Re: Does the AI cheat?
From my perspective it's not a matter of optimising, squeaking out a more efficient starting build or making sure that every gem or piece of gold counts. It's more that the AI just throws away its troops, mages,.. resources,... without the slightest consideration of what it's up against.
I'm far from an efficient player; I like to build nice thematic armies of stuff - I use units which I know aren't superb, because I feel that armies of nation A should be made up primarily of archer B and infantry C, with only small elite groups of D (those Ds are crazy powerful). I play for fun, not to win in the quickest time by the largest amount.
And yet again and again I've mangled impossible AI opponents and almost every time there's been little real threat. I'll be honest and say I haven't checked out their scales, but I've played a lot of SP on a variety of maps with a variety of nations and setups (although nothing /really/ huge because I don't have the time or patience).
Maybe I've just been very (un)lucky and the AI have picked terrible scales time after time. But looking at the score graphs they're almost always ahead of me in gem income, research,... often gold. They just tend to squander it all in battles they have no hope of winning.
Actually there is one part of the Dom3 AI which I would consider ahead of the curve; it is able to handle mod nations. Some of the ones with unusual gameplay mechanics fox it, but generally the AI does ok with them. This, I suppose, is because it doesn't rely on AI scripting tailored to individual nations (for the most part).
On the subject of the huge number of variables and how the AI handles them: The AI is actually pretty poor at most of the 'extra' things that Dom3 has over other games. Summoning, creating and assigning magic items, making use of the massive variety of troops,.. all of these things the AI does, but seemingly at random and without any intelligent strategy.
I'm willing to bet the AI would actually beat me on a tiny map. But it wouldn't make for a very interesting game.
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