I'm going to be doing a few quotes here...
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Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker
Dom3 AI is a pretty good example. Its total randomness was a cheap answer to providing maximum replayability. It tries to avoid predictability and MAYBE provide some surprises altho usually it amounts to stupidity. Even with the total aggregate of every AI boost we have available to us, the best I can get is early and mid-game playability. Hoping for possibly a quick win since the AI can never handle a real late-game fight unless its GM'd. The depth of the game we love works against us in hoping for an AI to handle it.
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I am pretty fond of the dom3 AI. It handles early game and midgame at least to a reasonable extent, even if it stands no chance in late game. So I actually agree with you there. The way the AI works is good for making it challenging early on... if only the AI knew how to use powerful units.
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if armies of 20 cannons are killing you in AoE3 than you're doing something very wrong :P speaking of AoE3, the AI there is pretty good compared to other AIs. it's alright in medium difficulty(alright as in what medium should be) and starts to get a bit tough on hard, and pretty tough on very hard. still, it's the AI so there are obviously ways to exploit it and destroy him, such as using mass Hussars or whatever those sword armed light cavalries are called, to destroy cannon heavy armies with no pike protection. but still, compared to other games in general and specifically RTS games, Microsoft actually did something right in AoE3, something I can't say about most of their other programs.
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No, I was killing them :P I just hated it because it was stupid. 20 cannons vs massed cavalry doesn't make for very fun gameplay. Also I prefer long games, so that sort of thing happens to me a lot :P. I do agree that AoE 3 had a pretty effective AI, I just wish that it could be effective without resorting to silliness like that. I'd like to see the AI make use of more different types of units and create real armies to attack you with.
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the main problem is that Dominions is so complex and with such a variety of both units and spells, that no AI can actually handle it properly. even those super genius chess AIs won't do well in Dominions due to the sheer amount of options and variables upon which said options are evaluated on. in chess you have a lot less moves, and the success/failure of said move is a lot easier to calculate. in Dominions there are a ton more options, and the results said actions lead to(mainly on the strategic map but also during battles) are very hard if not outright impossible to predict.
with that being said, there are still a lot of things that *can* be improved with Dominions' AI, such as combat scripting(or well, lack of, hence automatic behavior), actually casting/dispelling globals, actually using rituals, site search, not stack a ton of useless PD, etc.
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There's a really, really easy way to make the AI 100x more effective. Take options away from it. The problem is just that you'd have to have either a different mod for every nation you want to play, or you'd have to create a mod nation/nations for the sole purpose of having a challenge in SP. The AI will never be intelligent, so the best way around that for us is to remove potential idiocy.
I'm always surprised though when I hear people say that the AI doesn't cast spells/globals etc, because I've had them do that plenty of times with me. I've even had global slot battles with the AI before. I once had to fight an AI marignon army in SP that summoned summer lions and fire snakes, and spammed prison of fire at me. Sometimes the AI can be surprisingly effective.
The Conway - I know Amos has some pretty unbalanced mods out there... I'd say I've played about half of them! But if I wanted a truly effective AI, I'd go a bit more in the direction of warhammer chaos. A lot of Amos' nations have weak national units and... weird commanders, for one thing. One of the most important things to do is ensure that the AI has effective troops and commanders available to it. Kind of like the hellgate mod, but even more so
