Re: House Rules against the AI
 

He was suggesting generic house rules. I don't think the point is what sages you have!

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

Depending on what nation you play and what you set the indies level to, chances are that several of the impossible AIs will be ahead of you on the research curve for a fairly long time. Especially if you get a slow start.

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

Yes, but you can probably keep up well enough when you consider the difference in efficient research as opposed to wasted research. This becomes particularly notable when you start handing out research boosters.

Besides, one only has to beat the AI. At that point, how you use your research is far more relevant than what you have. An impossible AI is pretty easy to drop with only one researcher per lab, particularly as it doesn't bar mages being used for non research purposes.

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

Well, there you are. So you agree with the original poster.

For my part, currently happening to play Dawn map against all Impossible AIs, I have spent the first 8-odd turns hiring researchers at my single lab, and looking at the chart I'm about half way up the scale compared to other AIs. So how I would beat them with just one researcher is beyond me.

Like I asked, has anybody actually (regularly) done this, as opposed to saying how easy it would be?

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

I haven't done this, but I'd assume the technique is to have fast expansion which doesn't rely on research, then lever that expansion into lots of labs.
Unless you start with an awake research pretender your research will suck at the end of 8 turns. You'll have to make up that deficit later, with more labs & castles.
I'd say the easiest way would be to start with a high bless nation, Mictlan or Niefleheim, for example. You hardly need researchers at all to beat the AI. Do that on tight map to let you fight and win earlier in the game.
I have my doubts about pulling it off with a mage (rather than sacred or thug) based nation.

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

One of the options on AI games on my server is to run the game X turns before letting the players in.

Altho the if its a server game there are better boosts for AI. Allying them with each other, giving them equipment at the start, or an extra starting castle. And of course the best thing is assigning them a well-made pretender

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

Dawn of Dominions is fairly stacked against you. That said, against the AI there are a few keys.
1) Province Defense. The AI is monumentally stupid, and will routinely split large forces, kill them off against PD individually, and not learn from its mistakes. PD is a good investment against the AI, and can buy you time.
2) Thugs and Supercombatants. These are amazingly good against the AI, which tends to be pretty bad at anything beyond troop swarming. An army with three banes with a fire brand, vine shield, and amulet of luck stuck way out front will be surprisingly effective, and this requires surprisingly little research.
3) With the 1 researcher per lab requirement, you will want most provinces to have labs. This includes those without forts.

I have killed a bunch of impossibles with the 1 researcher restriction using these keys multiple times, on varying maps. That includes Dawn of Dominions, playing as Caelum.

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

I don't remember which difficulty it was, becouse it happened a lot of time ago. I doubt they were Impossible, but probably Mighty. But I once defeated 4 computer nations, with no research at all. W9F9B4 Jaguar Warriors, that's all you need.

The easiest way to defeat the computer is using PD smartly. Having triple blessed PD helps a lot too...

I once beat AI using nothing but the starting army and independent troops (and a SuperCombatant Pretender), plus national mages.

The AI has several big holes. Not only they aren't very original or smart in general, but they can't face some strategies at all. SC for example, is something that often defeat it. Scripting decoys to retreat to disable archers, using mass remote spells, that kind of things are very hard for AI to face.

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

There are a handful of spells that will just wreck the AI. Anything that summons an SC, Flames from the Sky, Mind Hunt, Enslave Mind communions, so on and so forth. They can't counter SCs, they won't make smaller armies to mitigate Flames From The Sky, they don't hand out magic resistance gear and Mind Hunt works beautifully as a result, so on and so forth. Then there are the globals, where the player can easily have five up.

Re: House Rules against the AI
 

I bow, scrape & grovel :D Fair enough, that was what I asked for. You are a much better player than I am ;)

I do take your points --- still not sure how you manage it early --- thanks.

I am retrying against AI @Impossible, but this time not losing my Pretender on turn #3 and then having to pray for her return, and I must admit it is going better......