a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

have the ai forge and equip a fair deal of the anti-sc ranged weapons; ensuring that there are often one or more such units in larger armies. (generally a scout or a some mage with a +prec spell).
Choice items are: bow of botulf, vision's foe, fire bola, vine bow, and maybe an ethereal xbow.

Having guys with those items set to fire large monsters can really mess up alot of scs and thugs quite badly.

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

You provide only a first step in a long run how to improve it! The problem is to code your idea which is not simple at all...

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

Im not sure if he meant it as something for the developers to change in the game (unlikely to happen) or a suggestion to the community for a modded action (more likely to happen)

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

You could always forge those weapons yourself and send it to the AI:s you're fighting, no idea if it would use it though.

If you're suggesting the developers change the AI code it's not going to happen... more important AI code such as AI opponents sending pretenders to the arena death match or mages wearing heavy plate remain unfixed.
If you're suggesting map makers provide starting AI opponents these type of units they will most likely not survive long enough to meet the SCs. My experience has been placing one AI opponent far away with its own SCs at the start of the game works best for fighting a human with SCs later.

I can't see anyone willing to waste gems on the random chance the AI will equip a useful commander. Even if these are sent to the AI opponents they are placed almost completely randomly on commanders/mages.
My suggestion to Illwinter: Allow the AI code to be made available to the community or beta testers which can examine/test/improve the code for AI opponents. I'm sure Gandalf will be more than happy to help.... banning pretenders from the arena death match should be easy since those units have the pretender flag.

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

i think Kref already made a major step solving the problem:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=46856

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

The code is more or less visible already, in the debug logs or using the --comptrn switch to view AI turn files. Some suggestions based on that have been turned in and discussed.

As far as pretenders to arena, thats not as bad as its usually painted. The AI does actually try to recognize SCs, Rainbows, and Leader pretenders. Its treats them each accordingly. Sending SC's to war and to arenas actually is the games logical action. Of course, everything has its pros and cons. Giving the game its widest range of tactics gives it the ability to sometimes surprise players. But it also tends toward stupidity so giving the AI preset gods and settings can insure that the AI is in the upper range (SemiRand program can do that)

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

An improved AI might even be possible without any help from Illwinter. I'm currently trying to decode the .2h and .trn file formats. I can read most of the data in the .2h files already without needing the official client. If I succeed in also reading .trn files it should be possible to create an AI as an external program that generates a .2h file given any .trn file.
Using such an AI would require the player to set up a multiplayer game and mark also the AI companies as "human", but instead of doing the turns them self let them be played by the AI program.
Don't count on any results too soon though. Decoding the .2h files was doable, decoding the format of the .trn files will be notable harder. After that is done the massive effort of actually writing a reasonable AI will start.

On this note: if anyone knows the algorithm for computing the checksum at the end of the .2h/.trn files I'd be very grateful.

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

The problem with decoding the checksum at the end might be that it would make it easier to cheat undetected. I've never experienced it myself but I've read about people that changed their h2 files to give them self more gems in Dominions 2. This has presumably been fixed, but still.

Are you sure it generates a checksum if you turn off cheat detection by the way?

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

Dominions3 doesn't seem to check the checksum of .2h files, only of .trn files. Turning cheat detection off makes no difference for the checksum.

You can change the number of gems or gold you have in your .2h file, than load it with the normal client and you'll be able to use those gems / gold. It'll even fix the checksum for you once you click end turn. However this will be detected and all players will get "Message from host, player x has unexpected wealth, this could be caused by cheating". I guess you won't get this message if you turn cheat detection off (but I also see no sane reason to turn it off except when you're debugging something).

Re: a simple, way to make the ai much stronger vs scs
 

The massive overall damage to all AI opponents is painful and extensive during the arena death matches. Any unit with the pretender flag should not be allowed to attend arena death matches... period. Stopping pretenders from attending the arena death match would obviously have no effect on other SCs and would UNQUESTIONABLY provide smarter AI opponents.

Such an improvement would be of great value. I've seen improvements for improving battlefield decisions of mages, but I can't even remember the last time the AI opponents themselves were improved.