How weak is the AI... really?
 

I've been playing Dominions for about 4 years, now... and my preferred settings have always been:

Orania
Very Difficult Research
Maximum Number of AIs (Defensive)
All AIs Impossible

Now, I've been lurking for a few months and I understand that performance against the AI is not a good measure of multi-player skill. I consistently win against the above set-up with the following races:

EA:
Ulm
Sauromatia
Abysia
Caelum
Pangea
Agartha
Tir
Fomoria
Vans
Kailasa
Yomi

MA:
Pythium
Marignon
Pangea
Vans
Bandar Log
R'lyeh

And a couple from LA...

I am frequently beaten with any other race, though. Are these setting insane, or do I really have that much more to learn?

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

Well, the AI does not do things that real live players will do. There is really no comparison between AI games and MP games. The things that you have learned playing the AI are helpful, but in MP all that goes out the window.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

The AI is garbage. It doesn't manage its troops properly. It doesn't research properly. It doesn't have any concept of strategy beyond "attack province". Blood nations often times die because they can't feed their own domininon.

Their biggest weakness is the absolute inability to deal with SCs or thugs. But in general, almost nothing from SP translates into real MP.

Jazzepi

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

I'm actully glad to hear that about MP... but that was the impression I had already.

My main concern is that there are nations with which I cannot fight off the hordes of garbage. As the vets you both are (Ling & Jazz), based on the nations I've "mastered" the AI with, what am I missing? Or are massed Impossible AIs just that (for some nations) whithout quick research?

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

Any nation can win the single player game. The AI is just too dumb. I can't really tell you what to do when you start playing MP, it is different for every nation. Just keep in mind that you need a Super Combatent or two. Blitzes are the best way to start. They are always available on the weekends on the IRC channel.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

It' true that AI != MP, as others have said. However, I think the AI is pretty good for SP games, in the sense that it's good at massing troops and providing a somewhat realistic opponent. No, it doesn't search for optimal strategies like a human player would, and spend a lot of time on the forums trying to refine those strategies, but from the roleplaying perspective that's fine. Look at real life--how many nations actually employ a national strategy (China) and how many enjoy the good life and flail around with one hand to try to keep the good life going (U.S. today)? The AI doesn't deal well with SCs and it tends to just throw magic items onto random commanders, but maybe those commanders don't *want* to give up their items for the "greater good." Human players ruthlessly ignore the commanders' wishes of course.

The AI is good at what it does, which is providing an opponent who tries to crush you thematically. I frequently (40%?) lose to at least one AI when I'm first starting off with a race. Part of that might be because I use Edi's Better Independents mod (some people say the AI performs better with it), but I still think it's pretty good for its purpose.

-Max

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

No reason to set those AI to defensive. Try playing a 10-15 player game against Impossible, Aggressive AI... it's actually very good practice as you learn to destroy any number of enormous chaff armies attacking you every turn, which DOES translate to MP, I've seen.

You learn optimal troop placements, how to use your mages effectively, pretty much everything except anti-SC tactics. SP gets a bad rap because everyone that bothers paying $55 for Dominions 3 is usually a really experienced and proficient strategy gamer looking for a new, deep challenge, and they really bring it!

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

If you play with modded indeps, using either the Better Indeps mod, or No indep. mod, or on a no indep. map, that tends to increase the challenge.

As a MP novice, the only advice I can offer about getting into MP for the first time, don't join too many games, it will take a lot more time to play out your turns than you're used to in SP, since minor mistakes tend to not really matter in SP.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

I think it's reasonable that you can't win with some nations on those settings. Impossible AIs send so many troops, an often the only counters need some research. With very hard research, it's possible you really could be stuck.

The selection of nations you find doable is interesting though. I wouldn't particularly have guessed some of them.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

There are some tactics that work against the AI all the time, allowing you to win with any race.

For example: Don't have the lowest army strength, and establish chokepoints. Eventually one nation WILL throw himself aginst the choke point repeatedly.

At that point.. its just micromanagement (and boring) to win.

Although I've never tried Research victory on top of Impossible AIs

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

* Some recruitment fixes for the AI.

