House Rules against the AI

Makinus · #1 August 10th, 2011, 08:18 AM

As the title says, what are your house rules against the AI for a more fun play? I´ll post mine and the reason for each:

- Use Difficult AI - Normal AI is too weak to be a creadible threat.

- always pick Drain 3 - AI does not research at the rate of a human player and normally gets behind on the research curve very fast, so picking Drain 3 you give it a chance to at least keep up.

- do not blood hunt - The AI does not know how to build a blood economy effectively, so you should not also... using blood slaves from sites/other sources is fine - particularly challenging with blood oriented factions.

- only attack the AI if attacked first - more for roleplay reasons, but also limits your expansion.

- do not use battle enchantments that need gems - The AI rarely gives gems to its commanders and rarely uses gem-dependend battle spells, so the player should not too - makes you use more the low-level gemless spells at the end gam.

- research all fields at the same rate - the AI does not know good research strategies and it is too easy to defeat them by rushing to high spells in one or 2 researh schools early.

I find that using these "house rules" i make the single player experience both more challenginc and more fun... so share yours....

Gandalf Parker · #2 August 10th, 2011, 10:31 AM

There was a previous thread like this with excellent info.
Is there a reason for not resurrecting it?

Makinus · #3 August 10th, 2011, 12:35 PM

seriously?

damn, and i was part of that thread too!

Blame it on my poor memory....

Gandalf Parker · #4 August 10th, 2011, 02:40 PM

You started the other one to I think

edited:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44783

llamabeast · #5 August 11th, 2011, 06:52 AM

Recently I was asked to write a proposal at work. Writing a proposal is a lot of work - probably the best part of a week full time, and takes a lot of thought. It was to do a piece of work we had been thinking about for a while, but the client was finally ready to consider moving ahead.

I spent a day or so working on the proposal, and then had the thought that I should check what other proposals we'd sent to the client in the last year (we keep a folder for each client with all documents they've been sent) - just so as to seem on the ball.

Anyway, what did I find there, but another proposal, dated six months ago - for the same piece of work, for the same client, BY ME. I had literally written this big, difficult document six months ago. The client had delayed, and now six months later I had completely forgotten that I had written it before. Scary!!

Luckily it meant that I could just change the date on the old proposal and reissue it, so I was saved a week's work.

Gandalf Parker · #6 August 11th, 2011, 07:56 AM

Ever been impressed by your own coding? Thats what I find funny. Being confused by it I can understand, but to see old code and be impressed by it has got to be me showing my age.

SsSam · #7 August 11th, 2011, 02:23 PM

oh, GP, yes have I been there. I just started saving myself time and write easy stuff with a bit of documentation for the clever parts.

JonBrave · #8 August 14th, 2011, 07:19 AM

When I was a total newb (as opposed to a partial one now), the suggested House Rule I read said "no more than one researcher per Lab built". That was hard! Then someone told me to ignore that bit, and it got easier!

@Makinus
Not using any battle gems seems a bit limiting from the fun POV! And I do see the AI using gems, at least sometimes.

Doo · #9 August 17th, 2011, 05:46 PM

Make a rule that all your provinces MUST have a PD of 20 or 30, purchased on the first turn of ownership....

Yes, this PD will stop small ai armies but it won't stop anything decent a gold boosted ai can amass and its very expensive for the human player.

Of course not all PD is alike....