national armies?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

But if the people who feel the AI should be "fixed" to purchase Heavy Infantry over light infantry (for Ulm is their usual example) then I think it would end up causing Pangaea to purchase Minotaurs instead of Satyrs. The point being that as long as its just 1 AI and 1 rule then it needs to be one that either takes the middle road as far as pros and cons, or be the rule most likely to boost the weaker nations.

Not entirely. That presupposes that the only measure of weight is how well the AI does in battles. While that is certainly a dominant aspect, it is not the only one.

Another important aspect is that of setting the right fantasy world mood. This is strengthened when different nations field different sorts of troops - even when not in optimal force composition - and significantly degraded when all the opponents field the same sort of armies with a large percentage of default troops.

To put it bluntly, I would prefer a colourful but slightly less efficient AI over one that believes that light infantry rules the world. It might even mean that you would have to adapt different strategies towards different AI opponents to a higher degree than currently.

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Peter and Gandalf
The problem now with AI is that it "thinks" it rules the world, whereas in reality it's crap...
In a current SP game I've seen the capitol troops of Pangea (at turn 30 approx) : 120 satyrs, 30 Hawks, and a couple Minotaurs commanders . No archers, no heavies, no cavalry, no mages. This army is very very crappy, if the AI had bought anything else than Satyrs it'll be that better ...

PvK,
You don't build forts ? Either you're referring to SP games or very small maps, but anyway even in these cases regularly building forts is a better medium/long term strategy than not doing it.