is the AI cheating
 

Topic. The AI seems to collect troops at an extremely fast rate, even with ALL negative scales on easy/normal difficulty level. I've tried this out a couple of times. And even if they have death3 turmoil 3 etc. they still manage to send out tons of expansion parties during the first turns while I struggle with keeping my first alive. ??? Maybe this is a bit of a whiner topic, but I've had this game since it was released and the AI always beats me badly even on EASY difficulty. I've only won against it 2 or 3 times with MA Ulm. Even my gamer buddies can't keep up that much resistance:D

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Turn up the Independents in your next game.
YOU will tend to make much better decisions on who to attack and when to attack them than the AI does. If you turn Indepts down (as many new players do thinking it will make the game easier) then it just allows the AI to swarm you early in the game.

Gandalf Parker

Re: is the AI cheating
 

At Easy difficulty, the AI gets resource and gold PENALTIES.

MA Ulm starts with a good fortress (good admin -> more resources), tends to start in or near mountainous provinces (more resources) and gets extra resources in all of its forts as a nation-wide bonus. Their national units are very cheap on gold. It probably got lucky and the pretender had scales that fitted the nation, and the capital was surrounded by high-resource provinces.

In addition, while it's not cheating per se, the AI is way more efficient at recruiting from independent provinces than any human player. It can recruit from all provinces it has conquered, every turn. Most of those units are useless, so once you learn how to take care of chaff the number of units doesn't matter any more, and that's when you up the AI difficulty and/or use mods/maps with AI-friendly features.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

You can see the AI bonuses in the FAQ.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Endoperez, I think you misunderstood me. I was the one with MA Ulm:) Great nation against the AI, only a bit boring:D
I have turned up the indies to lvl 9 in several games which only resulted in my SC's brutally slaughtered. The last time Baelor, the fomorian king got his face kicked in by like 40(!!!) lizard warriors, so I've lost my faith in SC's unless they are wyrms or Melqarts/Adons:(.
It's just like in HOMM, every time I thought I had a reasonable army, the AI came in and raped me with a bigger one.
That aside, how do you take care of a 400/500 army chaff that the AI manged to gather in a couple of turns?

Re: is the AI cheating
 

The enemy, sounds like you are not building your SCs right. A properly built SC should be able to defeat any number of regular troops (unsupported by mages). Occassionally, there are some niche troops that can take down an SC, but its rare. Perhaps you should post some of your builds and ask for advice on how to use them instead of giving up on them entirely.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

You just need more practice. A lot more. I mean if the AI on easy is trouncing you,... I don't know what to say. Focus on the basics, don't worry about SCs or spells too much.

I suggest taking a nation like MA Abysia, good scales and something like an E9 bless with a sleeping or imprisoned pretender. They're fairly easy to play and above par units work well against what the AI likes to build.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

lol a decent army of good units should help you beat most armies the AI on easy can throw at you.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

the AI is not only cheating in the game, it's sleeping with your partner when your at work...

it also likes to raid your frige.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

theenemy,

This is a hard and complicated game. I lost every game for a few weeks. In all likelihood you are doing what I did and try to play the game like it is Civilization. That does not work.

You are probably expanding too fast, recruiting maximum crappy troops in every province, getting bankrupted by the support costs for these troops and hoping that you can bludgeon your way to success. While the capabilities of the AI are often derided, it performs at its best against this strategy (sic).

Read the guides and various national threads. The tactics and strategies may seem arcane, but they are tired and true.

You will pick it up. I did, and I'm an old man.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

How? Easy :)
If you can`t defeat large army with your own regular forces (e.g. you choos weak race), you can:
1. Strike enemy with "Fires from Afar" spell (Evoc. lvl 9, req. Fire 5 and 55 fire gems, kills 100-300 units per strike)
2. Summon large trampling monsters like Iron Dragon, Abomination, Eater of the Dead
3. Give some gems to powerful mages, in battle orders menu set AoE spells and attach mages to main squad
4. Try to curse enemy province with devastating spells to reduce supplies and start starvation

Re: is the AI cheating
 

1. Civilization? Only played that game once(CivIV), got pretty bored.

2. I think that you're right in me expanding too fast, but I do not recruit maximum crappy troops in every province. In fact, gold is almost never a problem to me. On the other hand, if I don't expand fast = AI gangrapes me.:hurt:

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Well, thanks for the advice, but by the time I reach any of those things, the AI has already feasted on my flesh:smirk:

