Are we paying more for less?

[DominionsFan]

Gandalf Parker said:
I dont find that the AI automatically declares war. I have played many games on really large maps with 78 AI's. I do not get war challenged on me by all of them early in the game so I dont think thats a true statement.

However.. I do find that the AI challenges based on your dominion touching his, his scouts seeing you (and some scouts fly), or seeing you by spells.

Gandalf, since you are mainly playing SP games, let me ask you. Have you seen such huge AI armies in your games so far, what I've seen in my game today? Basically it worked like this:

First I've seen like 120 enemy troops. 1 turn later their number was 420 if I remember correctly. 1 more turn, and the number was 700. Then all of the 700 troops began to invade me from north, and my 2 main armies were on the south. The game ended 2 turns after the AI took 2 of my provinces at north. Maybe I was just lucky that I've seen such an action from the AI, but seriously, it was like a human player. First he gathered tons of troops in 3 turns, while my armies were far away, then it began to steamroll me from there. I only had 2 minor armies up there, since I was attacked from 2 directions at south, I had to focus my power there.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive seen armies in the thousands.

But definetly the new gold-rich Dom3 game is going to take some getting used to. And some of the AI settings definetly require that you put some thinking to breaking up his large armies as they are building up.

[DominionsFan]

Gandalf Parker said:
Ive seen armies in the thousands.

But definetly the new gold-rich Dom3 game is going to take some getting used to. And some of the AI settings definetly require that you put some thinking to breaking up his large armies as they are building up.

wow nice, when I get my copy, my first game will be against a couple of impossible AIs.

[Morkilus]

I've been playing with various aggressive/defensive AI's, and well, the aggressive ones do declare war on you quickly. Like I would hope. One thing new that I've seen (probably due to the prevalance of more relatively powerful priests) is that the AI likes to take at least a couple priests into battle every time. This makes skelly spamming alot less viable, and they always have a source of magic damage for those few tanks you may field. It makes for some exciting magic battles at times.

[Taqwus]

I did see huge armies in Dom 2 as well... but the ones in Dom 3 seem more likely to have heavy use of national troops, rather than generic militia / slingers / et al. I've also been dealing with more assassination attempts.