We did a lot of work on the AI this week (and by we, I mean Brad) and made some significant changes. I even had to ask Brad to tone down the aggressiveness based on a game where I got dragged down and beat like the Goonie kids, if they'd accidently wandered into the Hellraiser movies*.
But the trouble with testing the AI in a game that contains as many moving parts as FE is that it can be very situational. It also has a lot to do with balance. Some abilites are to good, some are to weak and a human is always better a figuring out how to exploit them than an AI player. Some items may randomly swing the game ot much (if you get a berserkers axe in the first 20 turns, etc).
I can only play a limited amount of games per week, but if I can get feedback from you folks we can start to learn form that experience and figure out what is keeping the AI from being competitive. I would love to get the following from anyone who is interested.
1. General feedback on if you felt the monsters were a threat (were they too strong, too weak, or about right).
2. General feedback on if you felt the AI players were a threat (were they too strong, too weak, or about right).
3. What difficulty did you play on?
4. What faction/sovereign did you play (if you made a custom sovereigns, what traits did you pick)?
5. If you think the AI was too easy, what did you do to lead to your success (did you outfit your soveriegn in leather armor, find a good sword and then single handidly kill everyone, did you start producing an endless stream of spearmen and destroy with your armies, did you learn fireball and use it to destroy the world)?
6. Attach a save game at the point where you believe you have the game beat so we can check it out. A save at the tipping point, where you believe you have the game won and have to play it out is more useful than one where the opponents are all crushed because it allows us to see exactly what is going on when the AI loses. If you get to a point where yo don't feel a threat from the AI anymore thats a good point to get a save.
Thanks,
Derek
* If you weren't born in an era where killing a duck with a three pixel long sword wasn't awesome then please replace the above mixed analogy with "beat like Justin Bieber, if he'd accidently wandered into one of the Saw movies."
True, I have three cities in my current game, almost in a triangle pattern with connecting borders. Magnar sent a pioneer into my territory and I told him to get off my land. Somehow that made the pioneer transport to a little space in between my cities, where they decided to create an outpost.
Overall, I'm enjoying .913, maybe because I have a good random map and I seem to be on an equal playing field to the opponents. I'm playing on hard, which seems to be the right challenge level for me.
Some things I've noticed though:
I have two cities that are pretty close to each other, and yet there is a great big expanse of land (plains) between them, but for some reason I can't put building there. Is there a reason for that?
There seems to be a lot less heros in .913, was that changed? Or has the AI improved its ability to grab them first?
The AI spamming cities and outposts is a tad annoying. I think if they had the same threat from monsters as the players do, this would change.
I didn't even know this was there! good to know.
I've answered the questions below, but my main problems with FE so far are as follows:
1. The random maps are generally unplayable. It requires you to ctrl+N almost nine out of ten maps due to completely terrible spawn locations. I understand that random map generation is one of the HARDEST things to do. And I know it will take time to make it right. But it is something that needs to be looked at very closely. Maybe insert a 20 tile exclusion zone for large monster hordes? Include at least one grain tile?
2. #1 is coupled with the random and variable location of very powerful and very close monster hordes. I had one game where the random map generator limited me to a coastline because a huge mountain range blocked from the interior. I had two outlets from my coastline: one east and one south. The eastern one is blocked by a Shrill Lord Horde and the South one by a Forest Drake, you quickly become disenchanted.
3. The AI doesn't seem bothered or gets attacked by the Monsters. I've watched Scouts from the AI sit next to monster spawns and never get attacked. Yet, when my scout moves by it is instantly AGGRO'd and the monsters start moving towards it.
So... to reply to your questions:
1. Extremely powerful monsters spawn way too close to your first city. Even before my Champion reached level 3 and 10 turns in, I had spotted an Ignys Army and an Umberdoth within 10-15 tiles of my first city. This wouldn't have been so bad if my first city hadn't started with mountains on three sides so the only way out was through them. Other combinations include Mountains+Coastline+River Slag, Mountains+Coastline+Shrill Lord horde, Mountains+Forest Drake, Mountains+Coastline+Ravenous Spider Horde.
