Originally posted by apoger:
In my opinion:
The computer AI does not understand the concept of building a supercombatant, so I wouldn't give it one.
It can't
build one, but it can shurely use a combat pretender. Seems to depend on nation/pretender/magic paths, though. I have seen a Nifelson (standard Jotunheim) and a Golden Naga (New Era Pangea) running around the map killing indies early. Than, on the other hand, it tends to put dragons into the lab, maybe because of the high research (path lvl 9)
The computer AI does not understand the concept of focusing towards an efficient or concentrated goal. So I would suggest avoiding pretenders that would take advantage of stuff the computer will ignore.
But what does the Ai take advantage of, and what not?
It does not use rainbow pretenders for site searching, as far as I know, but it may use the same mage for casting the searching spells if it is in a lab. And most likely it is there, as the high research value tells the AI to use the mage as researcher.
This is something only the developers can tell for shure methinks.
Bless effects for example. It's pointless to give a pretender massive magic for blessings, only to have the computer make only a handful of sacred troops.
But you can only make a handful of sacred troops each turn
If 30% of Jotunheims army are Woodsmen -obviously the AI likes light units anyway-, is this sufficient to justify some blessing effect that makes them actually useful (only I can think of is nature-9, by the way, which doesn't fit that well with the main theme, and may endanger the priests)
The only way to help the computer with consistency is to force it to pump up it's economy.
That's an too easy solution, and doesn't do the AI justice. I'm looking for something a little bit more elaborate. And I'm pretty shure it will work (better), as it did in DOM1.
I suggest (for all nations);
A Wyrm Pretender with no magic. It's hard to misuse this, it's big and eats things.
And it's incredibly boring and dumb. More as the AI necessarily is anyhow.
I think some Ai nations could make use of bless effects (even only if it's for the commanders only), some use combat pretenders (spellcasters) very well, and the research boost from rainbow pretenders shouldn't be underestimated.
(The AI normally gets pretends with multiple times the normal amount of magic picks, remember)
A fortified city, since the computer almost never builds forts ..
Really hope this gets fixed in the patch. Will put some forts on the map to conquer until then.
That's my best advice for trying to help the AI considering the limitations of it's current programming. Hope it helps.
I think the AI deserves a little bit more credit.
And I'm not looking for an easy solution, but custom-tailored AI races that give the maximum amount of enjoyment for the player. Something that IMHO your suggested production-maxed, all-wyrm races wouldn't be able to accomplish.
In this sense, your posting wasn't all that helpful, sadly.
A.