So...the customers wont be cheated this time?

[Arralen]

Crap, having the AI build castles and labs can't be that difficult.

After all, they havn't recoded Dom3 from scratch. Therefore they have fixed both issues. Or haven't they?

And about AI strength and weakness: give the AI some pre-build castles and labs on the map to conquer. You'll find that it would get at least 50% stronger.

But it didn't take days to notice that the AI does not build castles at all and therefore recruits only indie crap because it lacks the ressources to go for heavy troops.

Obviously, a human player can always find a way to exploit some tactics the AI can't understand. But I might get some fun out of SP (and I bought Dom2 mostly for SP, too) by staying away from such abusive tactics. Therefore, having a unnecessary crippled AI destracts heavily from the fun I can have with the game.

[Daynarr]

Forts are reported as fixed. I expect AI to be significantly stronger as a result.

There is this mod for Orania map (forgot it's exact name) that is basically map file for stock Orania map and gives 5 provinces 2 castles and some special sites to all nations in game. AI performs very, very well there.

If AI can build castles (and labs of course) then there is no reason to believe that AI will be weak.

Which reminds me, that Orania mod/map (called something like Orania hard, but not sure) is one of those mods Graeme is talking about. It's designed primarily for SP and to help AI while keeping things balance. Another mod/map was provided by no other then Gandalf Parker who has random maps generated with random alliances and random bonuses which make AI much more difficult and the game more unpredictable as a result.

Edit: Whoopsie, K.O. beat me to it.

[NTJedi]

Yes forts are said to be fixed... lets hope human players don't find a way to exploit this. I have lots of questions myself about the game, but waiting for the demo which should answer most of them.

Hopefully the death match has been made more worthwhile for attending.


Ideally the best feature we can hope for is some method where us gamers can modify/adjust the AI via scripting or another method. This will greatly open the door for more challenging AIs.

[Johan K]

Just a piece of information about the Dominions AI. Beating 3 or 10 AIs in Dominions is not necessarily harder than beating just one. If you are lucky it will even be easier to beat 3 AIs than one. When you have more than one AI they will fight among themselves as well and that obviously weakens them.

[NTJedi]

Besides editing the .map file perhaps an option will exist to ally specific nations before a game starts.



Ideally the best feature we can hope for is some method where us gamers can modify/adjust the AI via scripting or another method. This will greatly open the door for more challenging AIs.

[NTJedi]

Arralen said:
Crap, having the AI build castles and labs can't be that difficult.

Actually if the AI builds castles some heavy extra programming would be needed such as coding the AI to stock and guard its castles... and then code to especially guard those castles on the front lines. And then code the AI to build labs in those castles so the mages can research and cast spells. And then code the AI to focus on building castles with strong magic sites and bottlenecks in the map. Now you'd have to QA test the new AI to verify humans won't be able to exploit a weakness from this building of castles.

Arralen said:
I might get some fun out of SP (and I bought Dom2 mostly for SP, too) by staying away from such abusive tactics. Therefore, having a unnecessary crippled AI destracts heavily from the fun I can have with the game.

Currently there's only two main developers working Dominions_3 and one so so helping. Besides very basic chess games I have yet to see smart AIs for any game.

Ideally the best feature we can hope for is some method where us gamers can modify/adjust the AI via scripting or another method. This will greatly open the door for more challenging AIs.