What races does the AI play best?

Ewierl · #1 December 5th, 2007, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Sombre said:
Seems pretty good with LA Ermor to me.

It's not that the AI is good with LA Ermor, it's that the AI is terrible at countering LA Ermor. You need simple but specific strategies to counter those undead hordes, and the AI never fields such strategies. So if you're playing a medium-to-large SP game against multiple AI opponents inclosing LA Ermor, Ermor is going to crush the other AIs handily, and expand unstoppably throughout the game, making it an extremely powerful foe unless you catch it very, very early.

I rarely play against LA Ermor in SP for this reason. It's just not much fun, there's no variety, since every other foe is dead, just you and vast wastelands full of skeletal hordes.

I do agree that the AI does best with nations that have solid recruitable troops, such as Heims, Giants, EA Ulm, and so forth.

Tichy · #2 December 5th, 2007, 05:39 PM

I've seen AI implode with Marverni more than a few times. They always seem to get overrun. Why do you think AI is good with them?

VedalkenBear · #3 December 5th, 2007, 05:46 PM

Mainly because they can gain provinces quite fast. I think the 'implode' issue is that they sometimes recruit hornblowers in large numbers, which is not an effective strategy.

Tichy · #4 December 5th, 2007, 06:20 PM

Ah -- I'd just gotten used to seeing them "?-Whoozit the god of Marverni..." pretty early on...Now I'm interested to see what it's like to meet them in an SP game.

Edi · #5 December 5th, 2007, 07:10 PM

A lot of it depends on the indie settings. I consistently play with indies 7, hard research, 100% gold and resources, magic sites 35 or less and Better Independents mod to disable the chaff.

With that setup, the EA nations that consistently come out on top with AI are the glamour nations (Van, Hel, Tuatha), Ulm, Ermor, Marverni and Sauromatia. Niefel varies a lot. Lanka is very often a strong one for the AI, but it doesn't use the blood aspect much. Tien Chi is also a fairly safe choice for the AI in that it will be at least semi-competent.

Haven't played much since 3.10 came out and never with Fomoria as an opponent, so I have no idea how that plays out. C'tis has variable success. The AI generally sucks with Abysia and isn't too competent with Arco.

MA and LA I haven't played appreciably, so no big trends, but anything that has decent armor and hits hard and straightforward is usually good for the AI.

Daynarr · #6 December 5th, 2007, 07:24 PM

Actually, Fomoria seems to always come out as one of the top if not THE top nation when AI is playing it in my games. I usually play large SP games with 12+ opponents in it so there is usually lots of competition in them. I suggest you include Fomoria in yours too as AI with Fomoria seems to be much more consistent and stable then Niefielheim (another giant nation). Niefelheim usually expands fast but gets beaten later by other nations while Fomoria seems to keep its advantage. Well, that is what I had experienced so far.

Edi · #7 December 5th, 2007, 07:28 PM

Oh, I will include it, all right, just that not playing a lot of Dom3 at the moment. HoMM5 has stolen my attention for a while, though I still hang around here.

vfb · #8 December 7th, 2007, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Ewierl said:

Quote:

Sombre said:
Seems pretty good with LA Ermor to me.

It's not that the AI is good with LA Ermor, it's that the AI is terrible at countering LA Ermor. You need simple but specific strategies to counter those undead hordes, and the AI never fields such strategies. So if you're playing a medium-to-large SP game against multiple AI opponents inclosing LA Ermor, Ermor is going to crush the other AIs handily, and expand unstoppably throughout the game, making it an extremely powerful foe unless you catch it very, very early.

It's good enough with LA Ermor to cast Burden of Time halfway through year 3

. And here I am on the other side of the world realizing it would be a really good plan to finish researching Enchant 5 before all my researchers die. I'm just hoping the AI doesn't use much of a boost to its globals.

Quote:

I rarely play against LA Ermor in SP for this reason. It's just not much fun, there's no variety, since every other foe is dead, just you and vast wastelands full of skeletal hordes.

Vast wastelands full of skeletal hordes? I sometimes hang awake at night dreaming of vast wastelands full of skeletal hordes!

NTJedi · #9 December 8th, 2007, 04:15 PM

I'd say the AI plays Neifelheim as the best nation for long games... just make sure the game has very very high supply settings.

As Neifelheim its nation has access to water, air, nature, death, blood and astral. This allows the AI to find more magic sites.
On a large map where the Neifelheim AI has been provided lots of provinces and time for research you'll face battles against spells such as Mass Regeneration, Mass Protection, Anti-Magic, Doom, Wind Guide, Rush of Strength and a few others.
Now SC's is usually an easy solution to defeating the AI, however if Neifelheim is provided the time to finish it's researching SCs won't work as it will be casting "claws of kokytos".

(For smaller maps where research time is limited LA Ermor is difficult)

Humakty · #10 December 10th, 2007, 10:49 AM

I think the AI as real problems playing factions relying on magic to win battles, like caelum and abysia (all ages) or EA agartha.