Anyone seen any difference?

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

I believe it was meant to stop the AI from recruiting non-mages when it could recruit mages. As to seeing it's effect in game, it's probably subtle.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

Yeah, Better Independents mod makes really huge difference. I have nightmares of AI Fomoria still affter seeing their armies, thousands of national troops!

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

I had a pretty nasty time against eriu. They kept coming at me with tuatha warriors.. not at all easily beaten I can tell you, even with double blessed lanka demons.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

Thanks, all, for the input!

@llamabeast: Which nations suprised you? (Honestly, before finding these furoms, you could have counted the number of nations I could win with on a Melqart's hand.)

@chrispedersen: That's why I choose Orania... very few chokepoints and wraparound keep you guessing, even against the AI.

@Dedas: In a Hinnom game I started last night, none of my neighbors have gone off the deep end in recruiting the worst indy they could find. That's a first.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

For an example of the good and bad of the AI...

the other day I was playing SP and was closing in on the TC capital. It was losing pretty bad, so it launched a desperate "battle of the bulge" counterattack with every unit it could find along with its SC god.

Its SC was an E9 clops with some wind. It buffed itself with air shield and mistform, and then proceeded to go on an ***-kicking tour through my troop formations.

Now the bad: it didn't put any items on its SC! At all! The clops weapon was "Fist"!

I really think that with boots of the behemoth and a good weapon and shield, or even just a trinket weapon + shield and no boots, it would have won. But the AI is unable to really use items and thus fails at SCs. He only killed one guy every other round or so. My troops swarmed him and after a while, one popped his mistform and then it was all over.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

I've lost even moderately powerful, borderline thug/SCs to random AI armies, if they just happen to have the right casters or right units.

There are a few situations where fighting the AI is hard, but the main ones are when you take sleeping/imprisoned Pretenders, non-combat Pretenders, vs. water nations (or vice versa for EA water) and/or sloth scales. To fight effectively vs. the AI's masses of chaff you need either efficient, high resource units, or some force multiplying units like spell casters ect. Unlike in multiplayer the AI is suicidally aggressive and there are no negotiations or alliances till the end. And even good players might have a tough time getting into the water vs. the AI if you haven't got an easy route to good water strategies.

You can make the AI reasonably difficult by building your nation thematically, btw. Rainbow pretenders et al are great for the end game but don't do you much good if you're getting thrashed at turn 15 by huge waves of chaff.

Honestly, though, the AI seems somewhat .... variable, as to it's effectiveness, as well. Some games, it's like i outbuild them 3:1 and crush them easily on the harder levels, even if i take time to pause between provinces to raise dead. Other games my 3-sloth Tir gets swamped by enormous numbers of chaff, and if the map is shaped in just such a way, 4 thugs might be holding them back at four provinces, but then the AI always seems to find a way to break through somewhere else and progress is very difficult. Generally though i do poorly vs. the AI with sloth/low resource national troops/thematic Pretenders, and beat them easily with prod/high resource national troops/SC Pretenders.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

Raiel...
If you're playing Orania then you need to either change your AI opponents or switch to a different map because the many water provinces will provide human players a great advantage over most AI opponents.

If you're playing a map with water you need to remove the nations which rarely attack water provinces... such as

Ulm
Sauromatia
Abysia
Caelum
Pangea
Tir
Fomoria
Vans
Kailasa
Yomi

MA:
Pythium
Marignon
Pangea
Vans
Bandar Log

The AIs have a major weakness of rarely attacking water provinces. Water mages use to be able to enter water provinces and carry troops with them allowing more AI nations to attack the water provinces in DOM_2. Now in Dominions_3 that's been removed and the AI is extremely weak at expanding into water provinces.

Re: How weak is the AI... really?
 

If you're looking for a new challenge, use the mapedit.pdf located in the Dominions\Docs directory. Here you can give your opponents smarter god builds and smarter scales.

You can also setup the AIs to be allied against you. And as mentioned earlier... don't play with water provinces unless using very specific nations where the AI can enter water provinces.