Any AI mods to make it more challenging?

[ioticus]

Are there any AI mods to make it more challenging without cheating? I'm especially interested in fixing the AIs tendency to build too many low level units instead of the more powerful ones. Thanks in advance.

[Ironhawk]

Play MP?

Sorry, I couldnt resist :}

[Alneyan]

PDF made a mod increasing the cost of poor units *quite* a lot (999 resources actually), to prevent the AI from building some of the weakest troops. The thread in question is available here .

There are also special maps that may fit the bill; for example, Orania Nasty Edition or Gandalf's random maps (Poke in the Eye and Random Opponents). Or perhaps even thrown in a few alliances between the AIs for added fun. Or all of the above.

[NTJedi]

Would be nice to see a new MOD for one or more nations which made them extremely strong so any map can be used to provide a great game.

Here's some ideas for making a powerful nation for AI opponent:
1) All commanders do not eat since the AI doesn't know how to handle starving units. Ideally starving should be disabled for AI opponents since they don't know how to handle a starving army.

2) Nation starts with a Lore Master for helping with research... since AI opponents don't know how to use provinces with libraries.

3) All commanders have a minimum 50 Life, 20 Magic resist, 15 for all other stats.

4) Each commander brings in one type of gem per turn.

5) Most mages have nature magic LvL2 or better which will also help prevent units from starving. Priests Holy and/or Unholy.

I'm sure I've missed some other ideas too

[PDF]

Alneyan said:
PDF made a mod increasing the cost of poor units *quite* a lot (999 resources actually), to prevent the AI from building some of the weakest troops. The thread in question is available here .

There are also special maps that may fit the bill; for example, Orania Nasty Edition or Gandalf's random maps (Poke in the Eye and Random Opponents). Or perhaps even thrown in a few alliances between the AIs for added fun. Or all of the above.

Alneyan,
Thanks for the ad BTW did you test it and what do you think ?
AS it is this mod makes the weakest units unbuildable, so it's not perfect but I didn't see this as a real problem when playing... As long as AI build algorithm cannot be changed I don't see any other elegant way to fix the problem.
Reading NTJedi's post gave me an idea however for the mod : adding a "supply bonus" to basic commanders. Mod will have to be broken down by nation to *not* give the bonus to player(s), but I think it'll fit the bill about starving.

[Alneyan]

No worries about the ad; please send the scroll of "Bind Succubus" to the usual address. I am looking forward to making business again with you in the future.

I didn't get much of a chance to try your mod yet; I heard about it at the Net4War forums a couple of days ago, and have a hard enough time with the AIs for now. (Though most of my problems are with certain nations, where I cannot expand quickly with Independents 9)

Speaking of which, what kind of settings can be used to help the AI? Wouldn't powerful Independents hinder the AI more than the player? In my Arcoscephale SP game (Indies 9), I have about three times as many provinces as the biggest AI player, and I have lost a few battles due to my silliness. Do hard and very hard research settings help the AI, or cripple it?

[PDF]

Alneyan,
From my not-so-large experience and readings, that's what I suppose about AI behavior :
Low Indy strength results eventually in AI demise, because the AI expands too quickly and send small armies all over the map, that pose no threat to player. OTOH a very high Indy strength makes it difficult for the AI to expand initially, so indy 5-7 is the best AI ally !

AI sucks with magic overall, so I feel that hard research makes things harder for player and not that much for an AI that will never properly use Rituals, Communions or gem-consuming "heavy" battlefield spells. The same goes for site freq - human players can properly manage their income more than an AI.
Another obvious AI helper is the difficult settings that give them more design points and income - unfortunately the AI overloads more than not its pretender and never take great scales, nor does it build much castles (surely 'cause it doesnt spare money to do so..).

My 0.02 € cents

[Gandalf Parker]

How about a mod-on-the-fly?
It wouldnt be much more work to write the individual nations boosts for AI into a program. Let the user select who he wants AI'd and writeout the mod. That way the other nations are left unaffected and larger boosts can be incorporated. Heck its all text files, it could even be done with inster files being copied together overwriting the mod and done with a bat file.

It might be a fun add to the Mohansen site (we really need to come up with a name for that). Perl, Java, just about anything altho I dislike the "you must load this to run this" stuff. I could probably do a basic program and compile it.

[Alneyan]

Gandalf, do you mean having a program make the appropriate mod given the setup of the game?

I didn't thought of going with average Independents; it should work out quite nicely however, although it looks like the AI can handle its own in sheer expansion. In yet another game with Arcoscephale, Independents 9, some of the best AIs are doing quite well in Orania Nasty Edition, even if I am using a SC (Virtue) for training this time. But then, all nations start up being much tougher than on a usual map, so.

I was wondering if making Pretenders dedicated for the AI would help or not. A benevolent user would create a few series of Pretender files for the AI, featuring reasonable designs, and possibly even beefed up Pretenders. Having a few such files for every nation may help the AI, while still allowing for randomness; that is, as long as the crafty player does not look at the AI Pretenders in advance. Thoughts?

[Gandalf Parker]

You can check out some of my stuff altho it uses map commands instead of mod commands. www.dom2minions.com