Single player with #allies

Maerlande · #1 September 24th, 2009, 06:41 PM

Hi folks,

I've been trying different things to improve my single player game. I use RanDom to at least semi-random the starting gods and choose the races. Recently I've been trying out the #allies command. I've been editing the semi-random maps and adding the #allies command just before the listing of gods and starts. However, it's not giving a great result. I've had one case where I tried putting six AI's all allied against me hoping for a tougher game, but I saw that Ctis and Pan started fighting. I'm wondering if they can fight each other if there is a fight over a neutral starting a war.

It almost seems I get the most challenging game when I choose 2 tough races and some weak ones and hopefully one of the tough gets strong enough to be a challenge.

Any suggestions on making a tougher single player game?

Regards,
Maerlande

rdonj · #2 September 24th, 2009, 07:46 PM

Use map commands to give the AIs pre-defined empires? You can start them with extra provinces, forts, temples, labs, magic sites, even armies. You should be able to make a quite strong AI opponent with a little work.

pyg · #3 September 24th, 2009, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maerlande

I've had one case where I tried putting six AI's all allied against me hoping for a tougher game, but I saw that Ctis and Pan started fighting. I'm wondering if they can fight each other if there is a fight over a neutral starting a war.

Huh, sounds like something is not right. I've never had allied AIs fight each other (or I've never observed it anyway). Are you sure you did it right and put the right nations into the game (a 6 AI team has 15? #allies commands) I know it's simple, but double check. 6 on 1 sounds super tough to me. What rdonj says works too but is a bit more work.

Maerlande · #4 September 24th, 2009, 09:16 PM

Thanks guys,

I misunderstood a few things using #allies.

Here's what I added literally.

#allies 10 1 17 20 24 23

Of course, I did not realize that command isn't the correct syntax. So basically I would need to do the following if I understand pyg correctly.

#allies 10 1
#allies 10 17
#allies 10 20
and so on.

Rdonj,

This is my first experiment with map commands and obviously I got it wrong. But, semi-random does do a pretty good job creating the custom gods with gear and starting armies. It doesn't give extra provinces. The only disappointment with editing the map directly is you lose some of the surprise. But still, it's manageable.

Cheers

pyg · #5 September 24th, 2009, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maerlande

#allies 10 1
#allies 10 17
#allies 10 20

adding

#allies 1 17
#allies 17 20
#allies 1 20

... gets you [EA] Ermor, C'tis, Niefelheim, and Hinnom all on a team. Good luck, you are about to get creamed.

Maerlande · #6 September 24th, 2009, 10:00 PM

Heh. Yeah, pyg. I'll probably just make them teams of 2. Since I wasn't doing it right at all before.

I agree Gandalf. I've been making great use of RanDom and SemiRandom. However, I find I prefer to semi randomize great maps (like parganos) rather than the randoms. I just can't seem to get satisfying random maps. Now I need to make my own god files. I've just started learning the map commands.

rdonj · #7 September 24th, 2009, 10:54 PM

Ah. I've never tried using the #allies command, so I didn't really have a response for that. So I made a suggestion for another way to make the AI harder. In any case, you know what to do once you've beaten 6 allied AIs now

Gandalf Parker · #8 September 24th, 2009, 09:22 PM

Im glad you ironed that out.
What I was going to mention, in case you see it later, is that the ally command keeps AIs from ATTACKING AIs. However you still might see some combats. Such as, when both AIs think they are attacking independents but one takes it first and the other army walks in on them.

Glad to see you are enjoying SemiRand. I think its a fantastic program.

NTJedi · #9 September 28th, 2009, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maerlande

I've had one case where I tried putting six AI's all allied against me hoping for a tougher game, but I saw that Ctis and Pan started fighting. I'm wondering if they can fight each other if there is a fight over a neutral starting a war.

It almost seems I get the most challenging game when I choose 2 tough races and some weak ones and hopefully one of the tough gets strong enough to be a challenge.

Any suggestions on making a tougher single player game?

Regards,
Maerlande

Even with the allies command it's still possible for the AI's to end up fighting. This is a result from the arena death match where pretenders will die to another AI opponent. As a result it becomes a one_way battle where the AI opponent who lost his pretender attacks the other AI who never fights to regain provinces. This is especially painful when the super AI you created is the one getting attacked and doesn't fight back.... at least until his pretender is killed by the allied AI opponent.

For AI opponents I strongly recommend giving them a growth scale of +3 and having the game setting supplies at 300. Any opponents with a death scale will gradually become weaker.

When you're really ready for a challenge provide a distant AI opponent with good scales (order, luck, magic), give him some SC's at the capital and a few extra provinces with immobile mages inside a fort with a lab.

Maerlande · #10 September 29th, 2009, 11:05 AM

That makes sense about the Arena. I hadn't thought of that. And given that the AI always joins arena fights, it's going to break the allies eventually.

I'm currently working to learn map commands. So far, I've been using just the automatic pretenders created by Semi Random which does put good scales and equipment on the pretenders. However, it doesn't give extra provinces or troops. I've read some of the older comments about avoiding death scales for AI's. I've used the supplies trick as well. It doesn't seem as critical using better independents. They don't make the giant armies of crap.