For me this is a 5 star game reduced to a 2 star game because of the terrible AI.
I play on easy, but never get a chance to settle into my game before the AI declares war on me. It wars on me for no reason but for me not giving it money that I don't even have. I am not a war strategy genius, I just want to enjoy the game. How ever much I try, it builds and expands 10 times faster than I ever could, so I stand zero chance of surviving.
I am this far <-> from abandoning this game for good and support something of similar vain, such as Worlds of magic.
If anyone knows of a way to hack the AI so that it cannot declare war on me please share.
I think so, I haven't tested it, but it makes the most sense. They will probably be more willing to offer and accept peace when you want it though (sometimes they hardcode a period where they don't want peace).
I would bet war works the same way as before, just they won't declare it.
If you would be willing to share how this works out, I would be fascinated.
Fantastic. All I wanted was to play the game at my own pace and not have the AI dictate the terms and/or stop my game in it's tracks.
I will most likely turn it back on in the future when I am really good at the game and am able to smash the AI's face in.
I have 5 AI's in this game on huge map, so not met any as yet, but will try to keep you updated. Thanks once more.
You are welcome, it was a fun problem to consider actually.
There may be a bad side effect to that change that I didn't think about before. It is possible that number is used to weight how many military units they build. If they never build a military at all, then that approach has a big drawback. There is no way to know until it is tested, but if the AI's have extremely low faction ratings the entire game, then that is probably why.
The more I think about it, the more I doubt that it is used for both purposes. There was a section in CoreAIDefs.xml that dealt with building units, and it seemed to be based on faction rating. To use the war priority for both purposes would entangle the systems, making it difficult to change either one effectively. In addition, the hostility of the world requires a military regardless of how often you want to declare war on other sovereigns.
Yes I think so. The AI not declaring war doesn't mean it wont try to defend itself or when in war, send troops to crush your puny little empire
The AI doesn't do any thinking at all when it comes to diplomacy. Everything is based off a few simple weighting values in that CoreAIDefs.xml, if you scroll down you'll see values for things like early game, late game, stronger than you, opposite faction, etc. There's a lot of derp in these values, multiple stacking values for the same thing, huge hits attached to the wrong buildings (building a Tower of the Witch is a -9 hit), and basically an overwhelmingly large emphasis on game scores as the game progresses. As it is now, every AI is going to go to war with you and every other AI by the late game, regardless of military strength, location, other wars, faction, or AI traits (which actually have a really minor impact in all this), it just doesn't actually consider any of those things and just builds a pool of hate based on all the negative diplomacy hits that stack up as the game progresses, once it doesn't like you it appears to have a chance of declaring war on you every turn. Early game a few quick treaties as soon as you meet an AI can give you a peace that lasts into the mid game, but then things eventually fall apart. Rather than simply removing the AI's ability to declare war, you can "fix" those weights yourself, a few quick changes and you can make the AI value treaties much more, not be as zealous about the totally worthless game score, and not rage at everyone who builds the wrong tower. This way you can set it up so that you have to put some effort into keeping the peace, and even set up the AI diplomatic traits to have more effect so maybe a warmonger might actually have a significantly higher tendency to declare war (or not).
I am just trying to get a true easy mode where I can enjoy the game rather than be frustrated by it.
Hopefully the AI has now been stopped from declaring war on me just because it doesn't like the color of my shoes, and effectively ending my game. Now I would like to find a way to cull the AI's ridiculous growth rate and have it more on par with my own.
The difficulty levels seem to be a bit of a mish-mash at the moment, but it is still only beta.
That sounds good!
<Hint, hint, you think Stardock are listening? >
You can change the difficulty levels in the same folder with the file CoreDifficultyLevels.xml. If you change the AIEconomicRatio, which decreases only with a precipitous drop in the AIIntelligenceFactor as is, you could maybe get a game with a smarter player who has a big handicap on growth. This way you can play at your own pace and keeping up with the AI will not require you to optimize every move. If you like easy mode, you can just change the AIEconomicRatio to 0.5 or less, and you have a smarter AI which should develop much slower.
Thanks. That sounds like it may do the trick while keeping the game interesting.
Unfortunately I have to report that the war hack did not work. On first meeting with Resoln she declared war on me. She is having a job getting to me at the moment, so I am trying to get a decent army together before she steamrolls me.
