House Rules against the AI

[Knai]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

I think this is something that plays into the RPGers. The strategists might have quick pat answers for evil that the RPGers can role play out of

Strategists and RPGers are mutually exclusive categories now? That's new.

Also, it isn't RPGers. It's roleplayers.

[Gandalf Parker]

No I dont consider them exclusive. But they do represent different takes on the game, and SOMETIMES at odds.

And I did mean RPGers. I was referring mostly to the game styles. As in "people who play RPGs". If anything I guess that Strategists was wrong since "people who play strategy wargames" would best be referred to as Grognards but I wasnt sure how many here would get the reference. Googling RPGer or Grognard gives results which match what I had in mind.

I guess for your sake if I was answering officially it might have been best to say "This is something that plays into the RPGer in us. The Grognard in us might come up with a pat answer for evil that our RPGer can role play out of."

[Rookierookie]

Very large map
- Custom AI pretenders
- Indie strength 9
- Very difficult research
- Resource: 100 EA, 150 MA, 200 LA
- Supply 300
- Recruit exactly 1 of each kind of mage per province

The AI may not know how to deal with SCs or PDs, but given enough time to develop they will have multiple 500+ armies and 10+ mages that eat the average well-geared SCs. (Note to self: never send SCs against Ri-yeh)

[krpeters]

So what strategy do you employ against an AI horde with 500+ troops and 10+ mages?

[Doo]

Burden of Time

[Knai]

Originally Posted by krpeters

So what strategy do you employ against an AI horde with 500+ troops and 10+ mages?

Remote assassination spells are your friend here. Mind Hunt, Earth Attack, so on and so forth. Plus, you can just field much smaller armies backed by far fewer mages, and actually spend gems intelligently to win the fights effortlessly. Army of Gold, Earthquake, Earthquake, win for instance.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by krpeters

So what strategy do you employ against an AI horde with 500+ troops and 10+ mages?

Ah, but what about following the rules from the OP?:

Originally Posted by Makinus

3. Only 1 researcher per lab.
4. Do not use battle spells that need gems.
5. Do not use global spells (You are free to Dispel the ones the AI casts).

So far, we only discussed 1/lab.

Originally Posted by Doo

Burden of Time

What about with no Globals?

Originally Posted by Knai

Plus, you can just field much smaller armies backed by far fewer mages, and actually spend gems intelligently to win the fights effortlessly. Army of Gold, Earthquake, Earthquake, win for instance.

What about no battle gems?

[Knai]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

What about no battle gems?

There are plenty of spells that are pretty nasty without battle gems. Smaller buffs, stuff like blade wind, so on and so forth. Plus, against the AI you can have most every magic path, and between assassination spells and Flames From The Sky armies are fragile, fragile things.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by krpeters

So what strategy do you employ against an AI horde with 500+ troops and 10+ mages?

The last time I had to fight AI armies of such size, I would maybe throw a flames from the sky in that direction, then drop a mage SC in on them who can stand in melee while spamming aoe spells.

If you don't have access to such things, then you'll need to deploy an army that can hold the AI army down while you use some BE/battlefield wide spells to bring them down. I use the word army loosely and it doesn't need to resemble an army at all. But some useful spells could include blood rain, wailing winds, fire storm, rain of stones, earthquake, soul drain... the list goes on. And of course things like skellyspam are very handy to keep the opposing army occupied while you slowly chew through them.

[Rookierookie]

By the way, how does the AI use its gold? I was wondering if increasing the income would help the AI, since I rarely if ever feel in need of money in SP.