Ok let me start by saying I love the game!
BUT..
2 thing are ruining the experience for me.. Both relate to the AI.
1. Monsters DO NOT ATTACK THE AI.
I don't know maybe I have a different version of the game for some reason.. But I've never ever ever seen the AI attacked by monsters.. I have seen the AI build an outpost next to a facking dragon (right next to it I swear) and that dragon then proceed to treat the outpost like it's baby.. Eventually attacking me!
2. Gangbangs ville.
Holy shit I was playing a game me +3 AI 2 Kingdom 2 Empire.
Now I'm pretty sure Kingdom Like Kingdom more So being kingdom I friended the other kingdom AI.
Anyways I attacked 1 of the empire AI. (was not friendly or close with kingdom AI). Sure enough after like 5 turns his buddy Empire AI joins him. Fair is fair I was ready for that.. I didn't want to call my kingdom friend in so I could gain more territory..
Another 10 turns later (about ) Boom my buddy attacks me.. YAY......
When the AI plays like that the game is no fun at all.. Loses all the strategic depth.. The only way to avoid the gangbang (so I thought) was to bribe the other Kingdom AI to join me. But STILL after a few turns he turn on me.. COME ON!
Edit:
Playing Normal Normal..
The Core AI Defs. I made every faction get a big bonus when they are still settling. As the game goes on, you get some extra bonuses to your side of the fence and greater penalties to the other side. I'll just link the file:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?edka3qx8jxn74cq
Brad - please review this thread if not already done so. https://forums.elementalgame.com/434917
Tuidjy has provided some good examples with saves, etc. in his posts/replies. Going forward, I'll pay more close attention and provide saves/shots/thoughts.
In short, I recommend revisiting the tweak you did a few builds back. It was the right move but the pendulum swung too far imho. If the player is the runt of the faction power litter, the AI does dogpile. In one of my last serious games before gold (and where I explained to Derek the metal upgrade vs. initial cost issue, fixed before gold), Altar was the only faction I was on good terms with because they were lower faction power. Yithril declared war on me and I was then spammed within several turns about how I declared war on their friend so all other factions except Altar said wth. Pariden never should have done that (I was Tarth). They weren't Yithril's friend, plus they were Kingdoms.
Now with that said, I've played FE for months with insane world difficulty and expert AI. I'm perfectly fine with the AI acting like this on harder difficulties, because I asked for it. But the concern is if the AI is acting crazy on the lower difficulty levels, your new player base could rage quit and never pick it up again.
Correct
Sooo, all this time i was thinking i'm doing something wrong (to get all the AIs on me). I watched the tutorial twice, tryed different races, played a lot on Stormworld 1.5a and always the same City spam... Hope it will be "fixed", it's "boring" (luv the game) but i never thought it would be the only solution to survive(looks weird to me).
Well, well, well... I was wrong, i was sure that it was me (diplomacy didn't come naturally to me, i often don't get it in games)12x8 map & 17 mobs / normal difficultyI my situation, i was middle score ~60 turns, was at was with 1 faction (i started the war at the begining of the game cauz this bichtwas rushing my positions with pioneers). I had good relations with every one (almost).Lots of trade and stuff, almost an ally with me.But for no appearent reason one by one all the AIs started declaring war on me...... No territorial problems appearently,no score problems either.
I fought like 4 hours against my spamming neigbours. When the situation started to go bad and i understud i couldn't do it - i left. No way to get peace back (too high peace treaties' prices).Good to see it will be changed somehow someday (mods/Stardock)
Keep in mind, from the AI's point of view, the humans are ruining the game.
Do the AI bribe each other to go to war with factions they are going to war with? It's something that I can do, pay loads of gildar / influence to get the AI to attack another nation. Do the AI just have loads of money to spare and bribing each other to go to war?
It always seemed to me that the AI was bribing everyone to go to war with you, especially on the higher difficulties. (Of course, I have no evidence to support this.)
edit: beaten to the punch by Parrotmath!
expect that Relations change dramaticly at the drop of a hat. I've seen relations go from close to hostile in one turn. Not sure what caused that but unless you check your relations by turn you can easily miss a shift and impending war declaration.
this is what I attribute the random wierd dog-piling from the AI to be.
They do indeed.
That's my theory for the difficulties I play at. But at lower difficulties, the AIs are dirt poor, and players complain about dogpiles on normal.
And here is curiosity: I am playing test game on ridiculous, my power rating is right now 140, with is of course the worst one, and one above me has got 740, with leading nation having 1400. It is season 150, and i play large map with only 4AI. Met two of AI but i keep distance, and i have not been attacked yet, though they war between themselves.
But if I play a big map. The minute I meet an AI if his power is higher then mine by more then 20 - 40 points he immediately attacks me..
No matter if it's normal or challenging..
Yea, i said curiosity, because it is first time ever that it happens to me
Normally i would be forced to have a war looooong time ago.
One thing you can do is copy over the part of that file I posted that controls how the AI sees weakness. Basically they go to war over a point or two of faction power. I set mine so that they have to have at least a few hundred more to actually think they are better than you. Also set up the AI to really hate people that have large border clashes with them. So you will see Empire/Kingdom conflicts and border conflicts pop up in the midgame. The difference between being close and too far away to worry about is 9 relation points.
I'm in the boat of raging against the AI. I can hold my own against 1 or 2 AI (I'm playing on normal, didn't play the beta so have gone in fresh on release) but when all the AI on the map declares war on me it's a bit ridiculous. Mostly ridiculous is when I have trade treaties and such with a faction and am on 'close' relations and then all of a sudden they're declaring war. bah!
