Underestimate the AI: Reap the consequences.

[Cheezeninja]

Originally posted by alexi:
i think its more appropriate to say that Humans have a handicap by not getting access to those special orders. If the AI could talk, it would be saying Humans cheat because they are creative... or a much more likely explination is that the harpies wasted two turns on whatever and then attacked the rear (which is quite smart). You should have left bodyguards to surround your casters.

Every time I have set MY units to attack rear they actually attack the rear section of the frontmost group of units. They dont actually jump back to commanders, except occasionally when there is a large body of troops there as well. And i have NEVER seen my troops actively seek out commanders fromt the start. Unlike Ashen Angels and other nasties, who invariably seem to attempt immediate evisceration of commanders.


It didnt actually say that.... i just dont remember what the exact order was. It was something strange and abbreviated like that, and i believe with numbers. I wish i could remember, but its been awhile and i didnt get too worked up about it at the time. It just seemed to me like something that someone had written as a reminder to themselves, but didnt bother to explain fully because they knew the consumer would never see it.

[Ryukenden]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
So in other words, the AI does, in fact, cheat.

If you look at it with the idea of "equal share," then you could consider that the AI "cheats." However, look at it with this (or maybe these) idea(s):

A human can be "creative," while an AI can only run on what it is programmed with (common AI, atleast). A human learns new things every second of its life, while the AI is either unable to learn without additional programming, or learns slowly. So, doesn't it sound right that the scales be evened by giving the AI additional commands as a tradeoff for "creativity?"

Note: I'm not against yelling out "That's so ]f-bomb}ing cheap!" nor "The comp is ]f-bomb}ing cheating!" Just don't believe it when rage isn't clouding your judgement.

Another Note: In some games (barely any of which are strategy), the AI is kinda cheap.

[Edi]

Originally posted by Cheezeninja:
Every time I have set MY units to attack rear they actually attack the rear section of the frontmost group of units. They dont actually jump back to commanders, except occasionally when there is a large body of troops there as well. And i have NEVER seen my troops actively seek out commanders fromt the start. Unlike Ashen Angels and other nasties, who invariably seem to attempt immediate evisceration of commanders.

IIRC, units with "attack rear" orders must make a morale check or something like that every time they pass a stack, and if they fail, they will attack the rearmost units of that stack. On a battlefield with e.g. 7 stacks of AI units, they need to pass all of those checks if they are to attack the very rearmost units (typically the commanders). Failure to pass the check causes the units to attack the rear of the closest enemy stack. Every unit in a stack must make the check separately, so this is why you sometimes see some cavalry units breaking ranks from their squad and go after something they should leave alone.

Looks like the AI got very lucky with the harpies. Of course, if you had all of your HCs in a single stack and had just them and the Nataraja, the harpies only needed to succeed once to get at your astrologers. Having several squads mitigates the problem with flyers that attack rear.

Edi

[Kristoffer O]

There was an 'attack commander' order in Dom1. It was removed as it was far too powerful. It seems likely that the AI order selection wasn't fully updatded.

If it isn't just a lucky 'attack rear' do you want it gone or do you think it is OK if the AI comes up with this kind of stunts from time to time?

I think it has been reported that Fang, the troll archer hero, shoots at commanders as well. In this case I'm not for a change, but in normal battles it might be a bit unfair, at least unless you expect it.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
There was an 'attack commander' order in Dom1. It was removed as it was far too powerful. It seems likely that the AI order selection wasn't fully updatded.

If it isn't just a lucky 'attack rear' do you want it gone or do you think it is OK if the AI comes up with this kind of stunts from time to time?

I think it has been reported that Fang, the troll archer hero, shoots at commanders as well. In this case I'm not for a change, but in normal battles it might be a bit unfair, at least unless you expect it.

I would say please leave it as it is, even if this is the case of AI doing (rarely) something that humans can't. I mean, we all are looking for challenge, right? Whatever give AI a little advantage is good in my book.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
There was an 'attack commander' order in Dom1. It was removed as it was far too powerful. It seems likely that the AI order selection wasn't fully updatded.

If it isn't just a lucky 'attack rear' do you want it gone or do you think it is OK if the AI comes up with this kind of stunts from time to time?

I think it has been reported that Fang, the troll archer hero, shoots at commanders as well. In this case I'm not for a change, but in normal battles it might be a bit unfair, at least unless you expect it.

I would say please leave it as it is, even if this is the case of AI doing (rarely) something that humans can't. I mean, we all are looking for challenge, right? Whatever give AI a little advantage is good in my book.

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yeah if it is true let the ai "cheat" .

could it be possible that they had attack archers oder ?

Cheezeninja you haven't mentioned archers but mages have "ranged" attacks so perhaps if you command attack archers if there are none then mages are targeted ?

[Vynd]

In my experience flying units set to attack rearmost actually will attack rearmost a fair amount of the time. With any other kind of unit it seems like it hardly ever succeeds. So it could just be that the harpies were set to attack rearmost.