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Yeah, I suck pretty hard don't I?:o Well, when life gives me lemons, I make lemon juice. Or if that doesn't work, I just bite right into that damn lemon:D

Re: is the AI cheating
 

OK, let`s think together. If easy AI beats you fast, so you do a mistake before playing, yes? Wrong picks or strategy
Try:
- set all rates (money, res and sup) to 300, independents and special sites - max, research - very easy
- all picks use to maximize Order, Growth and Productivity. Your pretender will be very weak, but you`ll have no problems with cash
- play against underwater nation (EA R`Lyeh) or nation with weak troops (Mictlan in any age)
- always buy PD 50+ in every province. Near enemy - 75+

Re: is the AI cheating
 

I think that the AI would just recruit units at a faster rate, but you may be right.

Spasibo!

Re: is the AI cheating
 

The standard advice is to boost independent strength and leave the rest pretty much the same. Boosting sites might make sense, the AI doesn't tend to site search well or make good use of the gems it does find.

Boosting supplies definitely helps the AI. Less of those hordes will be starving. You can work with smaller, more elite armies or make use of supply items to avoid starving.

And I would never waste anywhere near that much money on PD. Maybe in crucial chokepoints, backed up with some mage support, but not in every province. In most cases even 75 PD won't stop a 400/500 AI chaff, and if you're able to attack and expand that huge investment sits useless in your backfield.
PD and troops on your borders do discourage the AI from declaring war in the first place though, as does your Army Strength rating (graph).

I found I usually did better with more room to expand before running into an enemy. Maps with more provinces per nations helped. Gave me time to get the early research tactics in place.

Play around with different nations and tactics. Maybe what you've been using just isn't suited to your style.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Another tactic against a large army is to send a commander in with something that does a poison cloud, such as the Bladder. Protection vs arrows, or having a flyer commander will help. Send along a well defended commander who stands way in the back of the battlefield not moving. That will give lots of time for the poison to work.

But my favorite tactic is to steal his commanders from him. That does double damage. I get a commander and maybe even some nice euipment, while his armies are left leaderless so that they instantly rout in a fight.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Jeff, OP is not so skilled - so huge income and supplies will help him. Later sure, set of Summer Sword + Cauldron - and low supplies is not a problem. PD 50-75 can stop army of 100- units and prevent attack of 150- (if enemy - Easy)
Theenemy, best way for you - to boost sites and research. On level 5 Conjuration you`ll receive spell Acashic Record (astral 3, req 25 pearls), and can scan provinces for sites - AR reveals them all
Gandalf, how can I steal commander? Just bind Succubus or there is another way?

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Another starter against large armies: set supplies to min and choose EA Oni. They`re strong, special Oni general is powerful mage-priest, and troops of this nation don`t need to eat (they`re demons). So your enemy - using large armies - with game option "minimal supplies" will have permanent starvation

Re: is the AI cheating
 

PD 50 cost 1250 gold, PD 75 cost 2850.
If it can stop 100-150 troops, since he's worried about 400 to 500 it'll often just get destroyed. Or it'll sit in the backfield and never get used.
Use PD to stop the nuisance attacks. You need real forces to deal with the main armies.

As for supply, even new he can deal with supply issues better than the AI can. Boosting supply is a standard way of boosting the AI. It might help him, but it'll help the AI more.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Hmmmmm...
First - if province has high PD, AI may decide not to attack right now and concentrate army in one armored fist. You can see this army - so you can move your forces or attack with FfA. Second - large army attacking defended provinces become smaller and smaller :) I use this tactic when playing against opponents with weak troops: their armies cannot enter in my territory deeper, than 3-4 provs. And forth - my favorite protective enchantment (Mechanical Militia) work only if province defended with PD

Re: is the AI cheating
 

There are many ways to steal commanders. Various nations have units that can seduce, some can summon units that seduce. There are also spells that can be used in combat such as Charm or Hellbind Heart.

There are also spells to steal commanders from their province which makes it easier. Summon them to a province with a lab and gang up on him with units that can do Charm or Hellbind Heart spells. Wind Ride or Winged Monkeys can steal a commander away from his army.

