SP AI definitely still questionable.

Cainehill · #1 October 7th, 2006, 12:57 AM

We're not talking immortal pretenders / prophets, nor last ditch situations : in my case, Abysia was _ahead_, only me coming close, and yet they pissed away prophets and pretenders to no good purpose.

It still ain't particularly good as an SP game.

M-Santa : Worse : Non-death AI nations casting Burden of Time in Dom2.

Boron · #2 October 7th, 2006, 04:28 AM

Caine you are imho to harsh to the AI.

The AI builds now castles, so imho you are challenged enough if you take impossible AIs. The big AI hordes usually give you lots of trouble.

The suicidal Gods might be a bit annoying, but if you take a look at Aow 2 SM or Warlords 4, there the AI is rather suicidical with their Heroes too.

The AI imho provides enough challenge in SP and given the complexity of the game you can imho call the AI decent.

Leif_- · #3 October 7th, 2006, 06:08 AM

It's a pity Illwinter didn't include a bot interface to Dominions III. It might have been fun to play around with.

DominionsFan · #4 October 7th, 2006, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Boron said:
Caine you are imho to harsh to the AI.

The AI builds now castles, so imho you are challenged enough if you take impossible AIs. The big AI hordes usually give you lots of trouble.

The suicidal Gods might be a bit annoying, but if you take a look at Aow 2 SM or Warlords 4, there the AI is rather suicidical with their Heroes too.

The AI imho provides enough challenge in SP and given the complexity of the game you can imho call the AI decent.

I totally agree. The AI is much much better now. I've almost never lost an SP game in Doms 2 [just in very rare situations, like a 5+ front war]. Now that I have the full game, I've played 2 MP games so far, and 1 SP game. I lost that SP game against impossible AIs. In fact I was owned. Well the situation was bad too, since I started in the middle, so basically I was attacked from south first, then an other AI began to invade me from north with a huge army, and a couple of other smaller armies. Impossible AIs are a hardcore challenge now.

There are some things what should be improved regarding the AI [especially when the AI is doing insane things like attacking a province defended by 200 troops with 20 troops an 4 commanders, or 20 troops and a pretender], but which AI is perfect? I am sure that the devs will try to improve these problematic things as well.

Daynarr · #5 October 7th, 2006, 06:30 AM

Quote:

DominionsFan said:

Quote:

Boron said:
Caine you are imho to harsh to the AI.

The AI builds now castles, so imho you are challenged enough if you take impossible AIs. The big AI hordes usually give you lots of trouble.

The suicidal Gods might be a bit annoying, but if you take a look at Aow 2 SM or Warlords 4, there the AI is rather suicidical with their Heroes too.

The AI imho provides enough challenge in SP and given the complexity of the game you can imho call the AI decent.

There are some things what should be improved regarding the AI [especially when the AI is doing insane things like attacking a province defended by 200 troops with 20 troops an 4 commanders, or 20 troops and a pretender], but which AI is perfect? I am sure that the devs will try to improve these problematic things as well.

Note that those can be considered 'probing attacks'. AI will lose those battles 100% of the time IF you keep those forces in that province. If you decide to move them, you will lose that province. That way AI effectively ties your forces to a province. It shouldn't be doing that with pretenders though.

Also, AI's can make dumb things sometimes. Declaring AI as dumb just because it does those things sometimes will make us ALL dumb as will ALL do dumb things sometimes. Simply put Caine, you didn't play with this AI long enough to declare it good or bad.

DominionsFan · #6 October 7th, 2006, 06:39 AM

Hm actually "probing attacks" can be good you are correct. Perhaps you are right, and the AI is doing it with a purpose. However yeah, pretenders shouldn't take a part in probing attacks.

The other thing what should be upgraded is the AI pre-game nation design algorithm. AIs shouldn't take very bad scales, especially not the difficult -> impossible AIs.
Also, they should take the proper magic paths what are the best for the given nation. [Example: EA Agartha -> earth, fire, death mainly]

Overall I am absolutely impressed about the AI really. It is building lot of castles, and fielding massive/strong armies.
Today I don't have time to play sadly, but tomorrow I will try to play a long game, and check the endgame AI tactics. I wonder if it is gonna summon units properly or not for example. Maybe that part of the AI has been upgraded also.

Frostmourne27 · #7 October 7th, 2006, 10:36 PM

Quote:

DominionsFan said:
The other thing what should be upgraded is the AI pre-game nation design algorithm. AIs shouldn't take very bad scales, especially not the difficult -> impossible AIs.
Also, they should take the proper magic paths what are the best for the given nation. [Example: EA Agartha -> earth, fire, death mainly]

This isn't such an issue though, since it's much, much harder to diversify, and having a bit of say nature magic on an agarthan pretender is actually quite good, since with a bit of searching, maybe some tribal shamans and empowerment... The problem I see with AI pretender design is that it takes magic between six and nine which is weird. Six casts allmost all spells, and nine gives bless. Why would anyone take in between? Except if you've calculated things and a rushing for utterdark or something. But the computer doesn't think that deeply, so those are waster points, and in some cases (say, death magic on a great sage, or something they don't start with) it can be a LOT of points.

Nerfix · #8 October 8th, 2006, 04:41 AM

Well, people would take styff like Ghost King with Water 1 Fire 1 Earth 3 Air 2 to get acces to almost all of the buff spells...

DominionsFan · #9 October 8th, 2006, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Frostmourne27 said:

Quote:

DominionsFan said:
The other thing what should be upgraded is the AI pre-game nation design algorithm. AIs shouldn't take very bad scales, especially not the difficult -> impossible AIs.
Also, they should take the proper magic paths what are the best for the given nation. [Example: EA Agartha -> earth, fire, death mainly]

This isn't such an issue though, since it's much, much harder to diversify, and having a bit of say nature magic on an agarthan pretender is actually quite good, since with a bit of searching, maybe some tribal shamans and empowerment... The problem I see with AI pretender design is that it takes magic between six and nine which is weird. Six casts allmost all spells, and nine gives bless. Why would anyone take in between? Except if you've calculated things and a rushing for utterdark or something. But the computer doesn't think that deeply, so those are waster points, and in some cases (say, death magic on a great sage, or something they don't start with) it can be a LOT of points.

Well I meant, that sometime the AI is taking magic paths what is making no sense with the given nation.

I agree with your statement, that the AI also shouldn't take magic between 6 and 9. It should be coded like, 6 or 9.