2. Honestly, I haven't been able to actually engage the AI. Too many games end up with my cornered or separated from the AI by a combination of mountains and huge monster blobs choking the passes through them. See #1 for a full explanation. Also, the AI is way too happy to start a war.
3. Normal
4. Custom Sovereign
5. The AI is not the problem. It's the monster spawns.
I'm having a blast in my current 1v1 Hard on a tiny map. The world is dangerous - the mobs are a constant threat and the AI is constantly attacking. Only about 100 or so turns in but really enjoying this game. Hadn't played a 1v1 in awhile... it feels more difficult than loading a map full of AI players.
I didn't just want to add this as an Edit. This was too "good" to pass up.
Once again, started with a mountain range on three sides of my start location. 6 tiles away were the Knights of Asok.
Hey people,
I didn't read all pages of the thread so don't blame me if something was already written before..
These are just my impressions of the game:
1. without the shadow wark (summoner skill), a good bow or stoneskin the monsters are a good threat, but just at the beginning..later on they are to easy and vulnerable to magic and I get very fast to strong for nearly every enemy --> i think there is still to little difference in strength of the monsters (a wind elemental should be much harder to kill than with a lvl 3 hero with stoneskin for ex.) + higher monsters should have their own (big) armee + all enemys shouldn't be so vulnerable to magic (or u tweak the summoner skill for ex.) + the monsters armee should grow alot faster over the time
2. the AI players are still to weak because there are still a lot of bugs and the way they treat their units is miserable..they just send their units into their warrant death --> I would suggest better combinations of units + heroes and units, only scouts should go alone, not 3 pioneers in one stack anymore, better would be scouts and strong units
3. ridiculous
4. I made my own hero, please see picture
5. At the beginning I used the summoner skill shadow walk + a bow + fireball to kill 3 fractions very quick, later on the fire elemental helped alot, in the end I just used someone with blizzard (evoker skill 3) + someone with haste to let him call blizzard immediately
I never used a single trained unit apart from one bow unit from a quest, because I think the heroes are far superior through quick developement of magic and hitpoints
6. Since I don't know which savegame is the most usefull for u I load up 3.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iibfo2cjh7xjlj3/2.EleSav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ta65nkkvbsfwr7y/3.EleSav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r331zfki4dizbby/4.EleSav
I have played a number of hours on the new beta and I think it is a big step forward.
I play on normal.
I have two idea that i feel would balance two aspects of the game.
1/ Arcane Monoliths: I like these however I do feel they make outposts more redundant. I would like to see Arcane Monoliths stay as they are as a fast type of outpost to build. Make outposts upgradeable so they can have defending units in them. They could use some type of defending bonus as they take a pioneer to make there by using more resources.
2/ Selling to the shop: 1o% makes getting gold more of a challenge in the game. I feel things you get from monsters in the world such as demon horns, wolf pelts ect and sort after items should sell at 100% to the store. I think it would balance the 10% issue.
Keep up the great work Star Dock. This beta update has made the game more fun to play
Kudos, guys! I've been complaining about the AI for a while, and I'm very pleased with the progress thus far. I played one game on challenging, and one game on hard. The challenging one was a little too easy, and I got my ass handed to me on hard. So, I think the difficulty is about where it should be on hard, and needs to be more challenging on challenging. So, comments and thoughts.
1) The AI and toughness for the monsters was just about right. I didn't have any problems with giant monsters destroying my starter bases. Just giant monsters who had lairs in the deep wilderness, and wouldn't let me settle there for any length of time. Which is good!
2) On hard, the AI was awesome. It assessed my situation, looked for weak points, etc. On challenging, not so much. I quickly got an early hold with Pariden's magic monuments, and the AI couldn't recover. The situation may have been different if Pariden couldn't expand so quickly with those, but I think those single-handedly let me win the game. I have a file where I think I decisively won.
4) The AI wasn't a challenge because of Pariden's magical monuments. I'm going to try a game on challenging with a different faction and see how that plays out. I will let you know.