Even if you just kill steal them and kill them it still can break up a large army into smaller lagging ones that are easier to kill off. And if you arent able to make make it useful by getting him to one of your provinces, then an interesting twist is an assassin that can do charm or hellbind. In a missed assassination, you can make it yours. Then a combat will follow in that province with the charmed commander fighting his old army buddies. If no other commanders are there you can watch the guy rout his old army for you.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

When I was new I tended to use small numbers of large armies. This doesn't really work very well. You need to keep your armies more mobile, so you can be in many places at once. A few more hints that may help you.

1. The AI tends not to send large armies against other large armies. If you have a large army in a province, they may attack you, but the main body of troops will probably go to another province.
2. One thing that helped me a lot when I was new was using PD in areas I expected to be fighting in for a while (no more than 40). You can't stop huge armies with it alone, but if you hide your real army behind the PD, it will take most of the losses for you and allow your troops to kill the enemy while sustaining few losses.
3. Try to get the riches from beneath and gift of health globals up. They're very army-friendly.
4. Bless strategies are the easiest to win with.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Nice hint, Gandalf. Thanks. My next duel will start soon - and I`ll try to surprise friends
About "Monkeys" or smth like this - as I know, it`s just a way to kill commander, not to capture. Or I`m wrong?
And last question: "Charm" works when attacking Elemental Kings, powerful undead commanders or demons?

Re: is the AI cheating
 

"Flying monkeys" and "Wind ride" are good for capture because you transport enemy commander to you - you can have mages with Charm set up and ready + the enemy commander is alone so he always gets targeted by Charm.
As far as I know "Charm" and similar spells do not work on (1) pretenders (2) mindless. Works on everything else.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

I tend to script one or two efforts into each mage to try and convert the enemy. Mages who cannot cast such spells are scripted to start out with some sort of hold spell like vine or paralyze. If I cant convert the guy in two tries then I figure its time to shift to kill mode.

Try to keep the PD down in the lab you are doing this at. It kinda sucks to see a really useful commander get taken out by over zealous local militia.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Battle order of 5 spells? Looks useful. But if commander has high MR or some protective artefacts? Maybe better to keep one close-combat specialist with good weapon and armor?


Well. But if enemy decide to attack with "distant summon" spell? Maybe better keep invisible defence squad instead of regular or PD?

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Its a gamble either way. Mostly if depends on the type of PD you get. Getting alot of long range archers would not be good, nor are flyers. A defence squad could be good since you could script it to just be a standing front-line which would only be deadly if the enemy reaches them.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

"Read the guides and various national threads. The tactics and strategies may seem arcane, but they are tired and true. "

I did, using the Man - archers & knights. I have 15 provinces, he has 15 provinces. However, 7 of his have been "unrested" above 100 continually by teams of bards, and he is still able to throw hundreds more troops at me than I can generate.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

The computer will always far outnumber you, BUT they are masters of the chaff horde, and little else. You have to figure out what will kill the most enemies in the shortest time, often that is as easy as just getting some Evo research as soon as you can, and getting some battlemages out to throw down..... well, whatever you have, even if it's just Poison Clouds and Breath of the Dragon.

In some cases, the AI style can be plain brutal. Was doing an Atlantis test the other day, and as I tried to start expanding aggressively on land, my enemy was throwing hundreds of archers at me. Aquatics have a hard enough time getting quality troops on land as it is, but Atlantis of course has no native missile troops either.

One thing I've noticed against the AI - most people swear by Sloth in MP to milk their points, but in SP a high Production scale can give you the strength of numbers that can really help against the AI hordes. Just remember, your "best" troop may not be your most cost effective troop, in a protracted battle. If you have 16 prot heavy inf for 15g, or 14 prot heavy inf for 10g for example - don't waste the money and resources on the top shelf, go middle quality and use sheer quantity to your advantage.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

I suggest a mid era game with you as rylah. No other water races, so you can choose which provinces to fight over. Use a master lich rainbow mage. Be sure you have 4e 4s 4d at least. your pretender should be asleep. Scales: 1 turmoil 3 luck and one magic. Research site finding spells. Once you get rolling the computer will just die. Humans are a different matter. I haven't won a mp game yet, but you really learn from getting your a-- kicked. I have, and I want to return the favor.:D

Re: is the AI cheating
 

The first strategy I was able to pull off successfully was a bless strat. In that vein I would suggest taking a god bless nation (such MA Arcoscephale) and taking a heavy bless.

