. But when Fallout 2 was released, few players could win the fight against its final boss.
Pffft. Those people just needed to learn the mechanics. There was also an "Easy" setting, as there is in W:MotA.
Then you exchange AI problems with balance problems. Massive, massive balance problems.
For the way the game is now there would be 0 balance problem, since you can use any race you want whatever the starting race is (with minimal disadvantage).
Yesterday I was playing a game and something weird happened. Since I completely underestimate the AI now I just conquered the territoty of one of the AI players, killed him off but then I left while another AI player started to attack. The new player rushed with Werewolves and killed anything I had in that territory (with their acid AOE weapon). It could have really overwhelmed me, but instead just rushed and conquered every city which belonged to the previous AI player but stopped before invading the cities I had founded.
It really gave me the impression that it purposely spared me. Is the AI programmed NOT to attack the player's territory?
Just re-stating what was stated above -- Massive Balance Problems? What is your basis for that? I am not arguing, I just want to understand.
I cannot think of a more "ready for PBEM" than this game.
I think what would also help PBEM is if it did not announce who the human players are. For example, if you have 6 Mages, and 2 of them are Human - why reveal who your real opponent is. You will find out in time when one of the Mages fights intelligently, but until then.., some interesting things would happen.
I cannot think of a more "ready for PBEM" than this game.
I think what would also help PBEM is if it did not announce who the human players are. For example, if you have 6 Mages, and 2 of them are Human - why reveal who your real opponent is. You will find out in time when one of the Mages fights intelligently, but until then.., some interesting things would happen.
I have no desire to play this or any game like it multiplayer and IMO, multiplayer is often a distortion of the game itself with all kinds of different ways to cheese or pat strategies that are boring to employ.
I don't think it's asking for much for a game like this to have decent AI - it *IS* possible - but always playing the MP card gives devs an easy out.
Well, first off, there's the exploit where undead have no repercussion for having negative infinity food. I think you can see how that's pretty gamebreaking.
Random things from caravans and other lootable areas. Usually, you get a bit of gold. Occasionally, you get a random teir 2 unit. It's possible (and it's happened to me) to get two or more tier two units before turn five, and then seriously consider conquering neighboring capitols.
Next, some of the resources like temples, dwarven settlements, and the occasional bit of overland neveril or adamantium can give one side a massive advantage over another. Or just a lucky spot; human spawning with an area where one town can reach a pile of gems and two gold mines (it's happened to me before).
Spell access is entirely random, and some spells are way, way more powerful than others; vampire weapon, prosperity, invisibility, water walking (which is also broken, currently). If you ever get access to healing, or damage spells. Even things like counterspell and enchantment dispells, there's no guarentee you'll get either before the extremely late game, and that's just utility.
The random positioning can really harm you, too. I've spawned into positions where my capitol only had 6 buildable spaces before it hit size 10, which was a pretty massive handicap. I've spawned in places that jam me straight up between mountains and an enemy capitol, which is currently pretty unconquerable before turn 10. I've spawned in places where my capitol can immediately come under attack by GFE's, Ogres, and other high level monsters.
---------------------------------------------------
All this, and probably more people can think of. Now, in a single player game, all this is fun. It's like a roguelike. Sometimes you can stomp around with superweapons early on, sometimes you're starved out until the extreme lategame or start with a massive handicap. Sometimes you get some really powerful things, and are locked away from some basic utility and have to make do without it. It's interesting, and dynamic, and tremendously unfair if I'm trying to win a game of skill against another player.
I have very little interest in playing a turn-based strategy game with other players. As other people have mentioned I'm even afraid multiplayer will prevent the expanding of the game mechanics and will force devs to invest most of their efforts in multiplayer balance (bleh).
Quote Originally Posted by Poopfaust
"Create multiplayer via PBEM and all of the AI problems go away."
Quote Metatoaster- "I have very little interest in playing a turn-based strategy game with other players. As other people have mentioned I'm even afraid multiplayer will prevent the expanding of the game mechanics and will force devs to invest most of their efforts in multiplayer balance (bleh)."
Similarly, PBEM is not a solution for those of us who play single-player exclusively. There is nothing wrong with MP, it's just not a way I want to spend my game time. If the game was solely MP, I would never have bought it. Just as I am sure some people bought the game because the Dev's said MP was coming. <shrug>
EDIT: Is there a way to easily get nested quotes on this board that I am missing? Reply with Multi-quote isn't working for me...
"Create multiplayer via PBEM and all of the AI problems go away."
Quote Metatoaster- "I have very little interest in playing a turn-based strategy game with other players. As other people have mentioned I'm even afraid multiplayer will prevent the expanding of the game mechanics and will force devs to invest most of their efforts in multiplayer balance (bleh)."
Similarly, PBEM is not a solution for those of us who play single-player exclusively. There is nothing wrong with MP, it's just not a way I want to spend my game time. If the game was solely MP, I would never have bought it. Just as I am sure some people bought the game because the Dev's said MP was coming. <shrug>
EDIT: Is there a way to easily get nested quotes on this board that I am missing? Reply with Multi-quote isn't working for me...