is the AI cheating

[Edratman]

Illuminated one,

Make sure you start your games in a corner of the map. That will reduce the potential enemies significently. With less adjoining pressure from enemies, you will be able to pickup the game easier.

If you continue to have troubles, start your game on the standard maps that come with the game. Then post a save game and you will find many helpful advisors.

And don't get discouraged. This is a very hard game. I've been playing computer games since 1980 and this is the only game that I ever encounteed that kicked my butt for a month before I finally beat it. That's a big part of its attraction.

[Illuminated One]

@Edratman

Yeah, I did that on my first game, created a random map via generator and started it again and again until I got the corner.
But it made the game boring somehow only fighting one enemy and I guess in MP I can't hope for the nice spot, too.
I'll just stick to trying to learn from being defeated.


By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

[rdonj]

Personally, I would never try to fight more than one AI at a time unless I was one of the top two or three nations. If you're having trouble beating them because you're fighting 2 or 3 AIs simultaneously by the start of the second or third year, you probably should be losing. Unless you're using a strong bless on a good chassis, you won't be able to maintain enough armies of size to hold them back really early in the game.

[Taqwus]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

@Edratman
By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

EA tends to feature stronger national mages and also defaults to a somewhat higher magical site frequency (and thus, higher gem income).

[Irishmafia2020]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

@Edratman

By the way one other strange thing I noticed.
In the demo the AI was actually using combat spells but in the full game it seems not to do so. Has this to do with the ages (LA vs EA) or with the difficulty or am I the only one experiencing this?

I never played the demo, but my armies are definitely being defeated by combat sorcery in my game. I am MA Ashdod, and it is primarily LA Atlantis that has deployed a ton of mages. That seems to be the personality of the faction though, since I haven't faced any other neighbors who are equally aggressive in their use of magic...