AI Helper Builds

[NTJedi]

thejeff said:
I've never played with it, but I think what llamabeast was saying, is that you can start with Impossible AIs but use map commands to change both the scales and the actual pretender.

Thus they still get the Impossible AI bonuses and intelligent design.

I agree... this works the best for providing a more powerful AI opponent. As mentioned in a different thread it's best if the AI pretenders are immobile or a size 2 otherwise each of them will blindly send their pretenders into the arena death match.

The arena death match could actually be a very fun and interesting event if the prize was improved to provide the winner with gold and gems based on the current game turn. An improved arena prize would increase the interest of all human participants to send a good challenger.

[Aezeal]

Hmm I'd settle for mighty then.. impossible is hard to beat without exploiting every weakness instead of just playing

[NTJedi]

Aezeal said:
Hmm I'd settle for mighty then.. impossible is hard to beat without exploiting every weakness instead of just playing

I help the AI opponents which are far away on my maps by providing them highly equipped SCs, highly equipped assassins, extra gems, immobile powerful spellcasters, extra forts and magic sites.
The end result provides great large battles.

The game still bumps into the commander and unit limitation even without LA Ry'leh and LA Ermor for maps of 650 provinces or more. So I suggest provinces of 600 or less at this time.

[HoneyBadger]

So...all debate over the relative merits of the AI settings aside...does anybody have any actual Pretender builds they'd like to suggest?

[NTJedi]

HoneyBadger said:
So...all debate over the relative merits of the AI settings aside...does anybody have any actual Pretender builds they'd like to suggest?

This depends on what type of enemy pretender you wish to encounter and what type of enemy globals (enemy blesses rarely play any strategy value for the AI) . Most AI nations usually have a tough time matching research with the human opponent so the sage pretender could pay off nicely. The ghost king is usually a small enough size to be ignored for the arena fights, yet tough enough to be strong in battle. The immobile pretenders are good and strong plus safe from the arena match.

I also recommend placing useful equipment on the AI pretenders as well.

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks NT Jedi. That's a good start. Avoiding or dealing with Arena challenges is definitely an important consideration.

I don't know how feasable it would be to add useful equipment, without modding, because most of the useful equipment out there takes research in construction. Maybe if people don't mind sitting on their nations for the first year while they play the AI side? That might actually be worth it, in longer SP games.

What I'm really after with this thread is how you would use the starting points to build specific Pretenders for the AI to use though. Like, how you'd deligate points/magic/scales to a Cyclops or a Scorpion King for Abyssia, for instance. In order that someone reading this thread could use it as a reference for quickly building Pretenders for an SP game, in order to add to the SP challenge. So, which Pretenders work best with which AI nations? You can divide suggestions into different categories, like which Immobile, which SC, etc. so that players can mix and match what type of Pretenders they want to see that AI fielding.

P.S. I wish there were a way to mod the game so that Pretenders couldn't participate in Arena combats.

[sector24]

Well, a powerful immobile pretender should have astral. I remember fighting a Sphinx with 9 Astral, a little nature, and high dominion. The AI scripted Body Ethereal, Luck, Personal Regeneration and then spammed Paralyze. Almost impossible for conventional troops to defeat due to 1500+ hit points and huge regeneration. Plus the added bonus of the capital always having high dominion and the inability of the pretender to get itself killed by doing stupid things.

Since Body Ethereal and Luck are spells that the AI uses a lot, Astral is a good choice for them.

[NTJedi]

HoneyBadger said:
P.S. I wish there were a way to mod the game so that Pretenders couldn't participate in Arena combats.

I completely agree... there's nothing more painful then watching 5 or more AI opponents all send their pretenders into the arena death match.

[silhouette]

You're not the first one to think this would be useful.

Gandalf created a set of starter build pretenders for each nation for tutorial/practice game purposes. See the history of his trial here, go to Starter Files:
http://www.dom2minions.com/index.html

I was thinking bigger in my proposal (2 years ago) that never went anywhere. I still think an online repository of pretender builds would be great, and you could have it pick some at random and download for use in your SP games. Here is the old dom2 thread where I tried to stir up interest.

Sill