Dominions 2. AI. Suggestions, that how to fix it.

[Mortifer]

I didn't played too many games, but mostly Ive seen small enemy (AI) armies. I met with a mediocre army 1 time, when I attacked a home province.
Sadly the AI isnt that good as I expected.

The battle AI + spellcasting AI is excellent. I am not sure, that why, but the strategical AI is lot worse.

[Pocus]

The AI is too contrived most of the time. On bigger maps (speaking of doms I here), an AI would emerge (Ermor often) and roll over the opposition. Then you would face it.

[ywl]

I saw army big enough for early game (at least 50 to 60 units) many times. Overall, the strategic AI behaves quite similar to Dom 1.

I have several observations:

1) AI tends to have a large number of crappy units, whereas human will go for quality (knights, emerald guards) whenever practical.

2) When you're seiging the AI capital, they'll keep trying to retake it. It's a sensible thing to do but being so predictable will make it easy to exploit. It doesn't hurt to add a degree of randomness to it.

3) Even without the tax-n-patrol trick, I can still expand faster than the AI. Do you guys have similar experience? Is there any way to improve the situation? We all know that if you lost the open-game, it's very hard to catch up.

4) Are there any nasty tricks hard-coded for the AI? Any experienced human players would have a wide arsenal of them, the AI need some to be competitive.

[MStavros]

Indy strength on 7 won't help at all. I had a game right now. 40 turns was not enough to kill the AI, but I almost did it.....It had like 2-3 provinces left, when the 40 turn limit ended my game.
I didnt met with a decent AI army, I only fought against some small forces...

Mortifer is right. This is very frustrating. The spellcasting AI is so cool, I wonder why is the strategic AI so weak?

[MStavros]

Originally posted by ywl:
I saw army big enough for early game (at least 50 to 60 units) many times. Overall, the strategic AI behaves quite similar to Dom 1.

I have several observations:

1) AI tends to have a large number of crappy units, whereas human will go for quality (knights, emerald guards) whenever practical.

2) When you're seiging the AI capital, they'll keep trying to retake it. It's a sensible thing to do but being so predictable will make it easy to exploit. It doesn't hurt to add a degree of randomness to it.

3) Even without the tax-n-patrol trick, I can still expand faster than the AI. Do you guys have similar experience? Is there any way to improve the situation? We all know that if you lost the open-game, it's very hard to catch up.

4) Are there any nasty tricks hard-coded for the AI? Any experienced human players would have a wide arsenal of them, the AI need some to be competitive.

Yeah the AI either have small forces or mediocre army with bad unit/commander combinations, IE weak units etc.
There must be a way to improve this...

Oh just a little addition. I think that the research AI is good. Usually the AI is doing good in research as I see it from the graphs.

So battle AI, spellcasting AI, research AI seems ok, but the strategic AI is too weak in many ways.

[ October 28, 2003, 22:07: Message edited by: MStavros ]

[Particle]

Originally posted by MStavros:

So battle AI, spellcasting AI, research AI seems ok, but the strategic AI is too weak in many ways.

I agree with this statement....

->Hopefully Illwinter will upgrade the strategic AI somehow.

If you ask me...if the strategic AI would be as good, as the spellcasting AI....the AI would kick the you know what of the human players.

[ October 28, 2003, 22:19: Message edited by: Particle ]

[LordArioch]

The AI assasinated one of my researching mages...that was pretty annoying.