Final Newbie Question (or compilation of questions!)

[happygeek]

Thank you!
One more question, and some follow-up questions, thanks in advance.

AI: This better AI mod, where can I find it? I would be happy to install it if people think it is koscher.

Have the developers / producers indicated any updates to AI in (future) patches, e.g. protect the prophet, etc.?

Another thing I noticed is that the AI often has really odd pretender designs (bad synergy, weird bless choices, counterproductive scales, odd semi-rainbow imprisoned immobiles, etc...) -- Wrana said you can "edit the map" to get the AI to use good pretenders; I don't understand that. Can anyone help me, or is that for advanced people only?

Stuff: Could a button which lets you see/edit a commander's battle orders (the "t" screen for a commander) when you have that commander "open" be added into a patch?

New Question!:

- Area of Effect (Range): The manual states in a number of places the area of effect that certain things like Fear etc. have as a range in squares. Example: P. 57, "The base area of effect (Fear +0) is 6 squares.", or "so a Standard +8 raises the morale of units by 1 withing an 8-square area of effect". I'm confused. Intuitively, I would have thought that an "area of effect of X squares" means just that: that whatever effect lands in X squares, 6 or 8 or whatever as the case may be. Let's call this Interpretation 1. But another interpretation, let's call it Interpretation 2, which would actually make much more sense to me but I am unsure of the English, would be to treat the "X squares" as a radius, e.g. if you have Fear +0 your fear effect radiates out 6 squares in each direction. Because if it wouldnt be Interpretation 2, how do you count the squares? I mean: All adjacent squares to any unit would be 9, so which 6 would Fear +0 affect if Interpretation 1 is correct?
So in short: Interpretation 1, 2, or something else?

THank you so much.

[Illuminated One]

Well, as I understand it the AI creates its gods randomly.
One simple solution without mapmaking is to start the game with all players human and design the gods yourself. Then set all nations that you want to be controlled by AI to AI.
There's also a "semirandom" program by ballbarian which helps, can't say for sure what it does though, never used it myself.

About the area: I'm quite sure it's not the radius, but indeed 6 squares means six squares. Where these are exactly is random except for the one square that was targeted (and the fact that the squares have to be next to each other) - hence bless for example often misses larger groups of sacreds despite 100 precision.

[Edi]

Originally Posted by happygeek

Thank you!
One more question, and some follow-up questions, thanks in advance.

AI: This better AI mod, where can I find it? I would be happy to install it if people think it is koscher.

Better Independents v2.1 thread

Read the thread to get an idea of what the mod does. If you read the mod files in a text editor, they are extensively commented and the logic is laid out. I guarantee you the AI armies will be tougher when you use that mod. It was born out of my own frustration with generic AI hordes and does force them to use more national units.