Supercombattant pretenders....what about...

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by MStavros:
What about do not allow the Pretenders to leave their home province?
That would be the best. Why?
2. The AI won't make stupid things, like moving with his pretender from province to province ALONE. The AI is always loosing his pretender very fast. I don't understand that what is the AI is doing with his pretender anyways...IT is always moving it..

Locking a pretender in his castle makes it susceptable to other tactics although they would at least be later-game tactics.

If the AI has a combatant pretender then he should use it. Thats its purpose and its not disastrous to lose it in combat. As far as the moving it around I think what happens is that the pretender leaves home early with an army but is quickly the only survivor left. What seems to be lacking is not that the pretender shouldnt leave home but that it should recognize when to get reinforcements.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by MStavros:
Wendigo, the spell AI is good,

Fine. Having a good spell AI is important.

but the strategic AI is very weak, thus you can massacre whole AI armies with your pretender SC in the early game, and that is very unbalanced.

A good strategic AI is extremely difficult to implement, and it's NOT that important. If you're concerned about it, then I assume you're primarily an SP player, right? Then there's something illogical in your rant: if you think the AI can't handle your SC pretender, why do you play a SC at all? If you absolutely want to play an SC pretender, why don't you script the AI to make him more challenging? Eg, try adding the following line in your map files:

#scale_chaos 0 -3
#scale_lazy 0 -3
#scale_cold 0 -3
#scale_death 0 -3
#scale_unluck 0 -3
#scale_unmagic 0 -1
#dominionstr 0 10
#god 0 "Bog Mummy"
#xp 500
#mag_fire 10
#mag_air 10
#mag_water 10
#mag_earth 10
#mag_astral 10
#mag_death 10
#mag_nature 10
#mag_blood 10
#additem "Blood Thorn"
#additem "Charcoal Shield"
#additem "Starshine Skullcap"
#additem "Chain mail of Displacement"
#additem "Boots of Quickness"
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic"
#additem "Ring of Tamed Lightning"

That's what I used in Doms 1 for an Abysian AI when I wanted a challenge. Copy/paste and replace the '0' by the nation number if you want several tough AIs like this one. And if you find that's not enough, give a preset starting place to your AIs, and add things in that province. Eg, (assuming the Abysia AI starts in province 42):

#specstart 0 42
#setland 42
#population 100000
#knownfeature "Summoning Circle"
#knownfeature "The Mountain of Power"
#commander "Doom Horror"
#comname "Gog"
#xp 500
#mag_water 5
#mag_astral 15
#mag_death 10
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic"
#additem "Ring of Regeneration"
#commander "Doom Horror"
#comname "Magog"
#xp 500
#mag_water 5
#mag_astral 15
#mag_death 10
#additem "Amulet of Antimagic"
#additem "Ring of Regeneration"

There's nothing like a Doom Horror with fear +30, Quickness, Astral Shield and Soul Vortex to make your day!

[mr.white]

my very first game I used an earth mother. She Lasted about 3 battles until she found machaka and got blinded by a witch-doctor. Sigh.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by MStavros:
What about do not allow the Pretenders to leave their home province?
That would be the best. Why?

1. Supercombattant Pretenders can be abused easily.
2. The AI won't make stupid things, like moving with his pretender from province to province ALONE. The AI is always loosing his pretender very fast. I don't understand that what is the AI is doing with his pretender anyways...IT is always moving it..

So this way both problems would be solved.

Actually you've got some points.
The idea is good, but I doubt that it will happen.

I say, let IW to update the AI, there is a thread about the weaknesses of the strategic AI.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=74;t=000191

If those things will be fixed, we are all good.

This is a minor thing. If you don't want to abuse the AI, don't build a pretender SC.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by MStavros:
A good strategic AI is extremely difficult to implement, and it's NOT that important. If you're concerned about it, then I assume you're primarily an SP player, right? Then there's something illogical in your rant: if you think the AI can't handle your SC pretender, why do you play a SC at all? If you absolutely want to play an SC pretender, why don't you script the AI to make him more challenging? Eg, try adding the following line in your map files:

I did much the same with my random generators. I tended to scatter the map with structures (castles, labs, temples), give AIs multiple starting sites, and give every province a randomly selected "commander" with bodyguards and random magic items. A very insane game.

Some of the most disastrous combinations of late-summons creatures or even pretenders showed up as the AIs prophets and extra units.

If I got to know the map too well I just re-ran the script and re-scattered everything.

[Particle]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
A good strategic AI is extremely difficult to implement, and it's NOT that important.

Actually it is VERY important. You are saying this, because you are using Dominions II. for multiplayer. This was a selfish comment Nagot.

[ November 02, 2003, 17:16: Message edited by: Particle ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Particle:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
A good strategic AI is extremely difficult to implement, and it's NOT that important.

Actually it is VERY important.

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Nope, it's not - because there are easy and effective workarounds for single player. I provided two, but it seems you forgot to read them.