I like a pretender (Mother of Rivers) with Water 9/Fire 9, imprisoned, magic -3, turmoil -2, productivity +1 (because the heart companions are resource expensive), and dom 6. Then make your starting commander a prophet and recruit ONLY heart companions. Script your commander to divine bless and tear up indies. (Indies should be at 6 or so).

This strategy works in two ways. First, you should be conquering 1+ provinces per turn (you can spend surplus money on mercenaries to keep expanding, just overbid by a small amount to block the AI). Second, anytime the AI looks like it is going to attack you move your entire holy army up and attack the AI. Your blessed units can take almost any mundane attacks (they have a little trouble with tramplers) so an army of 50 heart companions can easily take 200 AI chaff.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Hah my strategy is if they swarm you swarm them right back and be LA Ermor. The Ai has a very hard time beating you then.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

course that isnt really a strategy.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

So, that MEANS that the AI is cheating or what? Because, I don't see any other reason here.
In one SP game, I set up all the players(except myself) with ALL NEGATIVE SCALES, sucky dominion and sucky pretender. Then I switched to AI players in-game. Well guess what, the AI recruited HORDES of cheap troops each turn while I struggled to keep my small armies from starving. Keep in mind though, that when u switch from human player to AI, it goes to normal. Not hard, not super-hard, not super-duper-yippie-kiyay hard, just NORMAL. As far as I know, the AI doesn't get any bonuses on NORMAL difficulty level.
Another thing that makes the AI harder is that all the "ultra-mega-uber-kill-everything-in-site-spells" aren't available until the higher mag. lvl's. And if you turn the magic research to easy in options, the AI only get's tougher for some reason unknown to me. So, if I turn down the mag. research... the AI b****slaps me to hell, if I don't turn down the mag research... well, the AI b****slaps me to hell too.
I usually don't get easily frustrated with games. I play because it's fun, not because I wan't to win. But getting raped by the AI again and again and again is starting to feel kinda old now. Every time I see the banners of my AI enemies in a SP game, it already feels like I'm about to loose.

END OF RANT

But perhaps it is only my poor troop placement skill. I have trouble deciding what kind of troop is better placed where.

Oh, and isn't unrest 100 or over = not able to recruit troops?

They really should include SP diplomacy in this game. Would make things SOOOO much easier.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

The AI is quite willing to let its hordes starve. *shrug* Depending on what you're playing, it's likely that you shouldn't be very often.

In my experience, they're also often quite willing to remain at peace with you for many years if you maintain strength on the frontier and you refrain from attacks on them -- and meeting engagements in what was independent territory (when you gave the movement orders) don't count. If you're not ready for multiple wars on multiple fronts, don't start them.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

No, the AI on normal gets no bonus to gold or anything else. It can cheat in the sense that it can micro more than a human ever could, but on normal you really, /really/ shouldn't be having so much trouble.

I suggest you detail exactly what pretender, magic, scales and nation you're using and what you're doing in the first 10 or so turns. Because the only explanation is that you're making a series of fairly major errors, or you're fighting like 4 AIs at once.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Hmm, I play on difficult setting and I have a similar problem. however only with certain nations.
If Niefel is in the game it usually goes like this. I expand until I border Niefel. Than I remember the previos game "OMG it's Niefel I have to destroy them", so I attack them early use lots of spies if I can and even take some of their territories.
But they simply don't care their armies keep growing as does their land and sooner or later they return with a really huge army (100 of the smaller giants + a lot of indies). Even if I can defend against that army I takes only a few turns and they are back with an even larger force and other AI nations invade me, too.
So I start another game (again with niefel because I must find a way to defeat them) and exactly the same thing happens.
The same happens to a lesser extent with some other nations (vanheim for instance but that seems to be more random).

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Illuminated one,

Make sure you start your games in a corner of the map. That will reduce the potential enemies significently. With less adjoining pressure from enemies, you will be able to pickup the game easier.

If you continue to have troubles, start your game on the standard maps that come with the game. Then post a save game and you will find many helpful advisors.

And don't get discouraged. This is a very hard game. I've been playing computer games since 1980 and this is the only game that I ever encounteed that kicked my butt for a month before I finally beat it. That's a big part of its attraction.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

How is Arco a good Bless nation?

