Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker
Another point that Im not sure has been mentioned or not, is that we should note that we are talking about Vanilla AI. The average AI that comes with any game only has to be good enough to cover the demo, the tutorial, and (if you re lucky) the early learning phase of the game. Thats why I feel Dom3 exceeds the average. I think Dom3 beats that (unless of course you run to the forum for a list of ways to beat the AI).
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I disagree with this sentiment. The average AI that comes with any game only *is* good enough to cover demo, tutorial, and early learning phases. But they *should* be good enough to provide a challenge on the highest difficulties. I have a problem beyond that though where I want AIs to not do that in the dumbest way possible. For example, I can't be the only one who's played age of empires 3 and been annoyed with the way the AI will build nothing but cannons at the highest level. I've had to kill armies of literally 20+ cannons in some games... it's really stupid and doesn't give me anything like the experience I'm playing to have. Yes, it makes the AI hard, but the way the AI plays should also be fun and engaging. I have the same problem with pretty much all RTS games, really :/ The AIs get hard by playing in un-fun ways. Anyway, rambling aside, the AI should be hard enough to make you have to work for victory, at least on the hardest settings.
I do think that dominions succeeds at AI beyond what most games do, in that the AI can still be challenging under the right conditions. But a lot more could be done to make the AI more challenging to play against than current mods do. The problem is that I really can't see an easy way to mod a universal "fix" to make the AI better. The best fixes would all require you to make a new mod for every game you play. Unless we start developing mod nations for the sole purpose of being powerful AI combatants (which is not entirely the case at this point).