Seriously, great work guys. This is majorly in the right direction. Could someone please instruct me how to attach a file so I can give my saved game?
As for attaching Saved Game files, you might want to look at Yazari's Reply #85 to this thread. In it, he recommends using "Drop Box", in part, because there is not a utility for this purpose, built into the Stardock site.
But, Full Disclosure: I have not actually used this feature, myself. (Been too busy ... ) However, I recall seeing this site mentioned, more than once, in various Stardock Discussion threads, in the last couple months. I believe this is one of more popular sites/utilities for capturing and sharing Saved Games, etc. Hope this helps. Good Luck !
5) Based on my first game (challenging) and the excellent vids by Das I come to the conclusion that the AI is falling short mid game. As soon as you survive the (excellently balanced) beginning of the game as a player and you can finally make some decent stacks it's basically game over for the AI.
In the beginning you can have some very tight battles with the AI due to scarceness of units. That's the part where the AI can keep up, but when you are finally able to create bigger armies the AI started fallling short. Looking at their rating they should be able to come up with some pretty serious armies but it's too loosely organized. I think Brad's going to have a tough nut to crack there. Two things that would really help the AI in the mid- and endgame IMHO:
- AI needs to create better units and start using armour
- AI needs to create bigger and better stacks and avoid wandering off with small armies or solo heroes into enemy territory.
My first impressions (only have played early stages of two games) is that it seems the AI somehow pumps out tons of pioneers and is able to somehow spam many cities early. I can only think that the AI monsters are ignoring AI pioneers to some degree because if I try to get my pioneers past AI monsters they get chased and killed. Played on normal.
I think an important bug to fix is the one where if a monster group attacks you and you beat them, you don't get to keep any of the loot that they drop.
PS: Moderators, could you remove the huge text of the picture in post 155? It really clogs up the thread and is painful to scoll past.
Thank you very much for this information. And I thought it was just tile info:)
Another game. Normal. Small map 2 AI.
I was cut from exploring and expanding by Umberdoth, Drake and Butchers. They were rampaging my spawned outposts and in tis places AI built their own - mostly untouched by the monsters. Development with one city was pain, so I decided to take some cities from AI. Unfortunatelly the roaming butchers started the offensive and ther two armies took my capital. SO monsters were challenging. I managed do kill one umberdoth and it was a tough fight. So monsters were challenging:)
AI not so much. Mostly because it's heroes were recovering during my attacks.
Very annoying thing - no ZOC for units. With good winds enemy army can get past you and run few tiles into tour teritory. I'd use some spells like Ice Spikes or Lockjaw Traps or Border Palisade improvement that would slow the enemy rush a bit.
I've played most of the stock factions and on medium. Found the settler spam too annoying combined with the monsters seeming preference for attacking players over the AI opponents that unshackled them via settling too near them. Have seen umberoths come from 6 screens away after my cities after ai outposted next to them, while leaving the offending outpost alone. Makes the game too restarty to have random powerful npcs block expansion/ decided to go out of way to ruin your expansion, while AIs boom over the map.
***large npcs should have a more obvious field of influence, remember better who ruined their lairs
***Settler cost should go up
***Monsters should attack AI much as players/adjust the tendency. I know AI cities do get hit by them but no where near as they seem to go after my cities.
I just bought the game and downloaded the beta last night, so I have no experience with the previous builds. I also haven't played Elemental, so I'm coming to this with total purity of vision (except for my memories of MoM).
I haven't finished a game yet -- though I'm having a ton of fun! -- but so far the only thing that's really irritated me is that I can't access the menu from the tactical battle screen. That's not so cool. At least let me quit to the main menu!
It also took me quite a while to figure out how to scroll the tactical screen (why don't the arrow keys scroll as on the main map?) and I still don't know why my guys don't defend (the little shield symbols over their heads).
I'm really enjoying watching your series and I really hope the devs take some time to watch because your feedback and suggestions would make huge improvements to the game!