Re: is the AI cheating
 

@Edratman

Yeah, I did that on my first game, created a random map via generator and started it again and again until I got the corner.
But it made the game boring somehow only fighting one enemy and I guess in MP I can't hope for the nice spot, too.
I'll just stick to trying to learn from being defeated. :)


By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Personally, I would never try to fight more than one AI at a time unless I was one of the top two or three nations. If you're having trouble beating them because you're fighting 2 or 3 AIs simultaneously by the start of the second or third year, you probably should be losing. Unless you're using a strong bless on a good chassis, you won't be able to maintain enough armies of size to hold them back really early in the game.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

If you really want your strategies dissected and discussed, joining the IRC channel for Dominion on GameSurge will do it. Plenty of experts hang out there who are more than willing to lay out the pros and cons of any strategy or tactic.

On the other hand its kindof like asking for cheat codes or reading the end of a book first. I much preferred stumbling thru things on my own.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

The AI probably let its armies starve. It does that. It probably wasn't buying many expensive leaders (mages, for instance), which let it waste more money on troops.

It would be interesting to know your race design and game settings.


Easy research is a boost to the AI. AI players don't spend as many resources on research as humans generally do, and making research easier lets them get the critical mid-level spells quicker.

Quick rules of thumb:
Archers in the midfield, or slingers a little ahead of that.

Either way, some infantry just in front of them on hold and attack orders is a good idea.

Your main attacking units shoud be not quite at the front. Occupying the very front of the field should be a few small units of throwaway chaff (indy archers are good), who will take the brunt of the enemy charge.

If you have good cavalry (or very fast units of some sort), put them at the side of the field with orders of hold and attack rearmost/archers.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it'll often suffice against an AI.

Yes for humans, probably yes for AI.

Maybe.

For a training game:
Map: Silent Seas
1 normal or easy AI - don't bother to set up their pretender as the AI can make really bad design decisions all by itself. Feel free to choose their race.
Money/Resource/Supply: all 100. Changing any of these is unlikely to help you more than the AI.
Research: Normal or maybe difficult.
Strength of independents: 9 - don't try to take any indy provinces until you have a large army. The AI won't be as sensible, and you'll have an advantage in the early game because they'll be losing troops hand over fist.
1 starting province - it's best to start the AI off as small as possible.


Generally, the more AIs in a game the more challenging it is. Keeping games simple until you can handle armies well is a good idea.

PM me if you think of anything you'd like to ask.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Independents = 9 is the most sensible learning advice available. It is the only game that will reliably hamper the AI more than you.

I found the game easier to learn with Production-3 in my scales. The reason being, until you have the knowledge of what units are best, and what to build when - you need the capacity to meet a horde with a horde, if nothing else.


Also, I struggled to really get a good grip on the game, until I made a nice random map with 61 provinces, and no water. I generated a few until I got one I liked, and I marked ALL territories as "no start", except one near each corner.

A map like this, with 3 opponents, reduces the chances of you getting swamped, and makes turns resolve REALLY fast, so you aren't staring at the screen praying you're still in the game. ;)

Then I beat my head against those maps for a couple of weeks until I started reliably winning with just about every nation that I tried.

Then I bumped up the difficulty 1 notch, and cried again. ;)

I <3 Dominions. :happy:

Re: is the AI cheating
 

EA tends to feature stronger national mages and also defaults to a somewhat higher magical site frequency (and thus, higher gem income).

Re: is the AI cheating
 

the AI has been much changed since the demo was created

Re: is the AI cheating
 

Agreed. One should also eyeball the independent types. Feudal provinces (heavy infantry, knights and archers) are pretty nasty if you lack shields or lance-absorbers (e.g. Dispossessed Spirits). Lizardmen provinces should be avoided if you're relying on an SC pretender. Barbarians are slightly ugly in melee, but fare poorly under concentrated arrow fire.

Prod-3 might depend on the nation, of course. Sometimes it's gold that's the bottleneck.

The AI tends not to overbid for mercenaries, at least on low difficulty levels, so bidding 1+base rate works. Some of the mercenary companies are good for capabilities you might not have (like heavy cavalry, amphibious infantry, or other magical paths) and others may be more useful as cannon fodder. Good for early expansion.

Along with this, don't overspend on temples early. Unless you started near a very happy blood-sacrificer, you shouldn't be in danger of dominion death early on, and the gold would be better spent on mages or troops.

Re: is the AI cheating
 

I never played the demo, but my armies are definitely being defeated by combat sorcery in my game. I am MA Ashdod, and it is primarily LA Atlantis that has deployed a ton of mages. That seems to be the personality of the faction though, since I haven't faced any other neighbors who are equally aggressive in their use of magic...