I am enjoying the game but I just wish there was a bit more predictability in what the AI is going to-do (and it's also retards play-styles that you have to spam military to artificially pump up your score to try and stave off being attacked on all sides).
They shouldn't be declaring war on you unless they are less than neutral. I will be looking into this quite a bit for the 1.01 update just to be sure.
When you do get this, can you post a picture of what the computer player is saying to you? I'm happy to look at the specific code.
The AI ganging up on me has ruined many a game for me, it is far to war hungry for my liking.
I would very much like to see a game option, that PREVENTS the AI declaring war on the player, unless attacked or trespassed upon. I would enjoy the game so much more then.
Regarding point #1 :
I've now seen situations where AI troops don't get attacked at all and also situations where they do. I've even had a big ass dragon sit right next to a city of mine for almost 100 seasons without attacking (then it marched to ANOTHER of my cities and laid waste to it).
I guess there's some RNG involved in whether the monsters attack ?
What I would like to see is monsters with a strength greater or equal to that of the AI/Player party/city, will ALWAYS attack if the AI/Player party/city ends its turn/is on the tile right next to them.
You can leave the wandering attacks random to prevent city gibbing all the time, but the monsters need to be aggressive towards troops right next to them.
LMAO sooooo true Froggy. Love that ^ quote. I really am so sic n tired of complainers and whiners and boo hoo-ers complaining about the "difficulty" of the AI. L2P and it will be a better game. The AI in Civilization games CHEATS more than this AI and you don't see players whinning about that! Please do not change anything about how the AI plays unless it is to tweak the difficulty MORE. Those that whine can play on EASY and live with it I say.
Well good thing you made this game for the AI to play. We can just quit playing and let the AI have its fun.
Of course that would actually be valid if it was me and 6 other players all declaring war on the AI at the exact same time.
Now you're just being obtuse.. ask Mr. Shafer how much flak Civ V got after release for its AI (among other things). People were calling for his blood(among other body parts). The same issue with the AI is here. Its playing the game as a player, not being an immersive part of the game. It goes out of its way to break Immersion. It has very little to do with the difficulty and more to do with its playstyle.
"Hi, my name is Lord Markin. I know we just met, I have no clue where your cities are nor an idea of how many troops you have. But the SCORE BOARD says you're weak and the other 5 AI just declared war on you so I think I should too"
WoW best AI in a game ever right? Why not just name him Jim the power gamer... since thats what he's apparently trying to simulate. All the art work and lore etc are useless if the opponents play like powergamers rather than the characters they are supposed to portray.
wow...
There are two kinds of AI's you can design. You can either design the AI to win, this is good for theoretical exercise and AI tournaments, or you can design the AI to be fun to play against, this is good for games.
The problem with designing AI to win is that winning usually involves using cheesy strategies, backstabbing and being an all-round bitch, this is what a lot of players do when they play and in order to win without cheating, the AI obviously have to do the same.
However for the majority of the player-base that's not fun or immersive to play against, if you want to play against dirty backstabbers you play multi-player, if you want to play against reasonable opponents you play the AI. Generally we expect the AI to not use cheese, to only backstab if their leader has an aggressive/evil personality, to not all pile on the weakest player etc.
Now what I think that Froggy is referring to with his point, is that the AI is expected to play nice with its personality and diplomacy system and be a nice reasonable person, while the Players often arn't and will abuse the AI's trust with all kinds of backstabs and cheese that it's ill equipped to handle without cheating.
That is my gripe with Frogboy's approach to AI design too. He tries to have the AI behave as if it were a human opponent in a multiplayer game, expanding as fast as possible and attacking you at the first sign of weakness. I'm sure a part of the playerbase really enjoys this kind of challenge, and adjust their playstyle to this. For example Tuidjy, who tries to build around 5 more cities in the first 50 turns of the game (not a personal attack, just an observation). Whenever Frogboy posted one of his threads about programming the AI to win the game as fast as possible, I was always asking myself why you would want to do that? Isn't the point of the game to enjoy it, to be immersed in it, rather than have it be over as fast as possible? It doesn't fit with the 'living and breathing RPG world' that this game is supposedly set in.
To me, this isn't fun. I would much rather have an AI that stays in character, that behaves like the ruler of a nation in a post apocalyptic world rather than just another player in a game. The lord Makin you describe above should have no reason to declare war, unless he was somehow getting something in return from another faction that he needs (better relations, gold, whatever). That doesn't mean that no AI faction expands very strongly, attacks at a sign of weakness, or behave opportunistically, but only when it fits that particular faction's character.
Isn't the point of the game to enjoy it, to be immersed in it,
not at all?
but not even remotely
the point of the game is changelling yourself into accomplish the goal of the game
the point of the ai is trying to do something similar
you are confusing things with civilization for example
in civ you can say they are someway "simulating" a real world, so gandhi wouldnt want to declar war unless its forced to etc
here there is not a known society, i mean you could create a deep background and ai personalioties more sensitive to it but its not really the point of the game
It doesn't fit with the 'living and breathing RPG world' that this game is supposedly set in.
yes you are partially right about this, ofc all you said could help the game, and the world, and the player experience, id like it too ofc
but it wouldnt be the point of the game, just a plus
he would be in a world where YOU (or some other player or some other ai) is trying to delete his nation from, the world, he knows it and as a smart leader he takes the first opportunity to try and take over you
why dont you think this is the wise move for a leader? this is what is happening in israeli, iraq, etc etc and our real world is much more pacific than FE
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