Hey I just pre-ordered and im glad I did. GALCIV 2 is probably up their with Civ 4 as my favourite game ever so stardocks a good bet in my books.
Im not a strategy newb at all but I feel that with my first play through on challenging I shouldn't have been able to stomp a single AI in a very quick series of engagements. I was playing as Magnar and the supposedly challenging AI was Resolyn. The war played out as follows:1. War declared Resolyn sends army consisting of 1 hero + 2 chaff units against my army of 2 Heroes plus 2 chaff units (very early game with me having just managed to field spearmen). I roundly defeat the Resolyn army with no losses. My army consolidates with an extra unit of spearmen and marches towards the Resolyn capital. Nothing wrong at this point.
2. On the way to the Resolyn capital the EXACT SAME ARMY is fielded against me only a turn or two later. It promptly is wiped out.
3. Next turn the capital is in sight and I send my army against it... seeing the strength of the army that Resolyn has behind her capital walls my army decides to retreat a couple of hexes away from the capital.
4. It is at this point the AI really seems to lose it - sending its Sovereign alone out in front of my army to have it crushed promptly and then in the very next turn sending another lone unit out to be destroyed.
5. With the enemy weakened I attacked the enemy capital to win with no losses.
They wouldn't have lost if they hadn't have decided conduct suicide by 1 unit vs 6... I didnt attack their capital initially because I knew I couldnt win.
Answering your questions:
1. About right. I like the general rogue-like feeling to the start of the game in regards to what spawns near and around you.
2. As pointed out above I think the AI's tactical decision making is very poor.
3. Challenging - I really hope you guys to can get the AI to where I felt it was at challenging level in GALCIV 2 - I rarely witnessed obvious AI mistakes at this level it was awesome.
4. I played as Magnar and I used firebolt on my main. I also had an assassin hero both at level 4 but it wasn't what I did rather what the AI did that let me beat him.
5. The reason ive stopped playing this game now and will anticipate its release is because my first war was a walkover on challanging difficulty without any previous elemental experience. I have no doubt you will fix. Im still very glad I pre-ordered and from the taste ive had I can see this is going to be a true delicacy of TBS when its delivered. Keep it up I reckon you have a classic in the making here .
I suggest you don't judge the AI by either Resoln, or Pariden. Right now there's something buggy with both of those AI, and they are always on the bottom of the beatdown list in my experience. In Resoln's case, I think it's because of their blood trait, but the same can't be said for Pariden (who has a pretty awesome blood trait).
Then again, the AI can't seem to handle a serious war with the player unless it has somehow managed to build up a huge advantage before hand. As such, early rushes are almost always an easy affair.
Ok I kept playing despite an easy early war vs the AI... I ended up losing because of a Death Demon army which I assume was a wandering army took my capital. Nice I like roguelike elements to any game and I firmly believe that 'losing is fun'. I made the decision to send my armies far and wide and left no defence at home and the game punished me for it.. I think I am now addicted.
I also noted that scorewise I was well behind the other AI factions so perhaps my points above are mute. I will say one thing tho, and that is that fireball and flame spells in general seem to be VERY powerful. I dont think a nerf is in order because after all one of the fun things about this game is throwing around powerful magic that has an immediate effect on a battlefield. The answer here is effective counters that the AI uses well rather than nerfs.
So, after giving my Champion reasonable killing power by modding my start champion, AI mobs that spawn close to my starting cities is no longer an issue. The big ones still give me pause (Drakes, Spider hordes etc), but a Troll spawning right next to my start location can be dealt with by a judicious use of mana.
However, another issue is now giving me pause. The beast AI seems to completely ignore the sovereign AI. I just played a game where Magnar and I started relatively close together. He spams pioneers and cities (which raises another issue: does the AI not understand that growth is slowed by continuously spamming cities?) But, Magnar also managed to build two cities right on top of beast camps. I'll highlight the best one. I know it's not on the screen right now, but the Shrill Lord and his army are in the FOW presumably... but the army was there last turn and there is no way in hell Magnar could kill it. Notice just HOW MANY beast mobs are around this newly found city. Just to get this screenshot I was already attacked by one Shrill mob, and the rest are now chasing my sovereign around. I originally didn't found a city here when the game started because of how powerful the enemies in this area are. Yet Magnar was able to not only able to walk by a Shrill Lord without aggro'ing it, but was also able to place a city. This city has been here for maybe... 5 turns? And no attacks.
