Re: Power Beyond Comprehension aka "My power is still raising!" newbie game - Running
Interestingly Calahan gives some good reasons NOT to go AI. Quoted below the next paragraph.
However, people SHOULD play the game out unless they have real life reasons not to. To walk away from a game in which you still have a part to play is pathetic. I KNOW there are players here who will continue to play as long as they have a chance of winning and drop out as soon as things go sour, despite their empire being strong enough to influence the game.
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Mr Calahan...below.
There are several problems with natons turning AI, and why staling is the preferred option (or at least my preferred option), but for now I'll limit my reply to just the two main ones IMO.
1 - Turning AI is permanent. So while a sub can be found for a staling nation even after several stales, once a nation is set to AI and the turn hosts then that can't be undone (unless you rollback). So mainly because of this I'd rather anyone who has to leave the game suddenly and is unable to contact the admin (ie. real life emergency), then I'd much rather that they just walk out of the game without turning AI first.
As you'd be surprised how often this scenario occurs, and how often players in such a situation think they are doing the game a favour by turning their nation AI rather than just letting it stale. When in practice the exact opposite is the case. As while in theory it sounds logical that an active AI, no matter how poor, would be better than a staling nation, Dominions just doesn't comply with that theory. Even though I have no doubt other online MP games do (my online gaming exp is limited to Dom only, so have no knowledge of how other games play with AI nations)
Although an important aspect in this theory is often how caring and active the game admin is, as sadly some admins couldn't care less if nations are staling and show no corcern at all if their game is falling apart due to multiple staling or AI nations. But luckily for you all I'm a fantastic admin biggrin.gif biggrin.gif biggrin.gif and I do care about the quailty of the games I play in, and especially those I organise and admin. So unless I start forgetting to look left and right, then I certainly won't be letting this game become a staling or AI happy festival.
2 - The AI is dreadful. Really dreadful. If I personally had to choose between fighting a staling nation or fighting the AI, then from a difficulty prespective, and especially from a time needed to defeat them PoV (which is a critical aspect of MP games), then the AI is far easier to beat every time than a staling nation. Mainly because a staling nation can't suicide all it's troops, which is something the AI loves to do, and to the point where its play becomes 100% predictable. (although I'm sure Gandalf would disagree, as the AI is excellent in his mind)
Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in fort sieges, as if you park a Scout on an AI fort then it will always attempt to break siege with everything inside the fort because all it can calculate is an easy victory. So all you have to do is bait the trap with a Scout, then move all your forces in for an instant win. No tricky fort storms required ever, or any need to get sufficient numbers to break the walls down with repairers inside. Whereas if the nation was staling you'd both have to break the walls down of an occupied fort, and battle your way through the gate of the fort (if you lacked the magic and strategic option to win by other means, such as if it's early in the game). And doing that can take considerable time and effort that could genuinely cost you the game if it takes too long, but that time factor disappears against the AI because as I said, it will always attempt to break siege, enabling every fort to be taken in 2-3 turns.
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