It's only a matter of a few more moves and then the rest of the AI's will grief me, I know, I have been here before, many, many times.
Again, she declared war for no apparent reason. I am not even anywhere near her. The AI is stupid and should be renamed Artificial stupidness.
I am sorry that didn't help. It may be the case they don't even use those files, or it uses the Steam Cloud version of files, or that number works in an unintuitive way. It would probably be more work than its worth to figure it out. I hope you figure out something that gives you the gameplay you want.
The other way to get the functionality would be to remove all the negative modifiers to diplomacy. Further down in CoreAIDefs.xml is a list of scenarios and there impact on relations. Changing all the negatives to zero (hopefully there is no problem there) or a positive number would mean you always have good relations with everyone, which should mean they won't declare war. Again, that is a bunch of changes to a core game file, which is not a great way to mod the game (bugs here could mean crashes), but if you store a copy of the file before altering it you can always replace it if things go wrong.
Tatty, can you drop a copy of your current save on dropbox or something? I'd like to take a look at it...
Ok my setup of game ussualy is:
dence monsters, many wildlands, map whatever you like, monster dificulty expert/hard, AI dificulty expert (no bonuses best algorithms).
Sovereign: mage - summoner or air fire mage, defender - beastmaster or armorer with life magic, assasin - dodge build mele weapons death magic for blind and graveseal for permanent crit. I always taking lucky trait, others are optional to your needs.
Setle first city 4/3/2, if no such spot CTRL N. Buff mana and opression, if second hero has earth change mana to hammers. First city ALWAYS conclave. your knoweledge goes up from 1 to 3 imediatley and gets 1 more from study after.
Research: the one with study first, then restoration or rush whatever. Then leather and upgrade army to leather. After setling dont forget to get taxes to none it will save lots of building turns. for begining. After theese grab mages and wargs, you can fit trading somwhere between for roads. Thats it. Everything else is already optional to your style.
Go hunt mites, 2 packed spiders, brown bears or something similar threath level. Loot goodies first it might get you some armor or weapons which might make you very differnt from what you are at the start. Make weak quest imediately. If you get Baco use it for scouting its awsome.
At turn 30 you have to have 2 city or to be about settling it. Dont make pionier at beggining let your first city hit lvl 2 first (for conclave). Your first building should be cleric (+2 fame) it will give you next hero after finishing it, other 1 fame you will get from mites or goodies.
Never had problems with AI while playing this way. Only few times some of them got to war and they had a lot of regret realy fast. Playing large map with 5 - 6 AI's ussualy. Dont sign economic treaties if they above you, they will use those roads against you. Sell horses and wargs excess for gildar, iron either. Buy crystal, trade techs as many as possible even for money. Get money for non agression with all possible AI. Get trade treaties imediately it might net around 6 gildar per turn realy early with low tax rate and will get better relations. Use paridens and altars shops for books and quest scrolls. Tarth and ythrill will always be badasses so just spit on them. Gilden also always paranoic so dont count on him much. Kraxis will always have worst trade rates so trade with him on worst case.
Keep few mages on border cities. Race with AI for resouces, cut it from building spots with outposts, dont let him expand. You can buy from them wargs and horses, it will give mounted advantage becouse they wot have such units. Leather research is key for your first units it gives 6 def in comparisson to none. Diference is hudge trust me. Dont pick exp traits till 10 lvl. Better get some key skills which will be usefull on any battle only then go for exp. try get air for Tutelage asap, tireles march either. Dont stack heroes never ever. Dodge is nice but its enough to let one hit trough and you dead. Defence is for loong time, however stacked dodge is bloody good especialy with blind together (for units and heroes).
Have 1 army close to home with secondary (probably air buffer or healer, or tank). Go explore the world then with sovereign.
Thats it. You can simply warstomp AI while using RAZE button every 2s turn basically with your main army (few tanks, sovereigh and some mages, because they pierce armor better than archers).
I suggest to do first try with defender (armorer spec, lucky trait, and whatever you like else) + 2 lvl life and pick air from your heroes or paridens books). Teke procipinees crown, hardy trait and whatever else you like and go try it. You can fix defenders first aid spell either, its written on forums how to do it.
I think I have mastered it. I have finally managed to get a higher count than all of the AI. Haha, they give me money, and speak nice to me. I feel right royal, I do.
You know what they say? Practice makes perfect.
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