I have to say I agree with the posts about how long is takes to level up. I feel like the game has lost the fun factor and repeat playability. I felt three main factors for fun game play is being lost. They are: leveling up characters; doing quests; and exploring the world.
It now takes so long to level up to each level that I feel forced to select a certain trait or the game is doomed. This make the game feel stale. A character should be able to be developed several ways and be successful in the game else there will not be much replay value to the game. I used to enjoy this part of the game a lot but not anymore. I would rather see the game allow the characters to level up more often but dial back the the amount of the effect of some of the traits. Example are: I like the flame dart but I think it can be too powerful early in the game. The blind spell allowed me to take out a drake because the drake missed it's attack like 10 times in a row. It made the encounter not very fun. The percentage should either be lowered or spell should wear off after a number of turns.
With the other faction racing to gobble up all the resouces, it took the fun away from doing quests and exploring the world. It narrows the options of game play. I think if your first 30 turns are always the same then why have the first 30 turns. Expansion of factions forces wars to early.
Right now the game has too much of a RTS feel in a turn base game. I realize that some people might like that style of play. If this is the direction the game is going I will be disappointed.
If the game play for normal or easy was somewhere between this and two version ago would be nice. Leave the expansionist for the higher levels.
One thing to think about is that because this is a turn based game there is quit a commitment to each game played, so each experience needs to be a great one.
I started writing a post that I would post here but it grew too long so I posted it in its own thread https://forums.elementalgame.com/425000
I tend to play on normal difficulty with an Epic progression so a longer much slower game in general.
Stability is now something I am very happy with the original games was fun but unstable btu the current incarnation has not crashed once which makes me very happy indeed.
With regard to AI my biggest concerns are probably two fold
1. Land Grab.. all the opponents don't seem to focus massively on logical progression and develop of resources and cities indeed they tend to just slap down as many towns and outposts as they possibly can to take as much land as fast as they can, which in turn forces you to do the same simply to ensure you have somewhere to expand too properly later on... and this also takes me to the second concern.
2. Monster to AI relations, one thing I have noticed time and time again is that the vast majority of the time monsters will ignore AI rules and thier forces bypassing them and thier outposts and cities almost entirely in favour of targeting me with a single caveat and that being that thier forces, outposts of settlements lie in the monsters path to me and my settlements/outposts. I have even testes this further via the teleport code by intentionally placing monsters next to AI forces and settlements to see what they would do. Rather than attacking the Ai the monsters make a bee-line straight back to me even if that means crossing the entire map to do so. It seems a little unfair that the monsters show such bias in targets when they should ideally be responding to nearby threats equally.
for example if I place a settlement near a monster lair and my area of influence falls over said lair then the monsters on it displace and move to attack the settlement whose influence extends over them. But the same is not true with regard to AI settlements I have seen them settle directly next to monster laids with thier influence over them and the monsters on those lairs TOTALLY ignore the AI settlements completely.
As a little side note it would be nice to see Ships included at some point for moving units around a maps coast. And additionally it would be really nice if we can garrioon outposts with a single unit in them like settlements do (though as noted just a single unite not many) just so that if we place a unit on them in guard it doesn't fill the left hand side of the map with an inordinately large unit list as it would help keep the left hand rosters manageable and less visually messy.
Oh two final points the LEGACY OF SERRANE faction trait that states your caravans cannot be destroyed is not working as intended as at least twice now despite having this trait I have had caravans destroyed by wandering monsters.
And can we PLEASE fix it so that if a settlement is destroyed the tile it was on can be BUILT ON again please. It is SO annoying not being able to rebuild on the exact same tile again.
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